The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse (Fave Book)

[Scoops]

Does anyone else remember this book and film from when they were younger?

It was one of my favorites...I treasured that hardcover book....the beautiful photographs within. Lately there has been a commercial on tv with a young boy (dressed similarly to the boy in the book, and a red balloon)...not sure what the commercial is even for, but it got me to thinking about the book. I just found it on Amazon...both the book and the film on dvd. I think I am going to order it. I have to!!! It brings back immediate wonderful memories. : )

anyhoo....good idea for a thread.


What's your favorite book from when you were a child??????

[Scoops]

it also reminds me of another film I liked at the time...it was two japanese school boys....one fat and one skinny....I think it may have even been called fat and skinny....going to google!!

[Scoops]

well....that was easy!!!! Komatsu!!!!


.nextgen-video.com/skinny.htm


VHS editions are currently available for $24.98 (freight included).

A delightful film that had its US premiere on the Saturday Afternoon CBS Children's Film Festival back in 1966/67.

It's a great - yet very simple story - of the budding friendship between Komatsu (don't correct the spelling - it's a guess) and the new (and overweight) kid in town.

This story of the trials and tribulations of standing up for yourself and your friends is still effective after over 35 years of being hidden from view. We've spent over a decade searching for it - and it's now available for a limited time.

[Scoops]

Skinny & Fatty has a clip on youtube!!!


youtube.com/watch?v=qX7k9vqtx9Y

[Scoops]

Arts and Entertainment Associated Content
July 23, 2008 by
Timothy Sexton


Mourning the CBS Children's Film Festival
If you are an American between the ages of 40 and 50 I bet you can remember the first foreign film you enjoyed. Not necessarily the first foreign film you ever saw, but the first one you enjoyed. I'll bet you watched it on a Saturday morning, it was in black and white, it was set in Japan
and you know it by its American title Skinny and Fatty. The warm glowing feeling that is settling over your body is known as nostalgia and although often a bad thing, it doesn't always have to be. Even if you haven't thought of this movie in over thirty years, I'll bet a smile has slowly crept across your face. Let me burst through that vague, nebulous years of memory shadows and remind you that Skinny and Fatty was aired as part of the CBS Children's Film Festival hosted by Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

The CBS Children's Film Festival ran for over fifteen years in various incarnations and over that time it aired countless movies from across the world, but for some reason no other movie seems to stick to the memory of middle-aged men and woman, especially men, more than Skinny and Fatty. For the record, the original Japanese title of Skinny and Fatty is Chibideka monogatar. Perhaps I misspoke. Perhaps, indeed, not every middle-aged man recalls this entry on the CBS Children's Film Festival fondly. I am dubious that 45 year old now who were bullies in elementary school or burgeoning high school athletes took to the film the way that those of us who might have viewed ourselves as outcasts did. Skinny and Fatty is actually a rather misleading title because the so-called skinny kid is normal sized. The other child is overweight and becomes, of course, the target of bullying. What makes the film all the more fascinating in the way that it must certainly have reached out to an entire generation of kids in the early 70s is that fatty is more economically better off than skinny and so he begins to question whether the reason skinny has befriended him even though doing so has alienated skinny from from his former friends, is because skinny likes his material objects more than him.

Another reason why this film stuck out from all the others aired as part of the CBS Children's Film Festival is because it was so real. Skinny is moved to betray fatty in order to get back in good with the cool kids. If that does not sound real to you, then you've never

spent time inside an American school. What really made Skiny and Fatty such a cultural touchstone that has had such an impact that many people remember certain elements about it despite not having seen it in over thirty-five years since they were ten years old is that unlike nearly every movie made in American in the past twenty years, the kids here are so real. They are not miniature adults like kids in movies today; they act, react and behave like the kids who were sitting in front of their televisions watching it. There is much to be said about a movie that can have such an impact, especially a foreign movie.

It is beyond sad that today there is nothing analagous to the CBS Children's Film Festival. Kids today are not exposed to foreign films about kids like themselves and it doesn't even matter that we enjoyed Skinny and Fatty despite the fact that it was dubbed. In fact, it was probably because it wasn't subtitled that it became the first foreign movie most of us enjoyed. I am writing this on a Saturday morning, probably around the time that the CBS Children's Film Festival aired. Here is a sampling of the movies airing this morning, when kids might be learning the valuable lessons contained in Skinny and Fatty: Planes, Trains and Autmobiles, Jerry Maguire, Tomorrow Never Dies, Carrie, and The Haunted Mansion. If you fondly remember the CBS Children's Film Festival and Skinny and Fatty and you have kids, then you can't help but be depressed right now.

[Jules]

My favorite books (I had Two) were "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Danny and the Dinosaur"


: )

[Scoops]

The Wild Things was one of Jake's favorites too Jules!

Am I the only old fart who remembers that balloon book?

[Danielle]

I don't know of that book Scoops...

My favourite books were the Bobbsey Twins I got my first one for a birthday gift I still remember the one, it was called The Doodlebug Mystery, I saved them all for Jess, been carting those books around for years

as a tween my favourite book was The Seventeenth Summer I can't even count how many times I read that book, and Mel found it for me on Amazon a few years back for Jess to read and she loved it too.

[Scoops]

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QUOTING FROM POSTER: Danielle;1855676 (Post Number)

I don't know of that book Scoops...

My favourite books were the Bobbsey Twins I got my first one for a birthday gift I still remember the one, it was called The Doodlebug Mystery, I saved them all for Jess, been carting those books around for years

as a tween my favourite book was The Seventeenth Summer I can't even count how many times I read that book, and Mel found it for me on Amazon a few years back for Jess to read and she loved it too.

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ohhhh yes! the Bobbsey Twins...loved those...my mother was big on that series. Did you read Mr. Poppers Penguins? I remember liking that.

[Zippy]

My favorite book AND the first book I learned to read ALL by myself was called

Barney Beagle Plays Baseball

When I was a kid I loved that book and would bug anyone to read it to me. I got so I knew it so well that I could read it myself....probably didnt know the words..but memorized them.

Well anyway...its been long gone...Im sure it was worn out and tossed

I mentioned it to Greg a few years ago ...about my very first book.. so a couple years ago he tracked one down somewhere and bought it for me.

I keep it in my Harry Potter trunk for safe keeping :)

It was a trip reading it again though lol

[Skeeter]

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QUOTING FROM POSTER: Danielle;1855676 (Post Number)


as a tween my favourite book was The Seventeenth Summer I can't even count how many times I read that book, and Mel found it for me on Amazon a few years back for Jess to read and she loved it too.

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Oh, my gosh -- I loved that book. I think I read it 3 or 4 times every year for a while!!! Great, innocent. Thanks for the reminder. I may have to dig it out and read it again. It's been a while!

[Skeeter]

You know, Scoops -- I'm racking my brain because that sounds so familiar, but I don't remember ever reading it!!!!

I just found it at Amazon, and can say with pretty much certainty that I haven't read it. We probably had it in the library at home, and I passed over it :)

[MikeRotch]

I never read the book but I just watched the movie about a month ago online through Netflix. I had seen the commercials and had some weird memory of watching it in the library when I was little and loving it. It's not long but it felt like it was. I did like it but it wasn't the same.
There is also a sort of short spoof of the movie called Revenge of the Red Balloon..made me laugh.


Favorite book growing up was Noisy Nora. My dad used to read it to me. He calls me that sometimes.

Other favorites:
Goodnight Moon
But no Elephants
Inside Outside Upside Down( I think this was the first book I ever read on my own)

[Meli]

I used to love the Clifford books.

When my Grandpa was still a live he'd order us the Berinstein bear books. And I used to love the cartoon! :)

I always liked Mrs. Nelson's thrid grade class. :) And oh yeah Curious Geogorge I still freaking love but I don't have the book anymore. :( Wish I could find my bearinstein book ones too cuz that was the only thing I had left of my Grandpa. :(

[Scoops]

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QUOTING FROM POSTER: MikeRotch;1855723 (Post Number)

I never read the book but I just watched the movie about a month ago online through Netflix. I had seen the commercials and had some weird memory of watching it in the library when I was little and loving it. It's not long but it felt like it was. I did like it but it wasn't the same.
There is also a sort of short spoof of the movie called Revenge of the Red Balloon..made me laugh.


Favorite book growing up was Noisy Nora. My dad used to read it to me. He calls me that sometimes.

Other favorites:
Goodnight Moon
But no Elephants
Inside Outside Upside Down( I think this was the first book I ever read on my own)

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Somehow I am not surprised that you knew something of the book/film I mentioned........You are an old soul in a brand new body! You always impress me Mike. ♥

[Jules]

I read Goodnight, Moon to my children. : )

Anyone remember


Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret...

[Irishrose395]

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QUOTING FROM POSTER: Jules;1855766 (Post Number)

I read Goodnight, Moon to my children. : )

Anyone remember


Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret...

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OMG I used to love that book! I still do.

I can't beleive you brought that up.

I would read and reread it all the time.

[Jules]

LOL, my favorite part was when they are in the bathroom, and the other girl yells...

"I GOT IT!"