Pandemic Travel Tips From Poland’s Beloved ‘Silly Billy-Goat’
More than a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic halted global travel—including my upcoming trip to Poland, the country where my parents were born. Although I managed to get my flight refunded, I was disappointed. So I decided to binge-watch a childhood favourite of mine: ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’, or ‘The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat’.
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Photo of the cover of comic book series ‘120 Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The 120 Adventures of Koziołek Matołek), released in 1932, photo: rep. Dagmara Smola
Film Studio Miniatur – one of Poland’s oldest film studios, founded in 1958 – created the Polish animated children’s cartoon and aired 26 episodes from 1969 to 1971. It was loosely adapted from the comic-book series 120 Przygód Koziołka Matołka (120 Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), created by Kornel Makuszyński and Marian Walentynowicz in the 1930s. Each episode showcases the Silly Billy-Goat, who styles himself with a long beard, red overalls, and bare hooves. He is a Polish goat, coloured like the Polish flag, searching for the Polish town of Pacanów – where it has been speculated that blacksmiths shoe goats. The Silly Billy-Goat plans to acquire his own pair of stylish shoes to show the other goats how well-respected they could be. The show follows the protagonist as he gets lost and wanders through new places and adventures in search of the town.
The series established the Silly Billy-Goat as Poland’s most popular cartoon animal, the Polish equivalent of Mickey Mouse. He travels like Dora the Explorer, but he does not have the luxury of a talking backpack and a monkey to assist him: all he has is a bindle and the bleating language of a goat. The show also features practically no dialogue, like Mr. Bean, making it accessible to a global audience. The Silly Billy-Goat constantly gets lost en route to Pacanów because he doesn’t have any travel experience and doesn’t do any research beforehand. This leads to him going on crazy, fantastical adventures, which send him all over the globe and challenge him to outwit others to continue onward – much like a caprine Odysseus.
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Still from ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), 1969, production: Studio Miniatur Filmowych, photo: INPLUS / East News
The series shows how we need to first ‘travel’ virtually by researching our destinations to make sure our physical travel experience will be pleasant. From today’s perspective, this means staying socially distanced, at least six feet apart, from cultural landmarks in order to respect and preserve them. In Episode 3, Pod Piramidami (Below The Pyramids), the worn-out protagonist ends up catching a ride with a stork who drops him off at the Egyptian pyramids, where he continues his journey to Pacanów. The Great Sphinx of Giza laughs at the Silly Billy-Goat’s landing, so our hero mocks the sphinx, who throws him inside of a pyramid. The goat has never seen the pyramids before – and their unfamiliarity makes him curious, yet scared. He turns a few ancient Egyptian statues into dust because he believes that he can just poke at them with his finger. By not looking at his surroundings, he runs into a royal sarcophagus, getting caught in a mummy’s linen cloth.
The Silly Billy-Goat then becomes scared of a group of thieving tourists who want to steal the sarcophagus the goat is trapped in, so he forcibly switches places with the leader of the tourist group, who becomes trapped in the sarcophagus instead, allowing the Silly Billy-Goat to run away. This episode suggests how no one can gain anything from disrespecting cultural landmarks – either unintentionally, like with the Silly Billy-Goat, or out of malice, with the situation of the looters.
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Still from ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), episode: ‘King of the Monkeys’, 1970, production: Studio Miniatur Filmowych, photo: INPLUS / East News
The Silly Billy-Goat is a solo traveller but in Episode 12, Małpi Krół (King of the Monkeys), he learns that having a lot of followers sends his adventures on the wrong path. This time, Billy starts working for a sea captain to raise money for a raft to get to Pacanów. He buys a raft with his earnings, along with a few other belongings, like cabbage, a mirror, and a record player. A storm shipwrecks him on an island inhabited entirely by monkeys, and the monkeys fight over who gets to look at his mirror. The Silly Billy-Goat accidentally ends the fight by busting the mirror with his horns, causing it to break into little individual mirrors for every monkey. The monkeys delight at the fact that they can gaze at their images, and they crown the Silly Billy-Goat king of the monkeys. But the newfound adulation exhausts him, and he longs to continue his journey alone.
As the Silly Billy-Goat tricks the monkeys and sails away, the episode comes to a close, suggesting that travel should be motivated by intrinsic, not extrinsic, motivation. The Silly Billy-Goat stayed on the island because it made him popular, much like how some people travel to destinations today due to their popularity on travel lists and Instagram feeds. But he learns this is an empty desire: we should travel where we want to go – not just where everyone else might want to, and avoid the mirror-gazing, or selfie-gazing, of others.
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Still from ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), episode: ‘Film Star’, 1971, production: Studio Miniatur Filmowych, photo: INPLUS / East News
The Silly Billy-Goat also learns that authentic travel cannot be impersonated. In Episode 15, Gwiazdor Filmowy (Film Star), he wanders onto a film set without knowing what it is. He encounters many strange things on the film set, such as a peculiar Yeti. On the film set’s snowy mountain, the Silly Billy-Goat is frightened by the Yeti, whom he does not realize is merely an actor with the word ‘Yeti’ painted on his chest. Later, the Silly Billy-Goat causes even more trouble when he spots a group of knights trying to storm a big red castle: he knocks on the castle door and, since no one answers, rams his horns through the door. The entire castle is made of flimsy material, like stage decorations. All the sets topple over, and Billy waves goodbye – to the set and to his illusions about authentic travel. He journeys onward to a more authentic experience, one that exists outside of Hollywood sets and images of places where people visit and live.
Korsarze (Pirates), the next episode, continues this lesson about false advertising. It opens with the Silly Billy-Goat sleeping on his raft in the middle of the sea. He awakens to find a floating bag of gold. Nearby pirates want the gold, so they play catchy music and dress in costumes to lure him to their ship. The Silly Billy-Goat quickly realizes something is wrong when the pirates cut the music and drop their costumes, showing their true attire. He ends up running away from the pirates – and, after finding two other kidnapped goats on the ship, he frees them all by cutting the ship’s mast to use as a bridge. This action finally bridges the gap between false advertising and real life. It suggests that when we see travel advertisements – the pirates in their costumes – we need to also do our research to see if the destination is as perfect as the ads make us believe.
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Still from ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), 1969-1971, production: Studio Miniatur Filmowych, photo: INPLUS / East News
While the show doesn’t end with the Silly Billy-Goat reaching Pacanów, the comic book series does. Here, the townspeople, including the mayor, laugh at him when he explains that he is seeking the local blacksmiths who make shoes for goats. One person tells him that in Pacanów, there are no blacksmiths who make shoes for goats – only blacksmiths whose last names are Goat (Koza). This revelation causes Billy to cry, as he feels that his long, meandering, difficult and confusing travels were ultimately meaningless.
While the adaptation doesn’t present a definite conclusion, the comic book series ends with the Silly Billy-Goat staying in his homeland. Earlier in the stories, he had told some kids he met in in Warsaw earlier how he’d donated most of the gold he’d found in the American West to Polish children. Now, at their conclusion, they tell him that Poland is a beautiful place for a beloved goat like him – even without the shoes he dreamed of.
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Still from ‘Dziwne Przygody Koziołka Matołka’ (The Strange Adventures of the Silly Billy-Goat), 1969-1971, production: Studio Miniatur Filmowych, photo: INPLUS / East News
Although the Silly Billy-Goat never found what he was looking for, he discovered the childhood sense of wonder that we gain from travel, the feeling of being somewhere new. He learned from his experience of different places and people. We may have lost this feeling, for now, without travel. But we may have lost it even before the pandemic, as it can’t be found in our modern-day itineraries or Google search results.
Once it is safe to travel again, the show and comic suggest, let’s do our research beforehand. Let’s respect other cultures and monuments. But also: let’s not forget to get lost, to revel in the unknown, or to ‘pack’ our childhood sense of wonder into our suitcases.
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