Big Bad Wolf

The Big Bad Wolf is a fictional character who first appeared in the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, folk tales that can be traced to the literary salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Origins

The template for the "big, bad wolf" can be traced to European folk tales and mythologies in which the deep ambiguity of human attitudes to the wolf are embedded. Wolves are usually afraid of human contact and prefer to keep to themselves. In ancient Europe, though, small, scattered human settlements were sometimes faced with wolves made bold by starvation or disease (usually rabies). The lone wolf attacking a flock of sheep or goats is a rarity, but a wolf faced with a penned flock that cannot flee will continue to kill indiscriminately, its instincts baffled by the inability of the sheep or goats to escape. Attacks on humans have always been extremely rare, and are usually associated with self-defence or defence of the pack's young, or, more rarely, with disease or starvation. The rarity of these hostile encounters, during a period of European history in which most people lived hand to mouth, rendered them all the more stark.

Conversely, humans have often observed the complex social lives of wolves. Known to pair bond for life, to be protective parents, and to engage in playful behaviour with other animals — especially carrion birds such as crows and ravens, wolves have also been the objects of a level of respect. There is ample anecdotal evidence of wolves occasionally fostering small children abandoned in rural areas (there is an especially large body of such tales from India). "Wolf Children" featured in folk tales, as did werewolves, creatures who perfectly embodied the human attraction to and fear of the wolf.

European mythology is replete with lupine imagery: The Teutonic/Scandinavian god Woden/Odin, associated with magic, war, and death, is portrayed as being accompanied by two ravens, Hugin and Munin, and two wolves, Geri and Freki; Loki, sometimes seen as Odin's nemesis, and sometimes his other self, has a wolf son, Fenris, who bites off the hand of the god Tiw/Tyr, and whose freedom precipitates the end of the world and the beginning of a new era; Romulus and Remus, mythological founders of Rome, were brought up by a she-wolf, and are usually portrayed as infants suckling on their foster mother; Aesop's Fables often centred on wolves, with The Boy Who Cried Wolf being the best known; the Greek goddess Hekate, who was associated with death and magic, is often represented as wearing three wolves' heads and/or accompanied by three dogs; the Greek king Lycaon was turned into a wolf by Zeus, and it is from his name that we get the term lycanthropy (the ability to turn into or take on the characteristics of a wolf). Interestingly, wolves appear to have been widely venerated and respected by Native American peoples, who were horrified by the European settlers' systematic attempts to exterminate the animal.

The Bad Wolf in fiction

The character's best known incarnation is the villain of Walt Disney's animation Three Little Pigs, directed by Burton Gillett and first released on May 27, 1933. The Wolf's voice was provided by William Bletcher. As in the folktale, he was a cunning and threatening menace. But this version had also a taste for disguising himself; the audience could easily see through his disguises but they were convincing enough for the Pigs. The short also introduced the Wolf's theme song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", written by Frank Churchill.

The short was so popular that Walt Disney produced several sequels, which also featured the Wolf as the villain. The first of them was named after him: The Big Bad Wolf, also directed by Burton Gillet and first released on April 14, 1934.

The Wolf next appeared in Mickey's Polo Team, directed by David Dodd Hand and first released on January 4, 1936. The short featured a game of Polo between four of Disney's animated characters (one of whom was the Wolf) and four animated caricatures of noted film actors.

He also appears in Lil Bad Wolf comic book stories as Lil Bad Wolf's father, here called Zeke Wolf, who wants his son to be as mean as he is, but Lil Bad Wolf does not live up to his father's expectations.

The Big Bad Wolf has become a regularly recurring puppet character on Sesame Street, appearing usually in purple fur. He is generally puppeteered by Jerry Nelson.

The comic book series Fables by Bill Willingham features a reformed Big Bad Wolf as its protagonist. He appears to have become a kind of werewolf, and goes by the name Bigby Wolf. He has a resemblance to Clint Eastwood, both in appearance and personality.

The 2005 series of Doctor Who on the BBC contains many references to "Bad Wolf", and this is carried through in the fictional websites the BBC has set up to accompany the series. The various references in the television series have been listed at the BBC's Bad Wolf website (http://www.badwolf.org.uk).

External links

• Internet Movie Database's profile of William Bletcher (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bletcher,%20Billy), his voice actorpt:Lobão (banda desenhada)