Living Gods & Small Beasts

Lots of context, by request. Trying to keep it short, and will link to more substantial information if available. Note that I do not actually believe the later more bonkers claims. LEVEL 1 Picture: Moomintroll is descending, both literally and figuratively, from the Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My (1952) Tove Jansson is a lesbian: Only news from the lens of heteronormativity. Moominpappa’s rifle: Moominpappa has a rifle, it’s in lots of adaptations. Snork: Moomintroll was originally referred to as a snork in pre-book illustrations. Moomin Day mug: Controversial marketing ploy hyping up a one-day exclusive Moomin mug (August 9th 2018) that could not possibly meet the demand and left most people disappointed. Whiskey: Children’s media content standards are different across cultures and time periods, whiskey appearing in a lot of stories is amusing in itself. The Moomin’s and the Great Flood: The first Moomin story, was out-of-print and untranslated for decades. For many generations, this was the forbidden Moomin holy grail, today it’s mundane. Alice is an OC: Prominent character from the 90′s anime that was created for that show. Outlier in an otherwise fairly faithful adaptation. “Little My“ is a pun: The lower-case “little“ letter μ from the Greek alphabet, pronounced “my“, is scientifically used to signify a micro-unit. The name follows the naming convention of the Mymble family, and originally Little My was so small she could only be seen through a magnifying lens. Mymble family tree: Reveals that Little My and Snufkin are related. Moomin x Snufkin: OTP Joxter: More obscure Snufkin for contrarians. LEVEL 2 Picture: Moomintroll’s looking inside his removed costume head from episode 2 of the 1969 television series. Manhattan Dynamite: Moonshine by Moominpappa and Stinky, drink at your own risk. Fazer mug: Extremely limited Moomin mug from 2004 that’s ridiculously valuable today. Skurken i Muminhuset: Final Moomin picture book from 1980, never published in English. Moomin Voices: Album from 2003 featuring modern adaptations of songs by Tove Jansson and Erna Taura. Garm: Magazine Tove Jansson illustrated for prior to her Moomin stories, the character would appear lots of time within said illustrations. Sniff family tree: Unclear family relations, several missing people, Muddler has several sons? Visor från Mumindalen: Songbook compilation of Tove Jansson and Erna Tauro songs. Anime color correction: Western localization of the 90′s anime had faulty color correction that made everything darker. This incidentally made several nighttime scenes scarier as visual information was omitted. The Groke’s tail: Referenced in Who Will Comfort Toffle, but never shown. Decapitation: In both Troll i kulisserna and the 1969 live action series Moomintroll removes his head revealing the actor underneath. Martians: Is there life on Mars? Yes. Moms? Absolutely. Salome in Toffle: Salome and the Hemulen from Moominland Midwinter appear in the illustrations for Who Will Comfort Toffle. Silk Monkey: The kitten from Comet in Moominland was originally a silk monkey, it was changed to a cat in later revisions. Tove Jansson’s father had a pet monkey, which was the inspiration for the character. Moomintroll and the End of the World: Comic strip predating the 1954 ones, published in Ny tid 1948, adaptation of Comet in Moominland. The comet is nuclear annihilation: Very straight-forward interpretation of Comet in Moominland, especially with contemporary context in mind. “Moomintroll“ is a title: Moominpappa was referred to as “Moomintroll” before his son was born. Soviet animation: Shlyapa Volshebnika (1980-83), features very different interpretations of the characters. LEVEL 3 Picture: Diafilm excerpt Moomin’s Tale Japanese Edition: The Sunsoft Gameboy Color game was heavily cut down and edited for its western release. Picture books are canon: The picture books are often treated as side-material to the novels, but when read in release order, they fill in logical gaps like how Little My and the Mymble’s Daughter got to Moominvalley or whatever happened to the character’s that make up the cast for the Dangerous Journey. Balen i Mumindalen: Link Alternative universes: The books and the comic strip are clearly independent of each other. Edward is a kaiju: Big stompy boy. 90′s Moominvalley in November episode: Episode that was likely planned to some extent but ultimately cut. There’s concept art for it here. En gäst: A character only referred to as “A guest“ appears in the credits of the 1973 Christmas calendar. Portrayed as a green-faced lady. Diafilm: Link “Mymla“: Internal slang within Tove’s friendgroup for sexual intercourse, was then used as the name for a character who had so many kids she couldn’t keep count of them all. Silja Line Blues: 1981 song performed by Arja Saijonmaa about taking a Finland-Sweden cruise, lyrics written by Tove Jansson. Armenian short: Փոքրիկ տրոլների կյանքից, obscure 2008 animated short. Moominmamma’s story is inconsistent (Investigate further): Moominmamma telling about the origins of moomintrolls, her own family and Moominpappa differ between books. Could possibly be hiding something sinister. Picassos äventyr: Link Hugo in Christmas calendar: A wooden toy dog decorating the house in the 1973 Christmas calendar show, placed beneath the Fillyjonk painting. Very likely just a resident prop at Sweden’s public service television studio. Later became a beloved side-character in children’s show Björnes magasin produced by the same network. Comparison in link LEVEL 4 Picture: Painting by Tove Jansson, supposedly from the 30s, pre-dating the Moomin stories. Toffle is a Tales from Moominvalley reject: Link Fillyjonk is a WWII widow: Link När parkvakten blev självlysande: Link War episode: Episode of the 1969 anime where Moominvalley goes to war, featuring a tank, supposedly made by Hayao Miyazaki to spite Tove Jansson’s complaints of the series. AB Milda Baby Must: Box contents unknown. Link Disney acquisition: Disney has attempted to buy the Moomin franchise, but the estate is refusing. What happens if they sell it? “The Groke eats people“: Information relayed in the Exploits of Moominpappa, might just be a rumor, implications are none-the-less heavy. Moomin Characters Oy Ltd is a corporate shill: The rights holders to Moomin are only in it for the money. Pair with Disney acquisition. Troll i kulisserna original script: Stage-play that’s super important for the evolution of Moomin. Information on it is incomplete, especially regarding the actual writing. Has been performed again at several points, so the original script should exist somewhere. Full 1978 Fillyjonk film: Only a few scenes exist of this short, they were however uploaded by the Finnish public service network Yle, so it 100% definitely exists in their archive. Link Moomin horror origin: Series of paintings pre-dating the Moomin stories showing dark Moomin characters in unsettling scenarios. See level picture for one such example. Lady of the Cold original illustration: Theoretical illustration of the Lady of the Cold for Moominland Midwinter that was scrapped. Link Mini: Character mentioned in 1980 picture book Skurken i Muminhuset. Flyking-71: Link LEVEL 5 Picture: Set background from Crash depicting the Moominvalley prison Moomin was stolen: Multiple allegations have been thrown at Tove Jansson over the years for stealing the idea of Moomintroll. Quickly gets tinfoily with accounts by somebody who knew somebody. (Will post about this at a later date.) Unpublished Moomin stories: The conclusion that Tove Jansson instead of stopping writing Moomin stories by 1970 actually continued to do so, but having too high of a standard to publish anything. This would be why the Dangerous Journey and Skurken i Muminhuset exists past her “Moomin-retirement”. The Groke is a Finnish government cover-up: The Moomins are only really so popular in Finland to skew accounts of any sightings of the real Groke and making research on the subject harder. Tove Jansson killed Miyazaki’s Pippi Longstocking anime: Because of the troubled relationship between Hayao Miyazaki and Tove Jansson over the 1969 Moomin anime, Tove Jansson would supposedly go on to later advice against Astrid Lindgren (whom she knew personally) letting over the rights for a Pippi Longstocking anime to Miyazaki. Link False Christmas calendar memories: There are multiple accounts of the actors of the 1973 Christmas calendar removing their costume heads in the final episode. This is likely confused with the 1969 live action series that aired four years earlier with start in December. The idea is that people were correct and that there was an extended ending of the show where the actors indeed remove their heads, which would’ve been cut from home media releases. Moominvalley is a cult: Taken the context that the stories are intended to be set in contemporary times with recurring hints of the outside world, it’s peculiar how such a simple and carefree society often portrayed as a paradise can exist sheltered from the rest of the world. In fact, it’s a constant in the stories that the Moomin family are seen as strange in their behavior and worldview. Electric chair: In episode 10 of the 1969 live action series, the King inspects Moominvalley’s prison, which includes an electric chair. Electric in the sense that it’s decorated with lamps, but the implications of this concept existing within the world and that the family were somehow inspired to make one themselves is deeply disturbing. Crash!: Stage-play from 1963 written by Lars Jansson with heavy involvement by Tove Jansson that acts very much as the missing link between Troll in the Wings and the 1969 live action series. Featuring an adult themed story set in Moominvalley, revolving around a prison and not starring any regular Moomin characters. I will make a post about this later, because it’s so obscure with so little related facts, despite it being one of the most interesting Moomin things ever. Lost media is lost for a reason: Personal conviction that the feds are after me for my contributions to Moominology. Every Moomin book is personalized: Tove Janssons’s experimental AI adapts and subtly creates a slightly altered version of the story tailored specifically for you, appealing to you subconsciously in ways you don’t even notice, as well as attempting to mess with you and study how you react to it. Have you ever read someone else’s Moomin book? Have you ever felt like something was just a little bit off? That’s why. That’s how. This is much more than just simple experimentation with procedural generation, however. There are many layers to this, and some of them are more sinister and malicious than others. Moomin is, at its core, an insidious and evil work of human creation.