Cinderblockhead

As I Understand It™, 'twas on this day in history — February 15, 1950 — that moustachioed caricaturist Elias "Walt" Disney forklifted a pallet of cassette tapes to a Redbox® rental unit in West Hollywood for the official release of the straight-to-video feature “Cinderella.” Six years and, one supposes, thousands of dollars in the making, "Cinderella" was a retelling of "Cinderfella," the classic Grimm Bros® fairy tale about a luckless stepson living under the iron fists of a wicked stepdad and two loutish stepbrothers. In the original storyline, the domineering stepfamily relegated "Cinderfella," rightful heir to the family fortune, to the role of stable boy, living in an unpanelled back room in the mansion with nothing but a primitive, cinderblock-headed stove for warmth, a threadbare Davenport sofa bed for comfort and a thrift store ping-pong table for sport. Alas, Disney saw fit to "blender the gender" and turn the stepson into doe-eyed stepdaughter Lesley Anne Warren, working in servitude at the mercy of her cruel stepmum and piggish stepsisters. The film was a crowd pleaser, one begrudgingly admits, as the shoeless Cinderella stole the heart of the cobbler’s son — General Hospital's Dr. Alan Quartermaine — and they rode off into the sunset in their pumpkin patch carriage. 'Twasn’t until ten years later that a proper telling of “Cinderfella” would hit the silver screen, and it did not disappoint! Directed by another famous drawerer — Norman Rockwell® (portrait study here) — and starring bow-tied French dramatist Jerry Lee Lewis and curvaceous Italian Anna Maria Spaghettini, “Cinderfella” was a triumph among purists, if something of disappointment at the Botox® office, as younger filmgoers missed the singing birdies or something. No matter! Today, "Cinderfella" stands as the definitive interpretation of the tale and methinks you ought resist the temptation to view the childish Disney offering. Rescind-erella! Seek out "Cinderfella" and be dazzled anew!