“Always be kind to your pets: or look what can happen!”
Pat the Beastie is a pop-up picture book that was made in 1993 and was written by Henrik Drescher and is a dark parody of Dorothy Kunhardt's classic children's book Pat the Bunny.
In this story, Paul and Judy are two children who play mean tricks on their harmless pet Beastie. The Beastie is shown as being a large, green, scaly looking dragon creature. Paul and Judy would play tricks on the beastie that would include "jiggling the Beastie's eyes" and "poking its worm boogers." Meanwhile, a bird and a dog are constantly trying to warn the kids about not torturing the Beastie or else they will have to suffer the consequences.
A sequel was made in 2011 called Love the Beastie.
Pat the Beastie provides examples of the following tropes:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: There is a blue dog and a green bird that appear on each page warning Paul and Judy to not torture the Beastie.
- Asshole Victim: Paul and Judy after they are eaten by the Beastie.
- Black Comedy: Readers are encouraged to play with various body parts on the Beastie such as jiggling his eyes and poking his worm boogers, despite the fact that the Beastie is clearly uncomfortable with all this.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to Dorothy Kunhardt's book Pat the Bunny. The tone is much more mean-spirited, and the book has a Downer Ending.
- Deconstructive Parody: This book is a parody of Dorothy Kunhardt's book Pat the Bunny. However, this book shows the consequences of what would happen if children play too roughly with their pets and how such actions would traumatize their pets.
- Downer Ending: Paul and Judy are eaten by the Beastie at the end of the book. Although it depends on whether or not you think that Paul and Judy deserved their fate at the end of the book.
- Eaten Alive / Swallowed Whole: What became of Paul and Judy after the Beastie ate them at the end of the book.
- Eye Scream: When Paul and Judy "jiggled" the Beastie's eyes.
- Foreshadowing: The scene where the Beastie shows Paul and Judy a book that it made and, in the book, it shows the Beastie chasing Paul and Judy on a hill and then eating them up which ends up happening at the end of the book.
- Fourth-Wall Observer: The dog and the bird would stand on the side pages, commenting on Paul and Judy's actions against the Beastie and letting the reader know that Paul and Judy's actions are wrong.
- Grossout Show: The book focused heavily on Paul and Judy playing with the Beastie's body parts such as jiggling the Beastie's eyes and poking his worm boogers.
- Grotesque Gallery: Most of the characters in this book are drawn in a bizarre way, such as having a dragon like pet and a talking blue dog and green bird on the side pages.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Pets aren't toys and being too rough with them can have very ugly consequences.
- Kids Are Cruel: Paul and Judy constantly torture the Beastie throughout the book.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Paul and Judy ended up getting eaten by the Beastie after they tortured it throughout the book.
- Nightmare Face: The Beastie shows a couple of these whenever it's irritated especially in the scene where it eats Paul and Judy.
- Oh, Crap!: The expression Paul and Judy got when the Beastie ends up eating them.
- Parody: Of Dorothy Kunhardt’s classic Pat the Bunny.
- Sadist Show: Most of the book is spent on Paul and Judy torturing their pet beastie, which culminates into the beastie eating up Paul and Judy at the end of the book.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Even though most of the book is a black comedy, the scene where Paul and Judy are eaten by the Beastie at the end of the book can catch readers off guard.
