Cap'n O. G. Readmore's Jack and the Beanstalk

Title card

* *Cap'n O. G. Readmore Meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde* (*Readmore* series)

**Cap'n O. G. Readmore's Jack and the Beanstalk** is the first episode of the *Cap'n O. G. Readmore* series. In this episode, Readmore goes into a story titled *Jack and the Beanstalk* and becomes the character of the story, sent by Jack after negative remarks about fairytales were made (unaware to Jack and others, Lickety Page made those remarks). This is Readmore's debut in an episode.

## Plot

The episode begins were Cap'n O. G. Readmore, teacher of the Friday Night Book Club, did role calls of his members, Kitty Literature, Ol' Tome Cat, Wordsy, and Lickety Page. About everyone is happy of being in the club, except Lickety as he believed fairytales are "foolish". Everyone disagreed with his opponent to this. While Lickety still making negative remarks about fairytales, everyone, except Readmore, froze stiff as all fairytale characters magically appear, confronting to Readmore that they are not foolish, never realizing Lickety is the one disputing. Jack, from  *Jack and the Beanstalk* (which was the story Readmore was about to read), sends Readmore to Jack's story just to prove him wrong.

Readmore appears in Jack’s rags as he appears to be the main character of the story. Jack's Mother then tells Readmore (mistaken him as her son) to milk the cow. While doing so, Readmore suggested that he will sell the cow. Later trying sell the cow, a man magically appears as he wanted to buy the cow for five beans as the markets were closed for the day. At first, Readmore refused, but the man mentioned that these are magic beans and then he accepted. Readmore’s goal for changing the story was borrowing from The Giant instead of stealing them. Jack’s Mother was upset with disbelief about this and threw the beans out.

The next day, as Readmore hoped for the beans to grow, Readmore climbs on the beanstalk and made it to The Giant’s castle. After entering, Readmore ran into the Giant's Wife. Readmore was looking for him, but the Wife wanted to hid Readmore so he wouldn’t be eaten. Soon, The Giant arrived in the kitchen with gold coins as she is fixing porridge for him. Readmore came to the Giant and asked if he could borrow one of the coins. After the Giant deny, his wife tells him to take a nap. Soon afterwards, she tells Readmore to take one of them. Readmore informs that he’ll pay back. While rolling the coin out, he tripped on a lace of the Giant’s shoe, causing the coin to roll ahead and fell to Jack’s Mother’s property. By the time Readmore got there, he thought she was crushed as the house got destroyed, but luckily, she didn’t get hurt. Yet, she got upset with Readmore for the damage. The coin that landed is completely missing.

Readmore went to the castle again and this time, he wanted to borrow the Hen that lays the golden eggs. The wife informed Readmore that The Giant knew about the missing coin. The Giant returns to the kitchen with the Hen and harshly tells her to lay the golden eggs. Readmore came to the Giant again and asked for the Hen. After the Giant denied, his wife tell Readmore to take her after telling her husband to take his nap again. The Hen follows Readmore as he didn’t want to steal her. The Hen’s begs woken the Giant. Both Readmore and The Hen fell from the Giant’s property and landed into Jack’s. When the mother saw the Hen, she wanted to eat the Hen, but Readmore informed her that this fowl lays the golden eggs. The Hen tries to lays eggs, but ended up laying purple boxes. Once again, Readmore failed, but he wasn’t going to give up just yet.

In the castle, The Giant brought in The Harp, a beautiful instrument with an annoying singing voice. Déjà vu with Readmore’s request to the Giant and the Giant napping, the wife wanting Readmore to take the Harp as the wife cannot stand the inanimate object’s singing. Readmore tell the Harp not to sing, but backfired and woke up the Giant. With revenge, the Giant was on his way to Jack’s property while chasing Readmore. By the time Readmore reached Jack’s home, the Mother didn’t believed her eyes with the Harp. Readmore informed her that this instrument would help make fortune at a musical concert. Readmore asked the mother to give him an axe so he could cut down the beanstalk (she gave him her broom by accident), but it was too late as the Giant arrived. Soon as he was about to get his hands on Readmore, his foot tripped in a hole, fell backwards on top of the farm and destroyed it. The mother was devastated by this, accidentally knocked the Harp down in the hole, crushed in pieces. Readmore now realized that his hopes of changing the story are wrecked, as the Giant and Jack’s Mother are about to scold him for "ruining the story". Before facing consequences, Readmore is sent back to where he was, the Book Club.

After returning to the Book Club, Readmore admitted to Jack and the fairytale characters that the stories are better just the way they are. All the fairytale characters are pleased by hearing this as Jack responded "I think he’s got the point" and all the fairytale characters left. Soon after, all of Readmore’s members unfroze. Readmore tells his members about the trouble he was in with the Giant in the story, but they believed he was visualizing like the characters in the story. After Kitty, Ol' Tome, and Wordsy left the Book Club, Lickety becomes interested about the villain in the story and borrows the story in favor, acknowledging the fairytale aspects.

## Voice Cast

* Lucille Theresa Bliss - Lickety Page, Jack's Mother, Hen
* Stan Jones - Ol' Tome Cat, Jack
* Ilene Latter - Kitty Literature, Giant's Wife, The Harp
* Neil Ross - Cap'n O. G. Readmore
* Will Ryan - Wordsy, Humpty Dumpty
* Hal Smith - The Giant

## Home Media

*Cap'n O. G. Readmore's Jack and the Beanstalk* was released on VHS by Beacon Home Video in 1990, and again by ABC Kids Video in 1993, which the copies are extremely rare and very difficult to find. It was released on VHS in United Kingdom by Abby Home Video in 1990. Abby Home Video also did a double feature with *Cap'n O. G. Readmore's Puss in Boots* during the same period. Several years later in South Korea, DVD copies of this special were marketed.

## Trivia

* Pinocchio, appears in a background with the other fairytale characters, resembles much closer to the character from the 1940 Disney film.
* Little Red Riding Hood (with a much lesser look) makes a couple background appearances in this episode. The character was yet to have an official screen role until the third *Readmore* episode (with a fuller character design).

## Morality

This episode has a lesson involving "If it’s not broke, don’t fix it", as it focused on Cap'n O. G. Readmore getting into trouble by The Giant and Jack's Mother, as well as damaging the goods if anyone ever changed  *Jack and the Beanstalk*. There are other story changes as some have gained controversy, like most notably the notorious live action adaptation of *Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat*, which was filled with kid-unfriendly contents as the company faced consequences by Audrey Geisel (Dr. Seuss' late widow) and vowed all film makers never to make anymore live action adaptations of her late husband’s work.