with
Hans Christian Andersen
by
Gail Skroback Hennessey
with permission from
Mark Goodson Productions
Host: Today’s guest is Hans Christian Andersen. Only one of the three on the panel is the REAL Hans Christian Andersen The other two are impostors. Your job is to listen carefully to the information presented and decide which of the three guests is the REAL Hans Christian Andersen. Let’s begin by meeting our guests.
HC Andersen 1: Hello, my name is Hans Christian Andersen.
HC Andersen 2: Greetings, I am Denmark ’s most famous writer. My name is Hans Christian Andersen.
HC Andersen 3: Good Day to you students. Although in Denmark I’m usually known as HC Andersen, you will know me best as Hans Christian Andersen.
Host: Let me read this brief summary on Hans Christian Andersen.
I, Hans Christian Andersen, was born in 1805 in the city of Odense . Denmark . My dad was a shoemaker and my mom washed clothes. We were very poor . As a boy, I remembered singing and reciting my poetry to anyone that would listen to me. I left home at about the age of 14 to seek a job in Denmark ’s capital city of Copenhagen at the Royal Theater. I wanted to be an actor but also loved to write. I went on to write as many as 350 stories in my life including Thumbelina, The Red Shoes, The Little Mermaid , the Princess and the Pea and The Ugly Duckling. I once told my mother that I would become famous. I said, “First you go through terrible suffering, and then you become famous.” That summed up my life. Although I fell in love a couple of times including with the famous Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, for whom my Nightingale story is said to be about, I never married because the woman I loved didn’t love me except as a friend. I died in 1875. Each year, the country of Denmark celebrates “Odin Story Day”, recognizing my birthday.
Signed,
Hans Christian Andersen.
Host: Let’s begin the questioning with Panelist 1:
Your parents were very poor and you lived in a small one roomed house. Your mom tried to make it bright and cheery with curtains and flowers . There were pictures on the wall and a beautiful landscape painted on the door. You grew up to use this room for the settings for some of your stories. It is said that you stared at the landscape painting on the door before going to sleep and that it gave you good dreams. Do you have any other memories as a child?
HC Andersen 1: I was very tall and skinny. I didn’t have many friends. The other neighborhood children called me names like “scarecrow” because of my blond hair, big hands and feet.
HC Andersen 2: As HC Andersen 1 already stated, other children seemed to like to tease me and one day I was running away from some bullies and to get away from them, climbed a tree. Unfortunately, when I tried to get down, I was very tangled and was stuck! Someone told my dad where I was and he had to come and get me down!
HC Andersen 3: I didn’t have any friends and spent my time daydreaming about all sorts of things. I especially enjoyed my puppet theater which was my favorite childhood toy. I had several puppets which I would make up stories to perform. I loved Shakespeare and memorized some of his works to use with my wooden puppets.
Panelist 2: Mr. Andersen, what kind of student were you ?
HC Andersen 1: I really didn’t like school very much. I preferred to daydream. I went to a couple of different schools and didn¹t have a very good experience at any of them. Needless to say, my early education was lacking and I had much difficulty with spelling and grammar.
HC Andersen 2: I was a very good student who loved to read and made the honor roll each marking period. My parents would reward me for my efforts with a trip to McDonald’s which was a real treat!
HC Andersen 3: My parents wanted me to learn a trade such as being a shoemaker like my father or a tailor. I told them I wanted to be a famous actor at the Royal Theater in the capital city of Copenhagen and had no use for learning a trade.
Panelist 3: As a child, your father read from the book A Thousand and One Nights almost every night and your parents saved up all year to take you to a performance at the theater. Helping to pass out the programs, you were thrilled to be allowed to keep the extra ones which helped give you ideas for characters for your puppet theater shows. Any other memories of your parents.
HC Andersen 1: My dad died when I was only about eleven years old. I missed him terribly. I remember he once told my mother , “ No matter what the boy wants to do , even if it’s the silliest thing in the world, let him have his way.”
HC Andersen 2: My parents got me an IPod which I used for my background music when I gave a performance with my puppet theater.
HC Andersen 3: My mother once took me to a fortune teller hoping she¹d talk some sense into me about how difficult my life would be if I didn’t study and learn a trade. Instead, the fortune teller said that I would become a great man and to my honor, the city of Odense would be illuminated one day! The fortune teller confirmed my thoughts that I would be famous one day.
Panelist 4: Hans, you certainly never gave up. When you were told you didn’t have a talent for dancing , you tried singing. When singing didn’t work out , you tried acting. When acting wasn’t your talent, you were determined to write a play. When you were told your spelling and grammar were poor, you went back to school. Your headmaster(principal) was extremely hard on you, calling you “stupid” , making fun of you when you went blank with your lessons and calling you a crybaby when you cried. You were forbidden to write but did it secretly at night, anyway. Despite the harshness of your school , you became one of the best students, even though you got a nosebleed and fainted on the day of your exams! Your first published play was based on your observations around you, people that you saw along your walks, the sounds, the sights of windmills , etc. Tell us about your life as a writer.
HC Andersen 1: I never ran out of ideas for stories. I once said that things like a flower, even a fence were waiting for me to look their way so I could tell their story. A friend joked that I could even write a story about a sewing needle! I did....it was called The Darning Needle which people said was one of my funniest stories.
HC Andersen 2: I wanted to write plays but began writing what I called “trifles”, short fairy tales which I didn¹t consider important works but which could pay my bills. I was surprised when they were met with such praise. People said my narrative way of writing was something young and old could enjoy reading. Some critics said my fairy tales were “too much fun”! Others said that my style wasn¹t writing but talking!
HC Andersen 3: I went on a 747 airplane to the United States and began writing movie scripts of my fairy tales and got eventually got a job working for Walt Disney. Although Walt Disney says he came up with the idea for his famous mouse, Mickey, it was really me who came up with the idea of a cartoon mouse having remembered a tiny mouse which had scurried over my bare feet when I was a very poor boy.
Panelist 5: You fairy tales didn’t always have a happy ending such as the fairy tale called The Little Match Girl. Some of your stories were based on memories of your youth. As a boy, you said that other children teased you and sometimes threw rocks at you. Which story was based on this memory of your childhood?
HC Andersen 1: That would be The Ugly Duckling.
HC Andersen 2: That would be the Emperor's New Suit.
HC Andersen 3: That would be The Little Mermaid(I loved swimming in the river on a purple noodle)
Host : It is now time for the panelists and members of our audience to decide who is the REAL Hans Christian Andersen . Is it number 1? Is it number ? Is it number 3? Alright, the votes have been cast.... Will the REAL Hans Christian Andersen, please stand up?
The REAL HC Andersen is Number 1
Notes: All answers to Panelists 1 are correct. Answers 1/3 to Panelist 2 are correct. Answers 1/3 to Panelist 3 are correct. Answers 1/2 to Panelist 4 are correct.
Sources:
Fairy Tale Life A Story about Hans Christian Andersen by Joann Johansen Burch
Hans Christian Andersen , Fairy Tale Author by Shannon Garst