Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

For the 2009 film based on the book, see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (film).

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Author(s)	Judi Barrett
Illustrator	Ron Barrett
Country	United States
Genre(s)	Children's picture book
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	1978
ISBN	0-689-30647-4

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a British children's book written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett. It was first published in 1978 by the Simon & Schuster imprint Atheneum Books, followed by a 1982 trade paperback edition from sister company Aladdin Paperbacks. A sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh, was published in 2000 by Atheneum Books; a hardcover edition followed in 2009.

Plot

The book is about a story that a kindly and elderly grandfather tells to his grandchildren about the town of Chewandswallow, where the weather comes three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and is always food and beverages. The rain is juice and soup, the snow is ice cream, and the wind brings hamburgers. Because of this phenomenon, there are no grocery stores. However, the weather soon takes a turn for the worse, at first simply just giving the people disgusting things, like pea soup fog, soggy green beans and Brussels sprout cakes. However, it quickly becomes catastrophic, and the portion sizes of the food grow to massive sizes, and the entire island is bombarded with a severe amount of food that completely buries buildings, crushes homes and blocks traffic. The people decide to use stale bread and pizza to build boats to escape from Chewandswallow, while they still have a chance before the weather completely destroys the island. Soon, the population of Chewandswallow arrive in a new town, where they struggle to adapt to their new lives in the world where the sky doesn't bring food.

Sequel

The follow up of the story, Pickles to Pittsburgh, tells of the kids receiving a postcard from their grandfather, who claims to be visiting the ruins of what was once the fabled town of Chewandswallow. The kids then go to sleep and dream that they are there with him, helping to rebuild the post-apocalyptic landscape and restore it to where it is livable again, as well as giving the massive amounts of food away to poverty-stricken developing nations and homeless shelters around the world. This proves to be difficult, as there could be more food storms on the way.

Film adaptation

Main article: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (film)

On September 18, 2009, Sony Pictures Animation released an animated film adaptation of the book, and the DVD was released on January 5, 2010. A new cast of characters were created for plot development, while the synopsis was changed from food falling from skies to being made from a machine. Bill Hader and Anna Faris provided the voices of the two lead characters. Hader voices Flint Lockwood, "a young inventor who dreams of creating something that will improve everyone's life." Faris provides the voice for Sam Sparks, "a weathergirl covering the caution who hides her intelligence behind a perky exterior." James Caan, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Al Roker, Lauren Graham, and Will Forte are also on the voice cast. Co-writers and co-directors Philip Lord and Chris Miller said that it would be a homage to, and a parody of, disaster movies such as Twister, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012.

Game

Main article: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (video game)

In conjunction with the September 18, 2009 film release, Ubisoft released a game for Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and PSP, as well as a stereoscopic online mini game.