SHREK WEEK 2022: DAY 1
By Joseph Lavers
Good morning 🐣
I’ve heard people talking about this event my whole life: One week, every summer, devoted to a misunderstood monster that we all ignorantly assumed was just some mindless killing machine.
I’ve never felt like participating until now, so I’m a little nervous. I’ve been preparing myself for months actually, trying to create for you, my faithful readers, the best content possible. But silly me realized late last night that they’ve actually been talking about SHARK WEEK this whole time and not SHREK WEEK. To spare myself the pain of throwing away all this hard work, I’m sticking to it. Always own your mistakes.
Prepare yourselves for FIVE STRAIGHT DAYS of Shrek content. I’ll probably lose half my subscribers because of this but fukkem they never deserved it anyway. You’re the real ones.
If it’s been a while since you last saw 2001’s “Shrek” (available for purchase because why would you only stream it?), the film follows this basic conceit:
A knight and his trusty steed rescue a princess from a high tower that’s guarded by a dragon. They all live happily ever after.
Sound familiar?
Except in this case the knight is an ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) who just wants to live alone in his swamp, his trusty steed is an annoying talking donkey (Eddie Murphy), and together they’ve been enlisted to find a wife (Cameron Diaz) for the cruel Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow), who tortures fairytale creatures in his reign of terror.
There are also a bunch of fart jokes. Except they’re not really jokes. They’re just farts.
It’s an important contribution to cinema.
It all started with a children’s book by William Steig back in 1990, which spawned four feature films, a spin-off movie and TV show starring Puss in Boots, holiday specials, video games, theme park attractions, and a Broadway musical.
The five-film franchise alone has accumulated $3.5 billion on a combined budget of $665 million. Who knows how much more cash has been added to the pile with the assorted spin-offs. There’s even a second Puss in Boots movie coming out later this year.
But most importantly the Shrek Saga is a tale of companionship, embracing one’s suppressed inner self, and irreverence to those in power. All week we’ll be joining together in Shrek’s, Fiona’s, and Donkey’s journey, so be sure to check your email every day until Friday.
Grab onto your Shrekticles ’cause we’re about to get Shrekked!
IT’S SHREK WEEK, BABY! LET’S GO!