The Ant and The Grasshopper - Film and Television Treatments

Film and Television Treatments

La Fontaine's fable lent itself to animated film features from early on, the first being a version by George Méliès in France in 1897. Others produced under the title La cigale et la fourmi were directed by Louis Feuillade (1909) and Georges Monca (1910). There were also Italian films under the title La cicala e la formica by Mario Caserini (1908) and Renato Molinari (1919). The Russo-Polish producer Ladislaw Starewicz made two versions using animated models. The first was in Russia in 1913 under the title Strekoza i muravey, based on Ivan Krylov's Russian adaptation of La Fontaine; then, following his flight to France, and using the simplified name of Ladislas Starevich, he filmed a version under the French title (1927). In the UK, The Grasshopper and the Ant was created from cut-out silhouettes by Lotte Reiniger in 1954. In this the main characters, Grasshopper and Miss Ant, are portrayed as humanoid while the rest of the animals and insects are naturalistic. After being refused food and warmth by Miss Ant, Grasshopper is rescued from dying in the snow by squirrels and plays his fiddle for them. Miss Ant wistfully asks if she can join the party and is turned away by the rescuers until Grasshopper intervenes and asks her in to dance with them.

In America the Aesop's Film Fables studio had included The Ants and the Grasshopper (1921) among its early animated cartoon productions. Then in 1934 Walt Disney provided the story with a socially responsible conclusion in The Grasshopper and the Ants (discussed in the next section). He also adapted the story less directly in the Mickey's Young Readers Library segment, Mickey and the Big Storm; in this, Donald Duck and Goofy spend the first day of a winter snowstorm playing out in the snow and don't bother to stock up on supplies. Fortunately for them, Mickey has more than enough for himself and his friends. Friz Freleng also adapted the tale in his Warner Bros. cartoon Porky's Bear Facts in which Porky Pig works hard while his lazy neighbor refuses to do anything, only to suffer during winter. Although Porky at last gives him a meal out of good-neighborly feeling, the bear fails to learn his lesson when spring arrives.

In the later 20th Century, there were a number of cynical subversions in TV shows. A typical example was the Muppet Show sketch in which Sam the Eagle's reading of the fable is undermined as the ant is stepped on at the end and the grasshopper drives off to Florida in his sports car.