Local Cow Makes Good

An adapted Memphis fable is now on video.

by John Branston

larabell the Christmas Cow has become a cash cow.
Twenty-one years after the children’s story of the cow that wanted to be one of Santa’s reindeer hit the pages of The Commercial Appeal under the late Dan Henderson’s byline, she’s about to hit the big time. Only now her name is Annabelle, and she’s no longer in the stable of the CA or its parent company, E.W. Scripps.
Annabelle’s Wish is scheduled to be broadcast nationwide at 6 p.m. November 30th, on Fox Television Network (WHBQ-TV Channel 13), between pro football and The Simpsons. There are songs by Randy Travis and Dolly Parton, and the voices of the animated characters are provided by the likes of Cloris Leachman, Jerry Van Dyke, and Jim Varney. The video version of Annabelle is in Blockbuster stores, and an Annabelle’s Wish float will be on display in this week’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before a live audience of New Yorkers and millions of television viewers.
Holy cow! All this attention for a simple story that was recycled each year for two decades by various sections of the CA, accompanied by a single color illustration?
In a word, yes. And that has the CA and Scripps a bit concerned. Those companies are not exactly innocents when it comes to the commercial possibilities of cartoon characters. Through its United Media subsidiary, Scripps is proprietor of the Peanuts cast and Dilbert, who is featured on the cover of the 1996 annual report. United Media’s licensing revenues totaled $54 million in 1996. the CA is no slouch either. A few years ago, a giant Garfield was a holiday fixture atop 495 Union Avenue.
But somehow Clarabell the Christmas Cow got away and reemerged as Annabelle the Christmas hype.
Henderson, who died of a heart attack in 1991 at the age of 38, wrote the story of Clarabell the cow for the CA’s now-defunct Mid-South magazine in 1976. Clarabell is a Jersey calf who wishes to be one of Santa’s reindeer but sacrifices her wish to help a mute little boy to talk instead.
CA managing editor Henry Stokes said it was former editor Mike Grehl’s idea to have Henderson write a Christmas story. Henderson drew upon his own experience growing up on a farm in West Tennessee. The story was a local hit, but, ironically, Henderson’s outside writing interest was science fiction, not children’s books. He wrote no Clarabell sequels, although his one-hit wonder was reprinted annually until a few years ago – a rare honor for any piece of journalism.
But you can’t keep a good cow down.
George Larrimore, a former Memphian who knew Henderson casually when they were both students at the University of Memphis, was a Clarabell fan.
“Every year I read the story, and every year I cried,” said Larrimore, 49, who is now media director for Ralph Edwards Films in Los Angeles. “When I moved to Los Angeles in 1984, I called Dan and told him I wanted to make Clarabell into a movie or TV show or something.”
Larrimore “cranked out a script” and took it around to various production companies, getting shot down several times. Finally he got an enthusiastic response at Ralph Edwards Productions, headed by the man who hosted the television show This Is Your Life in the 1950s. The story went into development in 1988.
The copyright on the screenplay was owned by Larrimore and Henderson. Before Clarabell became famous, no one was likely to question that. But when Clarabell morphed into Annabelle – Larrimore says the name was changed because there was a cow named Clarabell in some old Walt Disney cartoons – and Annabelle was backed by a reported $15 million in marketing muscle, Stokes began doing a little bovine research.
“I don’t know that we don’t own the rights,” he said last week. “Newspapers back then were a lot less careful about copyright rights. We actually did file copyrights a few years later. But there was no copyright on the original story, and it might be problematic whether we could actually claim ownership.”
It appears that the CA and Scripps will not attempt to rain on Clarabell/Annabelle’s parade with a Scrooge-like lawsuit or request for an injunction.
“It’s a great story, and Dan put so much into it,” said Stokes, a former colleague of Henderson. A spokesman for Scripps in Cincinnati deferred to Stokes but added that she was enjoying the set of antlers that came with the press kit.
As is not uncommon with broadcast and movie scripts, Henderson’s story and his and Larrimore’s screenplay got a pretty good working-over between 1988 and 1997. No less than 14 writers are credited. A credit in the film reads “Based on a short story by Dan Henderson.” The middle of the story is new, but the beginning and ending are basically the ones known so well to CA readers.
“We just feel great about it,” said Roy Henderson, Dan’s father. “I think Dan would be happy with it.” n

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