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Good News Week

Happy Humpty (GNW 2/11/09: What’s The Story?)

A BBC children’s show has changed the words of Humpty Dumpty to give it a happy ending. They’ve also decided he isn’t an egg – there’s no way you’re getting that fixed.

It may be easy to put Humpty together again, but try doing that to a real egg. It’s not going to happen, no matter how many horses you get involved.

Let’s hope they also decided to update it to “all the Queen’s horses and all the Queen’s people of assorted genders”. / Queen’s people, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”

The revised Humpty rhyme has resulted in a lot fewer upset children, but a lot more injuries due to falling off walls. / but a lot more wall-fall-related injuries.

Unfortunately, British children are now taking hours over breakfast trying to reassemble broken eggs.

A BBC children’s show has changed the words of Humpty Dumpty to give it a positive ending. Although I’m not sure that giving Humpty a happy finish is really suitable for children.

In the new version, the king’s horses and men made Humpty happy again. Though if he falls off any more walls, he’s on his own.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men were able to make Humpty happy again.” Though it took all the king’s morphine.

It’s amazing how much yolk they were able to stick back into the shattered shell only using their hooves.

Some other nursery rhymes have also been adjusted: Jack no longer breaks his crown, London Bridge remains standing, Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is well stocked, and “Ring-a-ring-a-rosy” now ends “We all remain standing, unaffected by our ailments”.

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey,
Along came a spider and sat down beside her,
And they had a thoughtful discussion about the irrationality of arachnophobia.

Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
Which is why the bough has been thoroughly reinforced according the national safety standards for tree-based cradles.

See saw, Marjorie Dawe,
Johnny will sign a mutually-satisfying job contract.
He will get a decent award rate,
Plus more if he meets his productivity schedule.

Now Jack Spratt can eat what he likes, Bo Peep keeps control of her entire flock, and Georgie Porgie scores himself a root.

And now singers of Ring A Ring A Rosie remain upright, without any trace of illness.

Mother Hubbard not only has a cupboard full of bones, but she’s not even that old. / but she’s only just hit middle age. / but she’s 21 and HOTT.

The little old lady who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn’t know what to do, now knows what to do. And it’s called ‘contraception’.

The little old lady who lived in a shoe who had so many children she didn’t know what to do, no longer whips them all soundly and sends them to bed – she stars in a reality TV show.

But Play School here mucks about with the lyrics of nursery rhymes all the time. Where’s our Parliamentary enquiry?

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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