Looking for a tape that`s good, clean fun for your kids? Try Hank.
Hank is the self-proclaimed ”chief of ranch security” at a Texas spread. And he`s a cowdog.
This mutt in disguise is adorably pretentious, frequently fumbling yet never knowing it. Dogdom`s Don Quixote. Nothing escapes his steely gaze-except, perhaps, the perfectly obvious.
The author-and prime reader-is John R. Erickson, a former cowboy and theologian. Various family members provide other voices.
Erickson originally included Hank as a secondary character in a novel, but when Hank`s fan mail started outnumbering Erickson`s, he made Hank the top dog of his own superbly lighthearted stories.
In the audio versions, Erickson gives Hank a voice with a detective undertone-a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Max Smart of TV`s ”Get Smart.” Hank`s personality is a cross between the two as well.
He frequently makes up words, at one point giving a gate a ”sniffatory analysis.”
He delivers malapropisms-for instance, giving something not his emphatic, but his ”lymphatic” approval-with all the self-assurance, all the gravity, all the dignity of a self-important professor, never suspecting that listeners might be laughing at him.
Or he`ll come out with a humorously wrong saying-”A yard without a dog is like a house without a home.”
Hank has been the hero of 18 ingenious, witty adventures, presented both as books and as unabridged audios.
In the latest, ”The Case of the Hooking Bull” (3 hours, $15.95), Hank deviously slurps strawberry ice cream, gets a stomach ache, goes for a space ride (sort of), throws up, is scared by the couch monster, gets mauled by a bull, is left to fend for himself in the far pasture and, finally, is saved.
Other characters include Hank`s sidekick, Drover, an engagingly goofy dumdum who ”never” catches on. Then there`s ranch mistress Sally May, who screams when Hank licks her ankle and throws rocks at him when he comes into the yard.
The audio versions have twangy background music and a charming array of sound effects: bull snorts, dog slurps, cowboy grunts, splashing water, squealing tires, and yelps and barks.
The only thing I didn`t like–but mauybe kids do–was Little Alfred, who was too cutesy. At age 6, he`s old enough to pronounce his wrds correctly instead of substituting ”w`s” for ”l`s” and ”r`s,” as in ”wet`s go inside.”
Even at that, though, the whole tape is–dare I say it?–a howl. It`s not just for kids; I enjoyed it all by my 40-year-old self. But Hank has inspired by generosity. Guess I`ll share him with my little nephews.
