A notably Zendaya-less Shrek 5 trailer launched this week, leaving fans divided on its new animation style.
But the announcement seems to have brought a bit of Shrek trivia to the fore, too. Recently, an Instagram post showing an edited (and incorrect) page from the book on which the films are based racked up tens of thousands of likes.
Some fans were surprised by the revelation that Shrek was originally a picture book (one much-liked comment reads: “Who else just learned Shrek was based off a book?”).
The story, written by cartoonist William Stieg, does not actually include the line doctored into the viral image which reads, “Shrek decided to marry whatever this thing is. No priest would officiate because God hated Shrek for being alive, so they used a crocodile”.
It’s a bit of a baffling troll, considering how incredibly, skin-crawlingly weird the book (to which the post’s illustration does actually belong) is.
For instance, Shrek! the picture book does actually include lines like “Your horny warts… thrill me” and (my personal favourite): “Shrek popped his eyes, opened his trap, and bellowed a blast of fire. The knight, red-hot, dove into the stagnant moat.”
I mean, Shrek literally eats lightning in the book – he “gobbled it, belched some smoke, and grinned”.
He also cooks a peasant’s pheasant (try saying that five times fast) with his eyes and is told he’ll meet a princess by a bat-cooking witch.
“Any snake dumb enough to bite him instantly got convulsions and died,” the intro, in which Shrek is kicked out of his parents’ home, begins. He had been born in a “black hole”, we learn.
And while there is a donkey and a dragon in the book, the donkey takes Shrek to his “repulsive princess” after the ogre utters the magic spell “apple strudel”. The titular character knocks the (male) dragon out with a “putrid blue flame” long before the two ever meet.
The character that inspired Cameron Diaz’s Fiona, meanwhile, is never beautiful in the original: from the start, Shrek is smitten by her “stunningly ugly” looks.
Another possible viral Shrek myth? A Facebook post suggested that the character was based off of Maurice Tillet, a French-Russian wrestler from the ’40s.
There are some physical similarities. But fact-checking site Snopes said they couldn’t find any evidence to suggest this was actually true and zero reports of Shrek! author William Steig naming Tillet as his inspiration. Snopes has since called the rumour “unfounded”.
They also contacted DreamWorks about the claim and don’t seem to have heard back.