Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd (Glyndebourn 2010)

Billy Budd - 1962 Film Trailer

Morrissey's "Billy Budd"

Benito Cereno, The Movie

Here's a trailer for Serge Roullet's 1969 film adaption of Melville's novella. Half of it's in French, but there is definitely a sense of palpable unreality that the narrator describes aboard the ship. Watch out for vague spoilers!

"Bartleby" Enters the 21st Century

An Interactive, Annotated "Bartleby"

Moby-Dick dessin animee!

Here is a French cartoon, "The adventures of young Moby-Dick!" It's one of the "Les contes immortels," children's cartoons based on classic novels. Other titles in the series include The Count of Monte Cristo, Voyage to the Center of the Earth, and Jack London's Call of the Wild. Pretty wacky.

As far as I can tell, this is the only one that isn't just a re-telling of the novel. In this cartoon, it's the day that young Moby learns to swim up to the water's surface! Unfortunately it has no subtitles, but I plan to watch it at some point this weekend and I promise to report back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ148Yt3oZQ

Binky Barnes, Wingman

In this episode of Arthur, the whole class is doing a research on bugs. Binky becomes so obsessed with catching butterflies that Sue Ellen compares him to Ahab in Moby-Dick. Fun stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzuf5uM6_7A

Dopey Dick

My favorite pun on Moby Dick's name yet. If only Ahab had such a resigned catchphrase. http://www.b99.tv/video/dopey-dick-the-pink-whale/

Moby-Dick in saturday morning cartoons

One result of Moby-Dick being so entrenched in American culture is that practically anyone can make a Moby-Dick reference or joke. It's not unusual to hear the novel name-checked in shows like the The Simpsons and Parks and Recreation, and the jokes tend to work whether a given viewer has read the book or not. More surprisingly, Melville's novel has also provided material for several shows pitched at much younger viewers. Below are a few examples of Moby-Dick turning up in saturday morning cartoons over the years.

Johnny Bravo, "Moby Jerk"

A 1999 episode of the Cartoon Network classic Johnny Bravo features a Moby-Dick riff entitled "Moby Jerk". As in most episodes of the show, the plot follows Johnny on his monomanical quest for babes: Johnny wins a free trip aboard a luxury ocean cruise, with the promise of fine dining, world-class entertainment and, more importantly, "cute single women." ("Women? That's slang for 'babes'. When do we leave?"). Things go awry when Johnny mistakenly boards the wrong vessel, becoming embroiled in Captain McSpleen's unholy hunt for a foul-mouthed mermaid (merman?) named Moby Jerk.

Watch the full episode here: http://dai.ly/x3dir65

Tom and Jerry, "Dicky Moe"

In what is probably the most faithful of the cartoon adaptations I found, Tom and Jerry are find themselves victims of impressment aboard the Kumquat, captained by a scarred and peg-legged captain hell-bent on hunting a white whale named Dicky Moe. Some pretty standard Tom and Jerry antics ensue. Except, ya know, more nautical themed. In one of the most direct references to the novel out of the bunch, Tom at one point becomes lashed to the whale's side, a la Fedallah. 

Watch the full episode here: http://onlineplayer.eu/Tom-and-Jerry/dicky-moe-122.html

"Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor"

In what is probably the most bizarre of Moby-Dick's TV adaptations, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, the white whale turns up not as an antagonist but as a loyal and lovable pet. The Hanna-Barbera cartoon, which ran from 1967-1969, chronicles the adventures of two scuba-diving youths named Tom and Tub, who are also joined by their pet seal, Scooby. Together, the gang face off against all manner of deep-sea danger, including massive underwater spiders, lizard people, and a giant clam.
In one of my favorite pieces of TV trivia, Moby Dick and Scooby were both voiced by Don Messick, who would later voice Scooby-Doo.

I couldn't find a video of the show's opening narration, but here is a copy from TV.com:

When a typhoon suddenly strikes Tom and Tubb are swept miles away from their uncle's vessel "The Sea Explorer" and find themselves in uncharted waters surrounded by menacing sharks. When all seems lost, they are rescued by the giant white whale, Moby Dick. Tom and Tubb happily realize they have found a new friend who will protect them as they face the perils of the deep together. 

The Moby Dick cartoons shared their 30-minute runtimes with the Mighty Mightor, a sort of prehistoric He-Man prototype.


I wasn't able to find any full episodes online, although the entire series is available on DVD.

Whale Song

Found this site today where someone (named Patrick Shea) has written and recorded a song for every chapter of the book. My favorites are his songs for "A Squeeze Of The Hand" (of course, how could it not be great), "The Counterpane" (you can't go wrong with a line like "He's considerate / Though Not Literate), and "A Bower In The Arsacides". They're all the perfect mix of weird and very endearingly sincere. Loved it.

Cool animated Moby-Dick

I really like the paint on glass style of this video, and you can even hear the English dialogue through most of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVqYy9c-zfQ

Moby-Dick: The Play

Apparently it was great? This link has some videos about the production. It seems like it truly is based on the text in all its strange complexity, not just an exciting adventure version about the hunt.

http://lookingglasstheatre.org/event_page/moby-dick/

Moby-Dick Book Covers

Moby-Dick Book Covers
Bill Pettit's Moby-Dick Collection

The Simpsons' Moby-Dick

Trump on Classic Novels

Buzzfeed has a thread predicting what Donald Trump would say about famous literary characters. Here's what Trump has to say about Ahab:

And a link to the full article if you're interested. Pretty funny.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/trump-tweets-the-classics#.dkQ0xllM6

The Time I Spent on a Commercial Whaling Ship

Stephen Colbert, Andrew Delbanco and Moby-Dick on a Roller-Coaster

Reposting resources for 55-77

I was going to look and see how many of the pictures mentioned in chapters 55 and 56 I could find online, but an enterprising soul did the work for me! I highly recommend looking at them, especially chapter 55’s.

http://depictedscience.tumblr.com/post/44054533861 (55)

http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby056.html (56- the site is a lot less intuitive, but the links to the photos are in the little colored boxes on the side.)

And just for fun, here are some examples of scrimshaw.

http://travelphotobase.com/s/SCRIM.HTM

http://theantiquesalmanac.com/scrimshaw.htm

Here is the citation for my show and tell piece:

Smith, Jeff. Bone. Columbus, OH: Cartoon, 2004. Print.

I got it through the library's Summit program, if anyone wants to check it out as well. It took a couple of weeks to get here, but it's worth a look if you ever get a chance!

This guy supposedly ate primarily sharks and other whales. Its scientific name is Leviathan melvillei. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/photogalleries/100630-leviathan-mellvillei-sperm-whale-fossils-science/

     I know this is a little late, but while reading the "Cetology" chapter, it kept reminding me of something I'd heard before. Finally found it:

Tavener's composition was based on the story of Jonah, but the first three minutes seem to have a real Melville flavor. Or perhaps this is just one of my own "Extracts."
     Fun fact: this album was re-released at the dawn of punk in 1977 on Ringo Starr's financial disaster of a label, "Ring O'Records."

Links to the videos I plan on showing today in class. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvj8_rlv6gI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih-URZLwasw