Every once in a while I get the urge to poke around Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg’s book, The Book of Ratings: Opinions, Grades, and Assessments of Everything Worth Thinking About. So many of those lists have really funny things in them, while taking categories of items and rating and grading them. Here’s an example:

The Seven Dwarves

Grumpy:
There seems to be a rule that every group of lovable anthropoids has to have a troubled brooder. Sesame Street has Oscar, Winnie-the-Pooh has Eeyore, the Smurfs–I apologize for knowing this–have Grouchy, and the Seven Dwarves have Grumpy. I suppose, if you get right down to it, this trend was started by the Apostles. It’s hard to imagine Grumpy leading the Pharisees to Snow White for thirty pieces of silver, then hanging himself at a crossroads, but it’s worth the effort. C

Doc:
Poor Doc, doomed forever to be a noun dwarf among adjective dwarves. I wonder how he got the name. Is it just that he’s the smartest one (not that any of them come across as Rhodes scholars) or does he have some sort of fantasy medical degree? Either way, it didn’t help him when Snow White literally bit the big one. If only he had read “Osculatory Revivification in Cases of Enchanted Narcolepsy” in the prestigious Journal of Fruit-Borne Curses. C+

Happy:
Happy may have been the most forgettable dwarf of the bunch. I can’t even conjure up his face in my mind, not that I’m complaining. My point is just that they could have saved on the animation budget by doubling up on dwarves. Dopey always seemed pretty happy. Sneezy would have had a good excuse to be grumpy, and if Bashful had been more sleepy, he could have been the dwarven Brian Wilson. Or maybe they should have just had one named Bipolar Hypochondriac and called it Snow White and a Dwarf. Catchy! C-

Bashful:
Bashful of what? He sleeps in a single room with six other guys he’s known for a couple centuries, if I know my fantasy dwarf life spans. You’d think in that time he’d have managed to loosen up a little. Sure, I can see how having a virgin princess move in would make him a bit tongue-tied with pent-up ardor, but he already had the name. D

Dopey:
Dopey is the only bald, beardless, mute dwarf in the bunch. I’m not sure what that indicates. Maybe he’s the dwarf equivalent of a toddler, in which case they’re kind of jumping to label the guy, or maybe it’s some sort of disorder in his animated chromosomes, in which case the name Dopey is kind of callous but rolls off the tongue better than Developmentally Disabledy. B-

Sneezy:
At this point I have to wonder how the whole dwarf-naming process goes. Was Sneezy called Sneezy from birth, or was he known as Wrinkled Diaper-Filler until his personal quirk became evident? If he started taking steroid inhalants for his allergies, would he have to change his name to Healthy or would he bear the traces of his former affliction forever? C

Sleepy:
I sympathize with Sleepy. I enjoy the sleep. I expect he had the weightiest cross to bear of all his, um, brothers? Cousins? Kin. It’s hard enough being sleepy, but being a sleepy miner must be a really tough gig. Not only do you have to get up early and work hard, but if you hit a pocket of poison gas, everyone will just think you’re passed out on the job again. I’m surprised he lived through the picture. A

Current music: Planet of the Apes (1968) – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack