Post #9: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Title: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Author: Judi Barrett
Illustrator: Ron Barrett

Category: Children’s Book Produced as a Feature Film

For my first children’s book and movie comparison, I have selected Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In this case, the movie is definitely just “loosely based on” or perhaps merely “inspired by” the book. There are many more differences than similarities, but I’ll discuss both in detail. First, the characters in the book and the characters in the movie are completely different. The book features Grandpa and his two grandchildren as the central characters. Grandpa tells the story of the town that gets all its food from the sky, the town of Chewandswallow. The bulk of the book is Grandpa’s story. It is filled with eye-popping illustrations of raining entrees that grow increasingly larger and larger. The book ends when Grandpa’s story ends. The children go outside to play in the snow and find that the sun rising over a large snow-covered hill makes them think of mashed potatoes with a pat of butter. None of these characters are in the movie. The main character in the movie is Flint Lockwood – a young inventor who creates a machine that causes the effect illustrated in the book. Grandpa and his story are not mentioned at all, even for the purpose of establishing the storyline in the movie. Rather, the movie seems to take the idea of the town that is presented in the book and attempts to explain how the town came to be.

The name of the town is also another big difference. The name of the town in the book is Chewandswallow. In the movie, the name of the town is initially Swallow Falls. The name is only changed after town begins receiving food from the sky. Flint Lockwood is an aspiring inventor who has spent his life building machine after machine that is failure after failure. Finally, he builds a machine that turns water into food. He does this because he desperately wants to do something to help the town. Everyone in Swallow Falls must eat sardines, because the Baby Brent sardine canning factory has closed and there is nothing else to do with all the sardines – the town’s only industry. In an attempt to resuscitate the town’s economy (and put a little money in his own pocket), the mayor has spent the town’s whole budget to create “Sardine Land”. Flint’s machine is accidentally sent into space at the mayor’s unveiling of “Sardine Land” – setting off a series of disastrous bumps and bangs that completely disrupt the unveiling. Everyone in town is angry with Flint because he has destroyed “Sardine Land.” The whole town thinks Flint is crazy, until the sky opens up and begins to rain cheeseburgers. Flint’s invention has worked! Then, of course, he becomes the town hero.

A young weather girl intern – Sam Sparks – is sent to Swallow Falls to cover the unveiling of the dirty, scheming mayor’s big idea to save the town. The young intern with the horrible assignment nobody wanted achieves overnight fame covering the “unusual” weather in Swallow Falls. This becomes a not-so-typical boy meets girl story; however, Flint and Sam do fall in love by the end of the movie. As the storyline progresses, the townspeople deluge Flint with special food orders because he is able to control what comes out of the sky. He is able to adjust the menu. This is the part of the movie that is most closely connected to the book. Scattered throughout the movie are scenes that closely resemble illustrations from the book. The giant Jell-O mold is one such example. During a conversation with Flint about all the requests for food he had been receiving from the townspeople, Sam indicates that she loves Jell-O. Flint orders up a giant Jell-O mold. Flint takes Sam on a walk and leads her to his special surprise. She exclaims, “Jell-O’s my favorite!” Sam and Flint bounce around in the Jell-O mold, spending time together and talking. It’s at this point that Sam reveals that she too was formerly a nerd. The two bond. Another example of similarity is the sanitation department vehicle. The one depicted in the movie very closely resembles the one in the book. It’s a huge garbage truck with a giant spoon on one side and a giant fork on the other side. However, unlike the one in the book, the movie’s sanitation department vehicle launches the food into the “beyond” – Mt. Leftovers. A mountain of wasted food grows in the distance. Other examples of book illustrations that are played out on the big screen include a pancake falling on the school and pea soup fog. One funny thread of the movie is the ever-expanding mayor. The mayor is ravenous. He eats and eats and eats everything and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. In each scene he expands by ridiculous proportions. In a dramatic scene near the climax, the mayor rides into Flint’s lab on a scooter. He is bigger than ever – holding a hot dog topped with ice cream, fried eggs, and donuts. At this point, the town name has been changed to “Chewandswallow” to reflect the mayor’s “new” idea to turn the town into a tourist attraction, capitalizing on Flint’s invention.

Danger looms on the horizon. Flint knows that the machine is making the food mutate, causing it to get bigger and bigger. The mayor pressures him to keep the machine going and cook up a special pasta meal for the town’s grand re-opening. Flint takes his father to dinner one night to share his good fortune. Flint has now been embraced as a “son” to the mayor, and former favorite “Baby Brent” is yesterday’s news. In an open room restaurant, Flint and his father sit at a table and wait for their dinner to fly in. A huge steak lands on their table, completely covering it. As Flint rambles on about the mayor’s plan, his father asks, “Don’t you think that’s a big steak?” Flint’s father recognizes that something is wrong here and wants him to stop. Flint is torn. He knows he needs to stop, but he has finally made an invention that everyone likes. He is loved by the town, instead of being the outcast. He angrily storms out of the restaurant leaving his father alone. Flint caves and orders up the meal the mayor has requested. The machine goes wild. The resulting disaster is a spaghetti tornado, complete with giant meatballs (reference to the title). It threatens to destroy the town. In a confrontation with the mayor (who has sneaked into Flint’s lab and ordered an additional Vegas-style buffet) – the communication mechanism is destroyed.

Now someone has to stop the machine or the whole town will be destroyed. Flint, accompanied by Sam, Manny - her camera-guy, and Brent – all fly into space to tackle the out-of-control machine to deliver the kill-code and stop it. A giant meatball has formed around it. Realizing that the town has become too unpredictable and dangerous to inhabit, the townspeople begin to evacuate. Here we find one of the few similarities. True to the book, the citizens make boats out of the stale bread and flee from the island. Just as they are making their escape, a single cherry lands on Mt. Leftovers, causing the dam holding all the food back to break. This is also a divergence from the book. The citizens are now fleeing from a food avalanche, in addition to a food hurricane. As expected, Flint’s plan does not work – completely typical of his history of disasters. However he is able to stop the machine using his first failed invention – spray on shoes. His friends escape, but he is left behind. Another failed invention – rat-birds – carry him back to his home, where the townspeople are waiting for him on their bread-boats in the harbor. In the end – the town is saved. The movie is hilarious – but not really anything like the book.
I liked the book because of the simple, but beautiful illustrations that depicted the ridiculous idea of food falling from the sky. My son loved the book, so it has become one of my favorites. I also liked the movie because of the sweet storyline about a failed young inventor who saves the day. It was predictable and sappy sweet, but I liked it nonetheless. I also enjoyed how the movie did take illustrations from the book and reflect those on the big screen. I supposed my reaction to the book and the movie were greatly influenced by the fact that my son enjoyed both of them so much. He loves the weather, so this over-the-top story about the sky raining food was a big hit with him. This book is probably similar to other fantasy books, but the concept of food falling from the sky is unique and has great kid-appeal. I think that the one thing I learned about children’s literature from reading this book and watching the movie is simply that author’s have so much freedom. The author can create her own world and make it as strange or outrageous as she pleases. No idea is too far-fetched. That’s what I love about children’s literature – it allows kids the freedom to exercise their imaginations!