Publisher: Random House

Year: 1975

Pages: 44

Type: Hardcover

ISBN: 0-394-82568-3

“But he hasn’t got any clothes on!”

And with that innocent proclamation from a little girl the Emperor realizes that he is a fool after all! This simple children’s book is a retelling of the famous story by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It has been reworked in many different mediums from books to movies. The Emperor’s New Clothes, a 1987 musical comedy adaptation of the fairy tale starring Sid Caesar, part of the Cannon Movie Tales series, is one to miss! I wish I had.

This particular effort by Disney uses established characters from the animated Robin Hood and Pinocchio movies. Prince John is the titular Emperor and Honest John and Gideon play the crafty weavers who trick their way to riches in exchange for clothes that only the wise can see.

Buyer beware?

Prince John is looking as vain as ever on the cover and in the liner pages below:

The artwork is par for the course for these Wonderful World of Reading efforts. The watercolor look is quite nice.

As said, Honest John and Gideon take a break from conning Pinocchio with much more success in their tailoring ‘business’.

The most famous scene in this story (as shown above) has a little girl innocently proclaiming the Emperor ‘naked’. But in this sanitized version, he is merely in his underwear! In the HCA original, the crowd wonders if the Emperor has become a naked ascetic.

This links to the Sanskrit word Digambara meaning “sky-clad”, referring to the traditional monastic practice of neither possessing nor wearing any clothes. Hey, each to his own!

And in a rare crime-does-pay moment, the last pages show the ‘weavers’ escaping with bags and bags of gold. It seems that in any situation, facing any opponent, ol’ Prince John loses the little gold coins he prizes so much. Oo de lally!

I would give this book 4 out of 5 Stars. It’s fun to see Disney characters stretch out into other roles, as it were, but the storytelling itself offers nothing new. It’s a fairly straightforward presentation of a well-worn (see what I did there?) story. But for young readers, it will entertain. And don’t forget that these books are made so that children can read them themselves.

FUN FACTS: Although Pinocchio had been out for decades when this book was released, the animated film that begat Prince John as a lion was only two years old, having been released in 1973.