The Mico's Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood by The Mico.

Red and black seem to be commonly recurring colours in this artist's work. No wonder he got around to Little Red eventually.

Please check out The Mico's art blog for more.

Honey Nut Cheerios Commercial

A 1998 advert for Honey Nut Cheerios featuring Little Red Riding Hood.

Red Riding Hood and other fairytales appear to crop up a lot in advertising. I suppose because it's easy to hint at a narrative that people are already largely familiar with, rather than try to create an original one within 30 seconds.

Also: this is a rather strange advert really, isn't it? I mean, what's the tagline supposed to be "Cheerios: they taste marginally better than little girls"?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Little Red Riding Hood

Buffy is Little Red Riding Hood and the vampire Spike is the Big Bad Wolf in this fan-made music video by "hollowtear" which makes good use of a certain Halloween-themed episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Embedding has been disabled for this particular video, so please click on the above image in order to see it.

P.S. I sincerely doubt that this will be the last time the song featured in this video will appear on this blog.

Sarah Kane's Little Red Riding Hood

I heartily encourage you to check out photographer Sarah Kane's portfolio, which includes a series featuring this rather haunting Red Riding Hood.

Personally, I just love her take on Snow White too. That blood-red stream is what really sells it.

Jerry's Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood by "Jerry (Grandfaloon)" is a rather interesting animated take on the tale. Jerry's version simultaneously re-introduces elements from classical versions of the story ("the way of the needles/pins," the warning animals, the cannibalism, etc.) whilst at the same time being mired in the very modern, both stylistically with the anime-inspired character designs and fight sequences, and also in the very technology behind the animation itself.

Warning: some violent scenes and themes.

Fables: The Last Castle

Because everyone needs to be exposed to some James Jean every now and again, here's his cover to the Fables one-shot: The Last Castle. That's Red at the top (note: she's actually riding for once) and Boy Blue (with his horn, 'natch) at the bottom.

Jean actually recently announced that he's going to be leaving Fables soon, and I for one will be sad to see him go, as his work on the series has been phenomenal all the way through and even helped earned him six of his impressive seven Eisner awards.

Incidentally, Fables itself has picked up many more Eisners since the point that the above comic was published* and now has many more, including three (so far) in the "Best Serialised Story" category. I really cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone with an interest in either fairytales or just astonishingly well told serialised stories.

*Note to self: upload a decent text-less version of the above image when I find one.

Exploitica Rides Again!

And now, as both a follow-up to the previous post and for my own sordid amusement, here's Exploitica's take on K. Gordon Murray's Little Red Riding Hood.

WARNING: Adult humour

Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters

"King of the Kiddie Matinee" K. Gordon Murray was responsible for bringing a number of rather bizarre Spanish-language films over to the United States. Amongst these were a trilogy of films starring Little Red Riding Hood, as well as one or two films starring Tom Thumb, who seems to have worked his way into at least one of the Red Riding Hood sequels.

Just to give you a taste of what these films were like (and don't worry, I imagine I'll be posting more about them in the future), here's the trailer for Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters.

Pins & Needles

Moving away from advertising, but still sticking with non-stop Youtube-ing for the moment, here's a little something that I thought was too awesome not to share. It's a trailer for the independent short film Pins & Needles, a "gothic martial arts fantasy retelling of Red Riding Hood." Really, what more could I possibly add to that.

One additional note though, for people wondering about the title. As far as I'm aware, it relates to the two alternate paths Red Riding Hood can choose to take in some early forms of the tale: the "path of needles" or the "path of pins". I expect we'll be seeing some more references to those later on in the week.

Chanel no. 5

Probably the most famous use of LRRH in television advertising is this commercial for Chanel no. 5 starring model Estella Warren and directed by Luc Besson (of La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element fame) and with music by Danny Elfman. As a treat, a somewhat more obscure variation on the ad is included below, also.



Critic Catherine Orenstein writes extensively about this and other examples of the inherent sexuality of the Little Red Riding Hood story being exploited by modern media in her wonderful book Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, which comes highly recommended by this blogger.

Optimum commercial(s)

Sticking with the theme of adverts for the moment, here's an ad (in both Spanish and English language editions) for digital TV/DSL/phone providers Optimum, which actually makes quite clever use of the common Little Red Riding Hood trope of "Oh grandma, what big x you have..." to highlight their various services.

Japanese commercial

And now, some random silliness from youtube. If anyone can offer any information on what this LRRH-themed ad is actually about, I'd be much obliged.

Little Red Riding Hood by Nuno Plati

Nuno Plati's blog is a great place to check out lots fantastic works from this wonderfully talented artist. Largely, his stuff focuses on American superheroes, and I have to say that I adore his takes on certain popular characters.
He's also one of the artists who has worked on Marvel's line of fairy tale-inspired books, a line that has done a great job of spotlighting various usually-obscure but always very talented artists within the industry, but I'll likely post more on those at a later date (because yes, there is a LRRH issue that I wish to highlight).
And of course, in case you couldn't tell, he's also the artist behind the above piece. Enjoy, and make sure to check out his blog for more of his stuff. Especially his superhero stuff; I for one simply cannot get enough of his bright, dynamic figures.

American McGee's Grimm

American McGee, video game producer and the man behind the wonderfully gothic Alice, is currently in charge of an episodic series of games entitled American McGee's Grimm. The games' premise is a somewhat intriguing one: the player controls "Grimm", a dwarf who must spread a vile and malevolent influence throughout numerous fairytale stories, returning them to their supposedly darker roots, far from the saccharine versions that we know today. The stories range from the well-known, such as Little Red Riding Hood, to certain less famous Grimm brothers tales, such as "The Girl Without Hands".

For more info., and to actually play the games, please check out GameTap's official American McGee's Grimm site.