In 1942, a man named David Johnson Leisk, who had previously done a comic strip for Collier’s magazine called “The Little Man With the Eyes,” developed a new strip for a left-wing daily newspaper, PM, called “Barnaby.” Leisk had previously begun using a pseudonym, Crockett Johnson, from his boyhood nickname Crockett (you know, like Davy Crockett) and his middle name Johnson because, he said, Leisk was too hard to pronounce. “Barnaby” was to make him famous as a cartoonist; but he later started writing children’s books both under Crockett Johnson and with his wife, Ruth Krauss.
The books he wrote solo, starting with 1955’s Harold and the Purple Crayon, were to make him a beloved children’s-book author. He went on to create seven different “Harold” books, including Harold’s ABC, and there were three different collections and/or anthologies. Several of the Harold books were adapted for animation by Gene Deitch, an animator who had created Munro and Tom Terrific, and who had also directed many Popeye and Tom & Jerry cartoons. The first book was also made into an Emmy-winning series of 13 23-minute daytime cartoons starting in December 2001, with Sharon Stone as the narrator.
Johnson and his wife worked in Connecticut; besides his Harold books, he was also well-known for mathematical paintings featuring geometric shapes. He died in 1975; I’m not sure if a museum, such as that shown in the 2024 movie, actually exists.
The new movie, starring Zachary Levi (Shazam!) as Howard, Lil Rel Howery (Rel!, Free Guy) as Moose, Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education, The Decameron) as Porcupine, and Zooey Deschanel (New Girl, New Guy) as Terri, is a combination of live-action and extremely well-done computer animation. Other actors include Benjamin Bottani as Mel, a boy who befriends Harold, and Terri’s son; Jemaine Clement as Gary Natwick, a librarian who wants desperately to be a published fantasy author; and Alfred Molina as the Narrator or Crockett Johnson (voice only).
Levi plays a grown-up Harold, and Howery and Reynolds, Moose and Porcupine respectively, play their animals as humans (although Moose occasionally switches back to his animal self). Levi is practiced at playing a childlike character, thanks to his role in Shazam!; his character there is a child in an adult body. The three actors play two-dimensional characters suddenly brought into a three-dimensional world that is much more complex than the one they left.
The storyline of the movie, briefly, is this: Harold lives in a book—a world where he can create anything he can think of by drawing it with a magic purple crayon (that never gets smaller)—decides to find out who drew him. He learns there’s a narrator, his “Old Man,” (Molina) and that there’s a “real world” out there. Harold decides to find out about it, and draws a door to this world. He and Moose go through, becoming 3-d versions of themselves—except that Moose is no longer a big, antlered animal, but a normal, African-American man. Porcupine is left behind, but manages to get the door open and goes through it, becoming a slim human woman with spiky purple hair.
They try to find Harold’s Old Man, but succeed only in getting into trouble with several elderly males. Riding a bicycle-built-for-two that Harold creates, they end up in traffic and are hit (not hard) by a car driven by Terri, with Mel in the back seat. They end up going home with the two and are let into the room over Terri’s garage to sleep until the next morning. Terri says they’ll have to leave the next day. Porcupine, meanwhile, has followed them into the Real World, and has several adventures; she attempts to find Harold and Moose by scent.
Harold never doubted his purple crayon would work in the real world; beginning with a bicycle (as said above) he creates various things, gets into numerous adventures due to his (and Moose’s) unfamiliarity with things in this world; meets new people (particularly an unhappy librarian, Gary, played by What We Do in the Dark’s Jemaine Clement, who writes fantasy books nobody wants to read), and finally learns who drew him.
I don’t want to tell you the whole plot, so I’ll leave it at that. All I can say is that in my mind it meets Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka’s criteria for a “world of pure imagination.” I found it cute without being overly twee (there were a few spots), suitable for most children (some may find a few scenes or creations a little scary—I can’t say what for spoiler reasons, but I think the scares would be mild), and well acted. You can’t really ask much more of a “family-friendly” film, can you?
Comments? Anyone? Bueller? You can comment here or on Facebook, or even by email (stevefah at hotmail dot com). All comments are welcome! (Just be polite, please.) My opinion is, as always, my own, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of Amazing Stories or its owner, editor, publisher or other columnists. See you next time!
