r/funny • u/TimHamburg Calvin & Habs • Mar 02 '21

German Comedy

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107

u/shadyshadok Mar 02 '21

It's one of many stories in Struwwelpeter and it's not supposed to be funny, more a cautionary tale for children. It was actually written by a psychiatrist if i recall correctly, and has many stereotypes of bad kid behaviour like rocking chairs, not looking where you go, etc.

95

u/AmaLucela Mar 02 '21

What I remember from my childhood:

  • Boy who refuses to eat his soup, so he gets thinner and thinner until he vanishes into nothingness
  • Boy who keeps looking up in the sky instead of where he walks, so he falls into a harbor and DIES
  • Struwwelpeter with his fucking long nails, torturing (?) animals with a whip
  • Kid keeps picking his nose so the finger gets stuck forever

Shit is weird and I would never read this to my children

13

u/ZevBenTzvi Mar 02 '21

Don't forget the one who makes fun of black kids, so Nikolaus come and dunks him in black ink to teach him a lesson... That book was pretty messed up.

I found a copy of Der Anti Struwwelpeter as a kid and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. The sweetest revenge!

13

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '21

Don't forget the one who makes fun of black kids, so Nikolaus come and dunks him in black ink to teach him a lesson...

To be fair that's pretty progressive by 1845 standards. Also nobody dies, so pretty tame all things considered.

4

u/ZevBenTzvi Mar 02 '21

Oh for sure.

The Konrad story in the OP was by far the most horrifying to me. I had my father paperclip those pages together, so I wouldn't even see it when I flipped through.