William Steig

They're all there.

I mean, I simply love William Steig's Abel's Island, which is the, basically the Robinson Crusoe story, but about a mouse.

Like, a pampered mouse.

[laughs]

But let's get into the history of the cult of Shrek, because as you mentioned, Shrek came out before you came out, but it has been a constant in your life for your entire life.

[gentle music] So once upon a time, back in 1990, Shrek was published as a children's book by the cartoonist William Steig.

The twisted fairytale romance follows an ugly little ogre named Shrek, who leaves home to find adventure.

Along the way, he has run-ins with a witch, a knight, a dragon, and of course, a princess.

Yeah, a picture book.

It was titled Shrek! with an exclamation point, and it was written and illustrated by William Steig.

Now, I have to push back on this because I struggle with the terminology here.

If we are talking about a children's picture book, we're talking about, what, maybe 30 pages?

So at a certain point, mathematically, how does a 90 minute complex three act movie qualify as an adaptation of that?

It's a fair question.

Doesn't it cross a threshold where it stops being an adaptation and starts being a completely original creation that just happened to borrow a title and a green character design? How much of William Steig's actual storytelling could possibly exist within this massive DreamWorks movie?

I think that is a highly valid critique of the label adaptation, and it forces us to look at how different mediums function.

The movie Shrek debuted in theaters on April 22nd in 2001, and oh boy, it had no idea the cultural phenomenon it was about to be.

Shrek is inspired by and based on the book by the same name by William Steig, the one who...

This guy, and he was a, a cartoonist for The New Yorker.

It's produced by PDI DreamWorks, which also created Antz and the Madagascar series.