Adaptations
Walt Disney Studios has made two animated versions of the story:
- The first adaptation was an animated short released during World War II. It tells a variant of the parable in which Foxy Loxy takes the advice of a book on psychology (on the original 1943 cut, it is Mein Kampf) by striking the least intelligent first and convinces dim-witted Chicken Little that the sky is falling. It was one of a series of four cartoons produced by the Walt Disney Studios at the request of the U.S. government during World War II for the purpose of discrediting totalitarianism in general and Nazism in particular. Its dark comedy is used as an allegory for the idea that fear-mongering weakens the war effort and costs lives. In it, Chicken Little jumps to a conclusion and whips the populace into mass hysteria, which the unscrupulous fox manipulates for his own benefit. It is also notorious in that Henny Penny is also a character, but distinct from Chicken Little.
- The second Disney adaptation, released in 2005, is a feature-length computer-animated film. It tells an updated science fiction sequel to the original fable in which Chicken Little is partly justified in his fears. Different from the original fable and the 1943 short film, Foxy Loxy was changed from a male to a female, and from the main antagonist to a local bully.
Another film adaptation was the animated TV episode "Henny Penny" (1999), which was part of the series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. In this modern update the story is given a satirical and political interpretation.
There have also been a number of musical settings and adaptations. American composer Vincent Persichetti used the fable as the plot of his only opera The Sibyl: A Parable of Chicken Little (Parable XX), op. 135 (1976), which premiered in 1985. In 2007 American singer and composer Gary Bachlund set the text of Margaret Free’s reading version of “Chicken Little” (The Primer, 1910) for high voice and piano. In his note to the score Bachlund makes it clear that he intends a reference to alarmism and its tragic consequences.
On the sitcom The Golden Girls, there was a 1991 episode in which the characters perform a short musical based on the fable (here titled "Henny Panny") at a school recital. This was followed in 1998 by Joy Chaitin and Sarah Stevens-Estabrook's equally light-hearted musical version of the fable, "Henny Penny". Designed for between six and a hundred junior actors, it has additional characters as optional extras: Funky Monkey, Sheepy Weepy, Mama Llama, Pandy Handy and Giraffy Laughy (plus an aggressive oak-tree).
In Singapore a more involved musical was performed in 2005. This was Brian Seward's The Acorn - the true story of Chicken Licken. It is a tale of mixed motivations as certain creatures (including some among the 'good guys') take advantage of the panic caused by Chicken Licken.
Read more about this topic: Henny Penny