Fractured Fairy Tale: Jack & The Beanstalk.

A Fractured Fairy Tale by A.J. Jacobs,
as featured on "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" 1959-1961

These are best when seen as an animated cartoon. My page really doesn't do justice to the creativity.

Once upon a time --- actually it was 1888, but this isn't a history textbook, you know, so we don't have to get all boring and technical. Once upon a time, there was a young lad named Jack. Jack had come to the big city to try out for a baseball team, the Boston Beavers. The Beavers were a great team, managed by that legendary figure, Big Lip Leo.

Listen as Leo gives one of those legendary pep talks. "Men, we got a great ball club here. There's only one little thing that keeps us from being the top team in the country...We've never won a game."

True, the Beavers had lost 597 consecutive games. But then again, they had never had Jack on the team. Now, Jack wasn't exactly your garden-variety baseball player. He didn't chew tobacco. He didn't scratch himself in embarrassing places. He didn't shop up for "Yell at the Umpire" practice. And strangest of all, he had never played baseball before and knew not a single thing about the game.

It didn't look good. But hard as it is to believe, Jack wasn't as dumb as he sounded and looked. He had an ace up his sleeve, and ace he got to show at the season opener: The Beavers went up against the Poughkeepsie Pirates, who would probably play better if they stopped wearing those eye patches and drinking rum. Anyway, it was the bottom of the ninth, the Beavers led 4 to 3 and needed just one more out before they won the game.

The Pirates' best player stepped up to the plate--- or, actually, limped up to the plate, as he had a peg leg. The pitch, and crack! The ball sailed high over center field.

"What a hit!" shouted the announcer. "That ball is going, going. Hey, what's this?"

For at that moment Jack pulled a magic bean out of his pocket, planted it in center field, watered it and jumped on top of it. Rumble, roar, and

Jack was carried skyward on a huge beanstalk that grew straight up into the air. That fly ball landed smack in his mitt.

The fans went wild. The Boston Beavers had finally won a game. Of course, some of the Pirates weren't all that overjoyed and began showing the Beavers some extreme close-ups of their knuckles and cleats. But the rule books said nothing about banning beans. So the decision stood.

In the weeks that followed, the team won game after game with the help of Jack and his magic beans. In fact, Leo changed the teams name to the Boston Beans. The guys in the stands started selling beans along with franks. And Jack became a national celebrity, getting his picture on the front of People magazine, Sports Illustrated and Legumes Weekly. ("Bean There, Done That!" read the cover.)

Then came the big day for the final game of the season---the Beans were to play the Giants. It's no coincidence that they were called the Giants. You could install observation decks on their foreheads and charge five bucks for entrance. It was going to be a rough game.

"Why couldn't we play the Flattsville Midgets?" whined Leo. "Or the Nantucket Napoleons?" Or even the San Diego Men of Average Height?"

But the Giants it was. And right from the start, it was a fight to the finish. The Giants smashed ball after ball over center field, but Jack always managed to zoom up on his beanstalk and catch them on the fly.

Both teams gave it their all, and the scores shot higher and higher. Finally at the bottom of the ninth, it was all tied up, 66 to 66. The Giants had the bases loaded and White Goober, their best hitter came to the plate.

He let the first pitch go by.

He let the second pitch go by. Two strikes on him. On this last pitch, Jack reasoned, Whitie would swing for the fences! Figuring he should prepare, Jack planted three beans, hopped on top and shot up into the sky on the biggest beanstalk of all.

But Mighty Whitie, instead of slamming the ball, just gave it a dainty tap and it dribbled out into center field. Jack was too high to do anything. Two players scored and the Giants won.

But no one could hear him. That big beanstalk carried him straight up into the sky for hundreds of miles until it finally poked through a strange cloud where Jack saw a huge castle and heard these mysterious words:

Now if Jack were an Englishman, he'd be playing cricket, not baseball. But he had no time to make that correction. He had to deal with more pressing problems--- namely some extremely large molars about to give him a chewing out. But that's another story.

Note: There were 91 Fractured Fairy Tales. I loved all of them.
See a complete listing Here.
Unfortunately there is an entire generation or more that hasn't had the fun of experiencing
A.J. Jacob's tremendous writing talent. This is why I am offering a few of his tales on my site
so you can get an idea. To read them all, buy the book listed below!

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