Bully for Pollywog

[rj_anderson]

My 3-year old son, whom I like to call Pollywog, is obsessed with bulls.

This is not some fleeting fancy, either. He's been completely bull-crazy for over a year now. Pictures of bulls, plastic bull toys, stories about bulls (and aside from the legendary The Story of Ferdinand, there really aren't too many), cartoons involving bulls (he must have watched "Bully for Bugs" and "Mickey's Rival" about a million times each on YouTube). He calls Cars "the movie with the bull combine". And although he seems to have mostly dropped the habit now, he used to crawl around butting people (gently) with his head and snorting whenever he got the chance.

This is not a hyper-aggressive kid we're talking about, either. For the most part he's gentle and sweet-tempered, amazingly empathetic for his age. But he's also the youngest of my three boys, the oldest of whom (at 8-going-on-12) is literally twice his size. Maybe, I think to myself, imagining himself as a big powerful bull makes him feel less small and vulnerable?

In any case, it's a charming little quirk of his and I don't mind indulging him in it, though I have drawn the line at taking him to Pamplona (I don't think he'd enjoy a real-life bull fight anyway, because the bull doesn't exactly win that battle).

So what I'm wondering is, aside from the aforementioned Ferdinand and Bugs Bunny cartoons, can any of you think of other child-friendly media involving bulls?
--
Bull photo is by Brian Forbes on Flickr and is used in accordance with his Creative Commons license.

Comments

Bulls are cool!

[newport2newport.livejournal.com]

When my son was three years old, he WAS the Red Bull in...what what movie was it? Oh man, I can't remember! But I do remember him wanting to wear--every day--a red t-shirt and red pull-on corduroys.

[tinpra.livejournal.com]

The 90s cartoon The Cowboys of Moo Mesa might work, although I don't remember how bull-ish they seemed. And they're all anthropromorphized, so that may not work for him either, but it's worth a shot.

[dreamerwrites.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can think of is those Bugs Bunny cartoons where he takes a wrong turn in Albuquerque and ends up in the middle of a bullfight :)

[risti.livejournal.com]

My cousin, around that age (as well as younger and older) was obsessed with - wait for it - vacuum cleaners. Like, my aunt tied a string onto an old toy broom or something to try and make him a "toy" vacuum cleaner.

So not much help in suggesting things for the bull obsession (what does he think of Buffalo/Bison? Because they pop up a lot around here - I think they're the semi-official animal of the province), but I wanted to let you know that there are weirder things for a three year old to be obsessed with...

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

That is really, really adorable. :) I love hearing stories about your kids.

[kidalicious.livejournal.com]

There's a Disney movie called Home on the Range that mght work- the heroes are dairy cows, but there are lots of bulls during themovie - not to mention buffalo.

[ewein2412]

ok, you are not going to believe this, but that bull is standing in a field about two miles from my house. I RECOGNIZED THE FIELD and then checked the link.

[sarahsan]

Would Babe the Big Blue Ox be close enough? That's the only famous Bovine I'm really familiar with. ^_^

[the-gentleman.livejournal.com]

Asterix in Spain has lots of bulls, but again, bull-fighting.

[quiller77.livejournal.com]

Sigmund Brouwer had a cute story called "Long Shot" that involved two boys building the world's largest sling shot and a bull. Might be hard to find but it should be out there via interlibrary loan.

books about bulls?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Hi - that is so cute! (And, I think, quite reasonable; why not love bulls?) Anyway, I just checked Novelist, and it seems there is a series of stories by Ann Fine, the Jamie and Angus stories. Jamie is a preschooler and Angus is his toy bull - seems a bit like Calvin and Hobbes, but for a younger audience and with a bull rather than a tiger. It seems that these might work. The reading level given is preschool to 2d grade.

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

Not sure that it counts, but there's that thresher in the movie Cars that's supposed to be a bull. It's a bit of a stretch, though... *g*