Tongue-In-Cheek Monster Characters for Children
From the 1910s to the 1950s, many of the classic movie monsters, such as Frankenstein (1910), Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), The Wolfman (1941), and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1953), made their first mainstream appearances. Few would consider these fiends or the horror genre in general appropriate for children. However, over time and in a society of relative safety, fear can become alluring. In fact, for the Millennials who grew up on Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, Tales from the Crypt, and The Addams Family movies and cartoons, the horror themes that used to terrify generations before now bring mostly nostalgia and delight.
This same generation is beginning to raise children of their own. Many of these new parents seek out books, movies, and various other forms of children’s entertainment that invoke a sense of delighted dread in their kids while avoiding the true horror aspect of it. Perhaps one of the largest forms, and certainly one of the newest, of this sought-after entertainment today is web pages. While movies will live on for a long time, websites offer something they cannot: interactivity. With the ease of access, social aspect, and often free content, many hours can be sunk into or drawn away from websites. The content both engages and educates. Felipe Femur is one such website.
Hotel Transylvania is a prime example of monsters evolving from the antagonists to the protagonists, but a lesser know protagonist is Felipe Femur. Felipe Femur is both the name of the website developed for children and the main character. Felipe Femur, the skeleton with a lot of heart, and his ironic monster friends, including a sun-loving vampire, a down-to-earth alien, and a banshee who happens to be mute serve as the focus. Grimm brothers meet SpongeBob SquarePants, the website utilizes the horror motif and excludes the adult themed matter, offering instead things such as an aquaphobic lagoon creature and a welcoming skeleton. In other words, the monsters are friends not fiends.
The creative minds behind these characters, twin brothers, offer everything for free. Using their respective art and writing skills, the two create all the content for the website and its tongue-in-cheek characters. The website presents craft ideas, games, music, printable coloring sheets, as well as original stories and articles intended for a young audience. The monster characters each have a bio page that highlights their unique personalities, and most can even be spoken to in the browser based game Felipe Femur & Friends. Several mobile apps for kids have been developed by the pair, as well, under the name ZebraFox Games, including a Felipe Femur side-scroller and a toothless werewolf Thanksgiving whack-a-mole. The new ‘Postcards from Felipe’ series on the website offers a nice mix of education and fun. Each postcard is ‘sent’ from a different city in the USA and comments on local landmarks, activities, or haunted history in that area, while also providing an overarching tale about aliens.
With a fresh and inventive take on werewolves, vampires, banshees, lagoon creatures, and other monsters, the cast is a unique one and something children and parents will love. The website is one that has been buried under a mountain of big names like Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse. Still, being free and with more content to come, the Felipe Femur website proves to be one worthy of a bookmark. To find something that both parents and their children will like is a formidable task, but Felipe Femur will likely tickle everyone’s funny bone.