Literature / Funny Bones

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Funny Bones is a children's book series by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, a particularly noted British author-illustrator duo, with the first book published in 1980. In contrast to Burglar Bill, the books were not in fact illustrated by either of them but by another artist named Andre Amstutz, who had previously worked as an animator and had served in the army during the Second World War.

The premise of the books concerns a pair of friendly skeletons and their dog skeleton as they get up to various adventures in their town in the dead of night, while the human characters are still asleep. They all reside together in a "dark, dark" cellar, in a "dark, dark" house, in a "dark, dark" street.

The books were subsequently adapted into a television series in 1992 narrated by Griff Rhys Jones and also received an audio adaptation in 2016 narrated by British actor Stephen Mangan. The audio adaptation is perhaps notable in that it includes sound effects and music which are played in the background of Mangan's narration.

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This series provides examples of the following tropes:

• Always Night: The series is always set at night, which is justified as that is the time when the skeletons and all other supernatural beings in this setting are active. Consequently, no human characters appear, save for one scene in the first book where the Big Skeleton and Little Skeleton infiltrate the police station.
• Arc Words: The repeated usage of the words "dark, dark" when being used to refer to certain items and places, e.g. "In a dark, dark town, there is a dark, dark station, and in the dark, dark station, there is a ghost train."
• Beach Episode: The book Ghost Train has the skeletons embark aboard the eponymous vehicle in order to go to the seaside.
• Beauty Contest: In Ghost Train, the skeletons watch the monsters holding a beauty contest during their night out (since the series takes place during the evening) at the beach.
• Bedsheet Ghost: This is how ghosts are portrayed in the world of the series.
• Benevolent Monsters: The skeletons do try to scare people but when they find that the streets are devoid of human life, they end up scaring each other instead. Monsters also exist within this series' universe, alongside other supernatural creatures like witches.
• British Brevity: It only produced one season of twelve episodes, nine of which were based on the books in the series.
• The Bus Came Back: The black cat from the eponymous book makes a return in Give the Dog a Bone.
• Canine Loyalty: The dog skeleton is incredibly loyal to the big and little skeleton, and doesn't even hold a grudge against them for selling him in The Pet Shop.
• Catchphrase: "Good Idea!" Big usually responds.
  • "Woof" and "Meow" from Dog & Cat respectively due to their Animal Stereotypes.
• Cats Are Magic: The black cat which appears in the book The Black Cat apparently knows that the skeletons are living beings and apparently isn't spooked by them. As it turns out, the reason she keeps popping up when they're toboganning is because she enjoys being chased by the dog skeleton.
• Cold Snap: The book The Black Cat (adapted into the episode Cat Chase) takes place during winter, and concerns the skeletons as they go sledding, accidentally breaking themselves apart and having to dig through the snow to find their missing limbs. All of this occurs while they're hounded by a mysterious black cat.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Dog is usually referred that way. Same with Cat.
• Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: Hilariously subverted in the book version of Ghost Train where the big and little skeletons are holding a conversation with a monster mother and child on the eponymous train. The little skeleton asks whether the child believes in monsters, to which the child responds, "No!"
• Fowl-Mouthed Parrot: One of the reasons the skeletons decide not to keep the parrot in the book The Pet Shop is because he keeps insulting them with all manner of derisive monickers.
• Friendly Ghost: All the ghosts in this universe tend to be this.
• Friendly Skeleton: The main cast of the books and show are these. There are other friendly skeleton characters in the series as well, among the other supernatural entities which exist within the series' world. As you can imagine, a lot of humour is found in the series from the skeletons falling apart whenever they, for example, go sledding or play in the park.
• Funetik Aksent: Not in the book itself, but in The Pet Shop, Stephen Mangan voices the pet shop owner with an Italian accent.
• Ghostly Animals: The dog-skeleton is a variation on this trope, albeit a skeletal one which was created thirteen years before Zero and twenty-five years before Scraps. He doesn't count as an example of Raising the Steaks given that he does not have any flesh on his body, but is still a very nice chap and, as to be expected, a dedicated and loyal pet.
• Ghost Pirate: In Skeleton Crew, the skeletons encounter skeletal pirates who end up robbing them, as can be expected. In the audio recording by Stephen Mangan, the pirate captain is shown speaking in a very stereotypical pirate accent reminiscent of Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver.
• Ghost Town: The ghost train's destination is a town by the name of Ghost-Town-by-the-Sea, which is modelled on real-life British seaside towns like Southend-on-Sea.
• Ghost Train: In one of the books, the protagonists ride on one, complete with a Bedsheet Ghost as the driver. He often asks people whether they believe in ghosts as a prerequisite for allowing them to board the train, and he ends the book asking the reader if they would like a ride.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Dr Bones accidentally destroys himself by tapping on the skull of one of his patients and has to send for his wife, who is apparently just as much of a skilled medic as he is.
• Horrifying the Horror: In the book Ghost Train, on their way back from Ghost-Town-by-the-Sea, the skeletons accidentally wake up a human baby after looking at it through a window and, terrified, run all the way back to their cellar home, while the mother comforts the terrified child.
• King Kong Copy: The Trope Namer himself appears — and is explicitly identified as such — in the book Skeleton Crew. Interestingly, he doesn't appear to be as overwhelmingly tall as he is in canon.
• Loyal Animal Companion: The dog skeleton is this trope, plain and simple.
• Make a Wish: The episode Wishbone (which, incidentally, isn't based on any of the books in the series) features the skeletons using a giant wishbone to make various wishes like going to the moon, being kings, being famous musicians, et cetera.
• The Man in the Moon: He appears at the beginning of every episode, functioning as the series' narrator.
• Meaningful Name: Mr Bonehead and Dr Bones have these kinds of names, considering that they're skeletons. Doubles as Species Surname, if we count skeletons as a species at all.
• Medium Blending: The series' narrative style incorporates elements of comic strips, with some of the characters' dialogue being rendered in speech balloons. The book Give the Dog a Bone is especially notable in that it alternates between narrative prose and rhyming verse, creating a playful mixture of each. The book The Pet Shop is noteworthy in that its prose is often interrupted by animal noises, usually from the dog skeleton or the animals in the pet shop.
• Minimalist Cast: In the first book, the three main characters are the only ones that make an appearance. The policeman briefly appears, but he is only shown in silhouette, fast asleep.
• Mirror Character: The big and little skeletons are, of course, mirrors of each other, similar and yet different. Their duality is epitomised by the fact that they often tend to agree with each other about certain things.
• Named by the Adaptation: Mr Bonehead is unnamed in the original book The Pet Shop. He was given his name in the television series.
• No Name Given: Neither the Big or Little skeleton are given actual names. After all, they're the Big and Little Skeletons. Why would they need names, as well?
• One-Hour Work Week: It's not really made clear what our protagonists do for a living other than scaring people. They don't appear to need to work at all, for the most part. Averted with Mr Bonehead and Dr Bones, who have jobs.
• Our Zombies Are Different: It's unexplained as to what the skeletons actually are, whether they are indeed this trope or just skeletons of human beings which happen to be alive.
• Reconstruct the Remains: In Give the Dog a Bone, when the dog skeleton trips and ends up as a pile of bones, the big skeleton and the little skeleton have great difficulty putting him back together. At first, he ends up the wrong way round, and says "Foow!". They eventually put him right. They also reconstruct the dog in the first book when he falls apart, albeit much more successfully.
  • The fact that the two main skeletons have to keep doing this every time they fall apart is a Running Gag throughout the books.
• Russian Reversal: In one book, the characters keep getting into clumsy accidents and sending for the local medic, Dr Bones. However, once they have had one too many accidents, Dr Bones sends for them.
• Shout-Out:
  • During the book Bumps in the Night, while playing football in the park, the skeletons sing a mocking rendition of the classic song "Dem Bones." In the first book, they sing a more word-for-word rendition of the song when reconstructing the dog skeleton.
  • During the events of Skeleton Crew, one of the pirates says "That's a nice oar! I'll have that!", a nod to the Ahlbergs' previous work Burglar Bill.
• The Show of the Books: It ended up receiving one. As was common for British children's television series of the time which were adaptations of children's books, the series is one-to-one faithful to the style and narratives of the books. That said, it didn't follow the books' original publication order, with the events of the first book ending up being the series' final episode and subsequently retitled Fright Night. While they mostly adapted the books, three of the episodes contain original material.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The series has an entire cast of these, from the ghosts that run the ghost train to the monsters that lurk around every corner of the town to the skeletons themselves. However, what they refer to as "bumps in the night" is really their local vernacular way of saying "clumsy accidents" rather than making scary noises.
• Timmy in a Well: In the television adaptation of Bumps in the Night, when Big and Little have an accident at the theme park, they send the dog skeleton to fetch Dr Bones.
• Troublemaking New Pet: In the book The Pet Shop, Little and Big Skeleton decide to sell their dog in order to acquire another pet on account of the fact that all he does is bark and dig holes. After purchasing an assortment of skeletal animals, they find that they cause nothing but trouble, so they end up having to purchase the dog back.
• Vacation Episode: The book Skeleton Crew concerns the skeletons going on holiday in a little ship of their own. They end up encountering all sorts of dangers, such as pirates and King Kong himself.
• Wainscot Society: The book series appears to be set in a hidden society of supernatural creatures, which overlaps with and yet is separate from the mundane world of humans.
• Witch Classic: A witch can be seen in Ghost Train, enjoying an ice cream.

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