The Tooth Fairy ^HOT^
Derek Thompson is a minor league ice hockey player, nicknamed the "Tooth Fairy" for his habit of knocking opposing players' teeth out. One night, Derek steals a dollar from his girlfriend Carly's six-year-old daughter Tess that had been left for her lost tooth, and tells her that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. He receives a magical Summons under his pillow, which causes him to grow wings and transports him to the realm of tooth fairies. He meets his caseworker, Tracy, and the head fairy, Lily. He has an adversarial relationship with them. Lily tells Derek that he is a "dream crusher," due to his unsympathetic dealings with children like Tess. He is sentenced to serve two weeks as a tooth fairy. Later, he meets Jerry, who gives him his tooth fairy supplies, which include "Shrinking Paste," "Invisible Spray," "dog peppermints "Amnesia Dust", "cat away" and a magic wand that will only work if he believes.
The Tooth Fairy
Derek visits several children and tries to collect teeth and give out dollars, but what with cats, waking children and being 'called' in the middle of a hockey match leading to his shrinking himself and jumping in a toilet to escape, he is not doing very well at it. Lily says that he is the worst tooth fairy ever and denies Derek any more supplies from Jerry for the remainder of his sentence, criticizing his lack of faith in children. Afterward, he is approached by a fairy named Ziggy who provides him black market supplies. Later that night, the items malfunction and Derek is seen by a child's mother and arrested. While behind bars, Tracy tells Derek that Lily extended his duty to three weeks. However, he offers to give Derek proper supplies if he will start acting like a tooth fairy. Carly bails Derek out.
Derek works on improving his tooth fairy skills and bonding with Tracy and Randy, but when Derek can't score a goal at a hockey game, he takes his frustration out on Randy, telling him that he will never become a rock star. With his dreams crushed, Randy tearfully smashes his guitar and a disappointed Carly breaks up with Derek, telling him his biggest flaws are his inability to be optimistic and that he can't say "what if".
Later, Tracy comes to Derek's house, much to Derek's annoyance. He announces that he is a tooth fairy-in-training, but that Derek's dream crushing reputation hurts himself more than others as Derek orders him to get out of his house. At the next hockey game, Derek gets back on the ice and sees Tracy. Tracy wants to teach Derek the importance of dreams, encouraging Derek to score a goal and go get Tess' tooth. With a renewed spirit, Derek scores the goal, gets into his tooth fairy costume, and flies away, while Tracy spreads Amnesia Dust on the audience to cover up the event.
At Carly's, Tess sees Derek taking her tooth, but she promises to keep it a secret. Derek apologizes to Randy and encourages him to keep pursuing his dreams, using his magic wand to grant Randy a new guitar. Downstairs, Carly sees Derek as a tooth fairy, but assumes that he rented a costume for Tess' sake, causing her to forgive him. Derek flies Randy to the talent show throwing Amnesia Dust on him when they arrive.
Derek heads back to the fairy realm to give Lily the tooth, and is told that because of this job, as well as for reaffirming Tess' belief, he has been relieved of his fairy duties. Lily explains that he will never see the tooth fairies again and will have Amnesia Dust thrown on him. Before departing, Derek says a friendly goodbye to Tracy. Lily throws Amnesia Dust on Derek and transports him back to the talent show. There, Randy outperforms everyone and ends up forming a band. Derek proposes to Carly, and she accepts.
Layered on top, says Hingston, is the veneer of the fairy, a traditionally European folk character. But just like Coca-Cola had a hand in defining the look of Santa Claus, it was Disney that helped the Tooth Fairy stick.
How much is a tooth worth to the tooth fairy and has that price changed over time? This is a silly question of course, but the answer is serious. It gives us a way to understand how the costs of parenting have changed over time.
MALONE: And we'll get back to that - but more generally because lately the tooth fairy doesn't seem to be following the typical rules of inflation, and that's made pricing a lost tooth the kind of thing that you may want a Ph.D. to deal with.
MALONE: I called Blinder because in the 1990s, he was vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. And I explained to him that there's surprisingly good data on the going tooth rates. The Delta Dental insurance company has been conducting a nationally representative tooth fairy poll for almost 20 years. An average tooth these days is pulling in almost $5. But what's more notable is the trend. Over the last decade, dental inflation has averaged over 10 percent per year.
MALONE: Broad strokes of these kids from around New York City - toys, electronics, candy. Blinder said, actually, a lot of that stuff has gotten cheaper over the last decade. Technology is constantly making electronics less expensive. Toys are manufactured in China for very little these days. By this measure, the tooth fairy should be paying kids less than a decade ago.
MALONE: This is economist Justin Wolfers. And remember that little girl whose missing tooth got the White House economists talking? Well, Wolfers is her father. And I asked him, if inflation and kid inflation can't explain why the price of a tooth is so high, what might?
MALONE: Besides, Betsey Stevenson says, even if the tooth fairy wanted to leave three or four bucks, this is a cash business, even a magical fairy can't always have singles laying around. Kenny Malone, NPR News.
More recently, when the 6th tooth fell out, the child was rewarded with a gift in many northern European countries. In France, a mouse or rabbit dating to the 17th century mentioned a La Petite Souris. In Latin countries the most well known character is Ratoncito Perez. Perez has become a pop symbol in his own right, appearing in cartoons and he even has a museum dedicated to him in Madrid, Spain. Perez is used to market dental products to children much the way the tooth fairy is in Canada or the US.
In other cultures, the legend varies to include beavers, cats, dogs or even squirrels. Other traditions of the tooth fairy include rituals dating back thousands of years in almost every culture. Traditions like:
Unlike the counterparts of Santa Claus or The Easter Bunny, which have been branded in large part by companies like Coca Cola and Cadbury, the Tooth Fairy has not been associated with one specific look. The most common rendition was inspired by other fairies in pop culture, but the tooth fairy has appeared in countless shapes and sizes, from young to old, human to sprite, even animals and birds have inspired the look of the fairy.
A recent survey by Visa found that the average child in the United States receives $3.70 per tooth, which is considerably more than what we used to get as children. Some parents offer more money for bigger teeth or for the first or last tooth, also inspired by European tradition.
Ultimately, the reason the tooth fairy legend continues to grow and evolve across cultures is that it provides a level of comfort to children. As you grow, your body undergoes many changes, but arguably the first and most traumatic for children is the loss of a tooth or two. The tooth fairy and the mouse legends like Parez help bring comfort and excitement to a traumatic experience.
On May 14, 1692, Reverend Kirk took a walk in his nightgown on the fairy hill beside the manse. Later that evening, on the same hill, his body was found dead. The body that was buried, according to locals, was a changeling. The fairies had kidnapped the minister in his nightgown, replaced him with a dead fairy, and held the reverend captive in Fairyland.
Dental emergencies can happen at any time of the day. If you are experiencing tooth pain or discomfort, our emergency dentists can go to your private home and treat your dental emergency there. Call us today.
If the Tooth Fairy at your house is anything like she is at my house, then she is exceptionally forgetful. One way to sneak in some money the morning of is to have your child put the tooth in their shoe, just like children in Swaziland. You can then drop a few coins in while you walk by, no midnight visits required.
Legend has it that Europeans in the Middle Ages believed a witch could curse someone by using their teeth, so it was important to dispose of baby teeth correctly. Teeth were swallowed, buried, or burned. Sometimes baby teeth were even left for rodents to eat. Despite being pests, rodents were valued for their strong teeth; it was generally believed a tooth fed to a rodent would lead to the development of a healthy and strong adult tooth.
So, why does the tooth fairy leave money under the pillow? The idea of exchanging a tooth for coins originated in Scandinavia. Vikings paid children for a lost tooth. Teeth were worn on necklaces as good luck charms in battle. While the idea of exchanging a tooth for coins quickly spread throughout the rest of Europe, a fierce, horn-helmeted Viking is far cry from the image of a fairy collecting teeth.
As an embodiment of magical munificence, the tooth fairy is second only to Santa Claus in the folklore of American childhood. Juvenile belief in the figure is as widespread and durable as belief in old Saint Nick, and the iconic elements of the accompanying ritual-the pillow, the unseen visitor, the transformation of the tooth into money-are as stereotyped in popular culture as the stocking by the chimney or carrots for the reindeer. So firmly does the tooth fairy dominate juvenile fantasy life, in fact, that discovering the "truth" about this shadowy benefactor constitutes a major negation rite in the prepubertal passage out of innocence: to say that someone "still believes in the tooth fairy" defines him as quaintly naive.
Around the same time, a professor at nearby Northwestern University Dental School named Rosemary Wells found herself similarly baffled. After all, the ritual of children placing their shed baby teeth under their pillows, in the hopes of finding them replaced with cash in the morning, was already being practiced by millions of young Americans. These kids left notes for the tooth fairy, and believed they shared personal relationships with her that spanned several years (and up to 20 baby teeth). How was it possible, Wells wondered, that nobody knew where she came from? 041b061a72