Muzzy
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Muzzy is a set of educational videos used to teach foreign languages. The videos are distributed by Early Advantage, a subsidiary of the BBC, in two installments, Muzzy and Muzzy II, with the latter being more advanced. Currently, Muzzy is used to teach Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Gaelic, Italian, Esperanto, and English.
[edit] Characters
Muzzy is the main character of the videos, a friendly clock-eating monster. The stories are set in the kingdom of Gondoland, where Muzzy lands in his spaceship. Inhabitants of Gondoland include the royal family, who are lions: the King, the Queen, and their daughter Sylvia; Bob, their gardener; Corvax, an evil scientist; and, later in the set, Amanda, the daughter of Bob and Princess Sylvia. Most other characters are dogs. The main storylines are often interrupted by educational interludes, animated in a different style and featuring a cyclist character named Norman who explains grammar. The names of some of the characters and places are changed in each version to fit in with the language (i.e. Norman becomes Carlos for the Spanish version, Bob becomes Jean for the French version, etc.).
[edit] Story
In the first film, Bob falls in love and runs away with Princess Sylvia on his motorbike. He is thrown in prison on charges of kidnapping, where he meets Muzzy, jailed for eating parking meters while hungry, in his cell. Muzzy eats the bars of the prison cell, and they escape. While they are escaping, Corvax, also in love with the princess, uses his computer to clone her, which ends unsuccessfully, because the clones hate him as much as the original did. In the sequel, as Muzzy revisits Gondoland for his birthday party, Corvax, now head chef, assisted by a convicted felon, Thimbo, kidnaps Amanda with plans to make her queen as part of their new kingdom.
[edit] Other uses
- "Muzzy" has also been used as a slang term, a shortening of the word "Muslim" to indicate, often in a derogatory way, anyone who does have -- or looks to have -- any kind of Arab or Middle Eastern background. This term is more common in England, which has a much more noticeable Muslim presence, than in the United States, where it has been widely used only in northeastern Connecticut and some parts of New England. (See "muzzy" in Urban Dictionary)
