Adaptations of Puss in Boots

Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving of le chat botté

'Puss' is a character in the fairy tale "The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots" by Charles Perrault. The tale was published in 1697 in his Histoires ou Contes du temps passé.^[1] The tale of a cat helping an impoverished master attain wealth through its trickery is known in hundreds of variants.^[2]

• Gustave Doré's illustrated version (right) is well known for capturing the gently satirical tone of the story.
• In 1797 German writer Ludwig Tieck published Der gestiefelte Kater, a dramatic satire based on the Puss in Boots tale.
• The Russian composer César Cui (of French ancestry) composed a short children's opera on this subject in 1913. Puss in Boots was first performed in Rome in 1915, and has been something of a repertory item in Germany since at least the 1970s.
• In 1922 Walt Disney created a black and white silent short of the same name.
• Xavier Montsalvatge composed a children's opera, El gato con botas, with libretto by Néstor Luján; it was first performed in Barcelona Gran Teatre del Liceu in 1947. It has been performed for children several times, in Spain, but also in Germany, Czech Republic, Australia and New York.
• In their album of cat songs, Happy Times Records included a version of Puss in Boots. As with their version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, it is not faithful to the original fairy tale and features a cat named Puss in Boots who is the guardian of his native village. He saves the village from several invasions by using his head and is summoned by the song, "Come, boots!/Come, boots!/Come a runnin',/Puss in Boots." The man and woman who perform this story/song are the same ones who perform Happy Times's version of The Pied Piper, and the number ends with the words, "The whole village is proud of their magical cat!"
• A 1961 Mexican adaptation called El gato con botas. K. Gordon Murray distributed it in the United States as Puss in Boots.
• Hayao Miyazaki participated in the 1969 Toei Animation production of Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko (Puss 'n Boots), providing key animation, designs, storyboards, image boards, and story ideas. It was directed by Kimio Yabuki, with a screenplay by Hisashi Inoue, a famous Japanese playwright, and animation supervision was carried out by longtime Miyazaki collaborator and mentor Yasuji Mori. Hayao Miyazaki also wrote and drew a comic version first serialized in Chuunichi Shimbun Nichiyou Ban (Cyuunichi Newspaper Sunday Version) to promote the film. Its main character, the cat Pero, was very popular and eventually became Toei's mascot.
• Rankin/Bass Productions produced a hand drawn animated TV special in 1972 entitled Puss in Boots.
• The Master Cat by David Garnett is a novel first published in 1974 which gives a more detailed account of the established story from Puss getting the boots to his eating the ogre. The second part of the book tells of Puss getting caught up in palace plots and intrigues of which he ultimately becomes the victim, by his own ungrateful master no less.
• In 1985 the family television series Faerie Tale Theatre produced a live-action adaptation starring Ben Vereen as Puss and Gregory Hines as the miller's son.
• In an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a sketch set in the Police Department of the State of Venezuela is interrupted by an unexpected adaptation of Puss in Boots.
• A live action direct-to-video film adaptation was made in 1988, starring Christopher Walken as Puss and Jason Connery as the miller's son.
• Enoki Films released a Japanese animated series called Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko no Bouken (Adventures of Puss-in-Boots) in 1992.
• Puss by Esther Friesner, in Snow White, Blood Red (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling) retells the story.
• Plaza Entertainment released an animated direct-to-video film called Puss in Boots in 1999.
• Puss in Boots appears as a character in the films Shrek 2 and Shrek The Third (voiced by Antonio Banderas). The character is originally recruited as a swashbuckling professional ogre killer who is an obvious parody of Banderas' famous role as Zorro. Puss later becomes a sidekick to the ogre, Shrek, and in the alternative world in Shrek Forever After due to Rumpelstiltskin erasing the day Shrek was born when he made him sign a contract, Puss is seen to have retired from fencing and he became Fiona's pet; he has also become obese. A self-titled spin-off film was released in 2011. Puss in Boots (video game), a video game based upon the film was released in October 2011. He is currently the star of the 2015 Netflix original series The Adventures of Puss in Boots.
• In the furry comic book, Xanadu, the main male hero, Tabbe Le Fauve, is a cat modeled on Puss in Boots with a strong influence of Errol Flynn's typical swashbuckler character.
• The webcomic No Rest for the Wicked features several characters adapted from this story, Perrault (Puss), The Marquis de Carabas, and his wife.
• HBO's Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child gave the story a Polynesian flavor.
• Angela Carter offers an alternative, updated version of the tale in her collection of short stories The Bloody Chamber
• A Meowth from the Pokémon anime series dresses up like Puss In Boots.
• In Gainax's 2000 anime FLCL, the third episode is named Maru Raba (Marquis de Carabas) and deals with the young adult characters performing Puss in Boots at their school, and with one character and her interest in the idea of pretending to be something until you've become it.
• "The New Traveller's Almanac," a companion to Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, places Carabas Castle (formerly Ogre Castle, where "a talking feline dressed in smashing footwear" ate the Ogre and inherited his riches) in Ardennes on the Belgian border, where also stood (among others) the castles of Bluebeard, the Beast and Rosamund. These castles were subsequently destroyed by shellfire in 1913 during the Great War.
• In Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere, the Marquis de Carabas appears as a character and is merged with Puss.
• The novel Reserved for the Cat by Mercedes Lackey is a retelling of Puss In Boots, set in her Elemental Masters series.
• In the manga, MÄR Puss 'n' Boots becomes a form of Babbo in the final battle against the main antagonist, Phantom.
• Puss in Boots is the fourth episode of the episode game series American McGee's Grimm, which features the dark version of the cat missing an eye.
• The Captain N: The Game Master episode "Once Upon a Time Machine" is based on Puss N Boots (though it mostly draws its inspiration from a video game adaptation.)
• La Véritable histoire du Chat botté is an animated French film (2009) by Jérôme Deschamps, Pascal Hérold and Macha Makeïeff.^[3] Dubbed into English as The True History of Puss 'N Boots (2010), the voice actors include William Shatner.
• Puss in Boots appears in the Fables spin-off Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love. He is one of the animal Fables who has to live on Fabletown's "Farm."
• Mary Hanson Roberts wrote and drew a long serial in the Furrlough anthropomorphic comic book, about the descendants of Puss in Boots and their adventures in their world's equivalent of the France of Louis XVI and the French Revolution, called "Here Comes a Candle." (The reference in the title is to the nursery rhyme that ends: "Here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper to chop off your head.")
• Nagagutsu o Haita Neko: Sekai Isshū 80 Nichi Dai Bōken, 1986 Japan-exclusive video game where the main character is Puss in Boots.

References

1. Charles Perrault,"The Master Cat"
2. Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 390, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
3. La Véritable Histoire du Chat Botté. bcdb.com

External links

• Annotated Puss in Boots at surlalunefairytales.com including the tale, variants from around the world, modern interpretations and illustrations
• The Disney version of Puss in Boots at The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
• Art marionettes Marionettes Puss in boots of Armand Langlois (Wikipedia)
• "Puss In Boots" The fairy tale, lushly illustrated in The Colorful Story Book of 1941.
• Walter Crane's Puss in Boots - Turn the pages and hear a reading from the 1873 edition
• Puss in Boots AudioStory
• Full text to Puss in Boots from "The Fairy Book"
• (French) Puss in Boots, audio version