Chicken Little - The sky is falling!
Chicken Little, also known as The Sky is Falling, is an old classical story fable. There are a variety of versions of the story, but the basic premise is that Chicken Little, or Henny Penny, believes that the sky is falling down because one day she was walking through the forest and an acorn fell on her head. Chicken Little decides that it is important to tell the King, and along her journey to the see the King, meets other animals who join up with her in her quest. Most of these animals also have rhyming names such as Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Drakey Lakey, Goosey Loosey, Gander Pander, and Turkey Lurkey and Morkupine Porcupine. One of the last animals that they come across is Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers to guide them all to the King, but instead, takes all of the animals into his cave which is his home.
The end of the story is different in every version, but in the most traditional one, the King’s hunting dogs came growling and howling and chased off Foxy Loxy through the meadows and into the forests. He never ever came back again. From that point on, Chicken Little always carried an umbrella which was a present from the King. In other versions, Foxy Loxy eats them all, all of the animals are saved by a squirrel and are able to speak to the King, and even one where the sky actually falls down and kills Foxy Loxy.
The moral of the story of Chicken Little is dependent upon which version of the story is being told. In the one with the happy ending, the moral is not to be a “Chicken Little” and try to have courage. In others, it’s thought to mean that you are not supposed to believe everything you are told.
In 1943, there was a short film about Chicken Little created by Walt Disney during World War II in which all of the animals were eaten by Foxy Loxy. It was created again in 2005 where it was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. This movie version of Chicken Little was a bit more detailed than the previous and in it’s opening weekend, debuted at number one, making it the first Disney animated film to do so since Tarzan did in 1999. It took in $40 million which tied it with The Lion King as the largest opener for a Disney animated film.