Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody by Michael Rex

The six-year-old picked this up from the school library. Aparently this is a parody of Goodnight Moon. Unfortunately, neither I nor the girls knew of this other story, and therefore we didn't read it as a parody. We just read it. And it was just okay. The girls are really into Scooby-doo shows right now, so the illustrations were fun for them. I think if we had known about Goodnight Moon, we may have been more into this book.

I know that my girls love a book called Hush, Little Alien. Jen and I picked it up at a white elephant gift exchange over ten years ago, and the book is about ready to be thrown out because it has been so loved. It is a parody on the folk song Hush, Little Baby. I knew what the original song is, but my girls only know the alien version.

I think the difference between Goodnight Goon and Hush, Little Alien is Hush, Little Alien could stand on its own, whereas Goodnight Goon is really only a good book if you know Goodnight Moon.

My siblings and I are preparing for a family reunion this summer. We had an email chain going about which movies from our childhood we needed to bring and watch. UHF was nominated and seconded by many of us. I shared that Jen and I were recently watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which I had never seen before. While watching, I came across this scene, which is apparently the inspiration for this UHF scene. When Jen and I watched this, it made UHF funnier knowing it was a parody. My brother then reminded me that this same scene from The Treasure of the Sierra Mandre was parodied in the movie Blazing Saddles in this scene.

I guess some parodies can stand on their own, but others need to have the original material known to have the parody appreciated. Goodnight Goon falls into the second category.

Summary: "A young monster says goodnight to all of the other monsters in his bedroom."

Format: paper
Read/don't read: read if you have read Goodnight Moon, otherwise don't read.

You can find this book at Amazon.com here: Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody