| Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey penned a popular series of children’s books titled Curious George with a curious monkey of the same name as the main protagonist character. The stories involve a character “The Man in the Yellow Hat” helping Curious George get out of troublesome situations, created by the over-inquisitive monkey after being brought from Africa into the big city. The story is geared towards children to learn lessons from the experience George gains about the world from each adventure. The husband and wife team created the first series in 1941. Later, Hans Rey drew the illustrations for the series and Margret Rey wrote for them. Currently, owned by United States publisher Houghton Mifflin of Boston, the books are categorized into Classic Favorites, Board books, and New Adventures. The original seven books, written and illustrated by the Reys, comprise the Classic Favorite category.
Books and stories for small children form the Board Books and original stories from the filmstrips later adapted are known as the New Adventures. Curious George has been translated in numerous languages around the world and is known as Nysgjerrige Nils in Norway and Peter Pedal in Denmark. Curious George has already been released as an animated movie on February 10, 2006 featuring Will Ferrell as “The Man in the Yellow Hat”, Ted. The PBS Kids channel is set to launch a TV Series by September 2006.
"Curious George Goes to Town" is a playland for children located at Universal Studios Florida. Split in two areas, the first area is an outdoor wet playground with water jets, water guns, and giant buckets emptying their contents on guests standing below. The second area is called the “Ball Factory” located in an indoor premise. Visitors can shoot soft foam balls at each other or practice targets using various cannons. Monkey Bar Games, a division of Vicious Cycle Software developed a Curious George video game in February 2, 2006. The game is published by Namco. |