ARRRRR!’ can mean anything you want it to mean,” says John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Bauer, a founder of the official Talk Like a Pirate Day Web site. “Mostly it means: `I’m here! And I’m alive!'” Adds his partner, Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summer: “It taps into something really old in us, or really young — a piece of us that, evolution-wise, is still grunting. It shows your teeth. It shows your dominance. I think people want that.”
The Tao of “ARRRR!” is the central reason for pirates’ persistence in pop culture over the past century. Johnny Depp’s stinky, slurring Jack Sparrow, in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel, is merely a descendant of such swashbucklers as Errol Flynn, Charles Laughton and Captain McAllister of “The Simpsons.” In real life, of course, pirates were no good at all; from the Vikings after the fall of the Roman empire to the terrifying Blackbeard of the 18th Century, pirates lived on maggot-infested ships, decapitated enemy crews, used women, children and nuns as human shields and, yes, raped and plundered.
Of course, like mobsters, outlaws and “Bonnie and Clyde,” pirates progressed in the public eye from terrifying villains to cuddly rebels. Among the first to create this rebel-chic fiction was Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 classic “Treasure Island,” but the man who defined big-screen pirate culture as we know it was probably Robert Newton, whose depiction of Long John Silver in the 1950 film of the same name gave us “almost everything that people think when they think of what pirates sound like,” Baur says.
“When you look at the golden age of piracy, 1692 to about 1725, pirates were considered what they in fact were — ruthless brigands, murderers, thieves,” says W. Thomas Smith Jr., co-author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pirates.” “Robert Louis Stevenson’s book romanticized pirates and made them very personable. That was taken a step further with the story of ‘Peter Pan,’ where Captain Hook was loosely based on the image of Blackbeard — and as we all know, Blackbeard was a horrible guy.”
So, Mr. Smith, who’s your favorite pirate? “I would have to say, I guess, Blackbeard — it’s kind of fun to read about the really bad. He was so colorful, lighting the fuses with his beard, and there’s the legend of when he was beheaded, the body swam around the ship several times. He was absolutely, utterly fascinating.”
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9 memorable pirate depictions in pop culture
“Pirates of the Caribbean.” Johnny Depp channeled the Rolling Stones’ creaky Keith Richards for his lovable but selfish Jack Sparrow in this 2003 blockbuster — and Richards will return the favor by appearing in Part III, due sometime in 2007. “Jack Sparrow is an amazingly fun depiction — he’s out of control, and yet you know he’s going to come through in the end,” says Summer, of the Talk Like a Pirate Day Web site.
‘Black Pirate.’ “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski’s favorite pirate film is this 1926 silent movie, starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as an early action-movie hero. He plays a young man who watches pirates kill his father on a ship, then becomes a sort of Batman, joining the pirates purely for revenge. With his sail-riding, ship-jumping battle stunts, Fairbanks defined pirate-movie action scenes for years to come.
‘Captain Blood.’ Nothing says “swashbuckling” like “Errol Flynn” — the dashing Tasmanian actor, then an unknown, stepped in for ailing “The Count of Monte Cristo” star Robert Donat at the last minute (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Flynn’s 1935 portrayal of a doctor who responds to his unjust Caribbean enslavement by becoming a pirate turned him into an instant star, one of the hunkiest actors in movie history. He’d portray pirates several more times.
‘The Sea Hawk.’ Another Errol Flynn pirate classic, 1940’s “The Sea Hawk” is about a dashing (of course) English pirate who struggles for the affection of an ambassador’s niece. She doesn’t like him, though, because, well, he’s a pirate.
‘Treasure Island.’ Orson Welles, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance and Tim Curry (in “Muppets Treasure Island,” of course) have taken a whack at Long John Silver in the Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation, but none have made him sing quite like the raspy Robert Newton. In Walt Disney’s first-ever live-action movie, which came out in 1950, Newton’s Long John even has a parrot that declares, “Pieces of eight!”
‘Peter Pan.’ Peter, the Darlings, the Lost Boys and Tinker Bell are ostensibly the stars of this 1953 animated Disney classic, but Captain Hook steals the show every time. With his impressive plumed hat, pointy mustache, gigantic chin and fear of ticking crocodiles, he is both terrifying and absolutely silly.
‘Pirates of Penzance.’ An American classic, this Gilbert and Sullivan musical predated “Treasure Island” (the book) by four years, and never seems to go away — a young Kevin Kline played the Pirate King in a 1980 Broadway production. The best thing about it is the reason Frederic the orphan winds up in the pirates’ care in the first place — a nurse mishears his father, who wants him to become a pilot.
‘Saturday Night Live.’ of Jan. 21, 2006, with host Peter Sarsgaard. Boisterous pirates invite the confused actor to speak at their convention, only to interrupt him with incomprehensible shouts every time he says his name. Finally he realizes they’ve only invited him because he has so many “AR!” sounds in his name.
‘The Simpsons.’According to The Simpsons Archive (snpp.com), Captain McAllister has said “Arrr!” 38 times, “yar!” (for “yes) 22 times, “har!” (for laughing) nine times and “so I says to me bostens, `batten down the missenmast, Matees!'” once. It’s funny every time.
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ctc-arts@tribune.com
