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April 26, 2016 1:43 PM   Subscribe

Hobbes and Me: an obviously unauthorized, yet surprisingly true-to-the-original, live-action Calvin and Hobbes by Rafael Casal and featuring Daveed Diggs.
posted by jacquilynne (21 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
Fuck those are awesome, they're like potato chips, you can't stop at one.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:01 PM on April 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


Everyone give it up for America's favorite stuffed toy tiger!
posted by BlueJae at 2:06 PM on April 26, 2016 [31 favorites]


My favorite part of this is that Daveed stated on Instagram that he owned that tiger coat before they came up with the idea.
posted by kate blank at 2:10 PM on April 26, 2016 [9 favorites]


Of course he owned the coat already. Clearly Daveed Diggs IS Hobbes.
posted by BlueJae at 2:13 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also, the absolute best Daveed Diggs-related thing I came across this week is this extremely convincing tumblr post that he is/should be Superman.
posted by kate blank at 2:13 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm with Watterson. I can't see any way an adaptation could be anything but worse than the originals. These skits are good enough, but if I didn't know they were related to the Calvin and Hobbes strips, I wouldn't have guessed. Not that Casal and Diggs were going for verisimilitude or anything.
posted by kozad at 2:13 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


By biggest and only concrete objection is that I'm assuming that this falls under the umbrella of appropriations of C&H Bill Watterson would disapprove of.

The other is that, as kozad says, nobody has yet or probably ever will do anything derived from his work that can accomplish anything more than, "Man Watterson is an actual genius... where are my C&H books?"
posted by cmoj at 2:25 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


Of course he owned the coat already. Clearly Daveed Diggs IS Hobbes.

Smart, rational, furry, EXTREMELY GOOD AT JUMPING? You are clearly on to something here.
posted by kate blank at 2:40 PM on April 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


Related: Daveed Diggs is the guest on Another Round this week!
posted by kmz at 2:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


This makes me happy. (And it brought up the fact that my wife never read any Calvin and Hobbes, so now I know what to get her!)
posted by harujion at 2:43 PM on April 26, 2016


I don't mind these; but the line readings in too many places deviate from how I imagine Calvin/Hobbes saying the line in my head. Which is an interesting divergence, I guess, but I'd rather stick with the Calvin & Hobbes who live and play in my head.
posted by nubs at 2:49 PM on April 26, 2016 [13 favorites]


I was prepared to hate this, but it's not terrible.
posted by sleeping bear at 3:54 PM on April 26, 2016


MetaFilter: Not terrible.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:43 PM on April 26, 2016


If you want to segue to the sexiest thing ever, here's Leslie Odom Jr. and Daveed Diggs covering Selena Gomez?
posted by ChuraChura at 5:53 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


This reminds me of a lot of professional children's theater. If you can suspend the idea that two adults look nothing like a seven year old and a stuffed tiger and the actors are really channeling the characters, amazing things can happen. I've seen incredible live productions of Frog and Toad as well as Elephant and Piggie where there is zero attempt to actually dress the actors up like and elephant or a pig yet every 4 year old in the audience immediately makes that transition. I'm not sure this is doing it for me. In fairness, Calvin and Hobbes is much more visually presented, and drawn in a way that is very very difficult to represent in real life, but I'd love to see someone put more work into it than this. Not to say these aren't amusing, or I'm not grateful that someone tried. It's just --- why couldn't Watterson make his one exception and work with a talented stage director and develop a really stunning children's theater production?

Not that Watterson owes me anything because Oh. My. God. --- can we talk about the sheer joy of reading Calvin and Hobbes with your kids? Because if you own a seven year old and you haven't done this, you are a bad parent and I'm calling APS. I have never seen my son laugh so hard, full on belly laughs, rolling over and off the side of the bed, reading Calvin and Hobbes. And it's totally not the adult punch line. It's the penultimate panel where he's doing something bad and getting himself into trouble. Like there are times he can't finish the strip. I might have to film this tonight and post it.

Bill, can you get on this and develop a slapstick stage adaptation for kids? Because like, I think you might save the world a second time with the amount of joy you'd bring.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:12 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've watched em all now and I think it's a nice proof of concept but really would benefit from more rehearsal and direction. I hope they'll keep it up.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:22 PM on April 26, 2016


I liked that the dailies were in b/w and the Sunday had color. Cute.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I let myself hope we were going to get the rest of the haircut strips. It would have been nice to hear a line reading of "I can't help it if your head has funny bumps that make the scissors go screwy!"
posted by carsonb at 11:29 PM on April 26, 2016


I bet if I share that instagram account with my wife, she'll finally install Instagram.
But her Daveedevotion is already pretty unnerving.
posted by DigDoug at 5:26 AM on April 27, 2016


I'm gonna curmudge it on up here: I *really* don't like these.

I *barely* made it through the second one (in the bathtub) before I had to close 'er down. Mr. Casal is an over-actor of the billionth degree, and it robs Calvin of the simple outrage he plainly had in the comic strips.

I'm old, so old, and these new things upset me.
posted by Imperfect at 9:51 AM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


<3 Daveed Diggs
posted by Theta States at 11:42 AM on April 27, 2016


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