An Introduction to Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews

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1980's, 80's fantasy, 80s, actors, Aladdin, anthology, anthology series, beauty and the beast, Big Bad Wolf, brothers grimm, celebrity, celebrity casting, Cinderella, dwarfs, Faerie Tale Theatre, fairies, fairy, fairy tale, fairy tales, folk tale, folk tales, frog prince, goldilocks, goldilocks and the three bears, gretel, grimm, hamelin, hans christian andersen, hansel, hansel and gretel, introduction, Jack and the beanstalk, little mermaid, little red riding hood, magic mirror, mirror, nightingale, pied piper, Pinocchio, puss in boots, Rapunzel, red riding hood, review series, rip van winkle, rumpelstiltskin, series, seven dwarfs, shelley duvall, sleeping beauty, snow queen, Snow White, snow white and the seven dwarfs, television review, television series, the boy who left home to find out about the shivers, the dancing princesses, the emperor's new clothes, the emperor's nightingale, the little mermaid, the pied piper, the pied piper of hamelin, the princess and the pea, the princess who had never laughed, the snow queen, the twelve dancing princesses, three little pigs, thumbelina, tv review, tv series, witch, witches, wolf

“Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall. Welcome to Faerie Tale Theatre.”

Once upon a time in the faraway land of Malta, an actress named Shelley Duvall starred in a little movie called Popeye. A blithe innocent spirit, Ms. Duvall kept herself entertained with a charming book of fairy tales in between shooting. Duvall recounted the story of The Frog Prince to her costar, Robin Williams, who found the tale humorous enough to his liking. From there, an idea sprung that would stay with many a child of the 80s and 90s.

From 1982 to 1987, Duvall produced and hosted Faerie Tale Theatre, a 27-episode long anthology series on Showtime. She convinced many of the biggest stars of the time to play the roles and even a few well-known auteurs to direct using her clout and gregarious charm. Duvall herself would star in seven of the episodes as well. This show, along with HBO’s Fraggle Rock, proved to be one of the first successful examples of cable programming and cemented itself as a cult classic. My own experience with Faerie Tale Theatre stems from renting episodes on VHS from my library at a very young age. Back in the day, if you really wanted to know what you were in for, then you could turn to the VHS cover. Yes, we’re all familiar with the old adage about not judging a book et cetera, but there’s an art to home media releases that’s tragically all but lost. The VHS tapes of Faerie Tale Theatre had a specifically crafted painting made for each episode done in a famous art style that the episode itself replicated in its set and costume design. Apart from giving you an idea about the content on the tape, it was just pretty to look at. Tell me, which is the more inviting, this –

or THESE?

After a lengthy time gap, I rediscovered the entire series on Youtube and watched with fascination. While many of the effects and the over-reliance on green screen certainly dates it, there’s a nostalgic charm that’s far from a deal-breaker. This was well before Disney began building upon and later deconstructing classic fairy tales with the Renaissance and Revival periods of animation, meaning the stories are told completely straight with just the bare amount of changes needed to fill an hour runtime. Seeing a score of well-known actors in fantasy costumes playing to the cheap seats can make you feel like you’re watching a pantomime, but there’s hardly a moment where it seems like they’re doing it just for the paycheck. Everyone involved looks like they’re in on the idea of putting on an entertaining show. Some performances remind us how excellent some of the actors are at their craft, others show sides to their talent that were rarely seen – though for the most part, there’s plenty of ham to go around, ham smothered in heaps of delicious cheese.

So I’ll be going through every episode in order, providing a ranking, a little bit of the stories’ history, why they were changed, and how they hold up compared to other versions. I won’t be classifying the reviews season by season as the amount of episodes in each one is erratic, with some having as many as six or as few as two. Despite their being only twenty-six of them (plus one reunion episode), there’s going to be a lot to unpack.

See you tomorrow when I review the first entry in this series, The Tale of the Frog Prince.

By The Cover: The Wizard of Oz

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80th anniversary, anniversary, Barbra Streisand, blogathon, boston pops orchestra, broadway, By The Cover, concert, cowardly lion, dainumo, ding dong the witch is dead, dorothy, E.Y. Harburg, eartha kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, eva cassidy, greta matassa, harold arlen, harry connick jr., harry nilsson, if i only had a brain, if i only had a heart, if i only had the nerve, if i were king of the forest, impelliterri, Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, Jackson Browne, jazz, jazz cover, jeff beck, john williams, joseph william morgan, josh groban, judy garland, kermit ruffins, king of the forest, madison square garden, mandy patinkin, merry old land of oz, michael crawford, music, musical, natalie cole, nathan lane, off to see the wizard, optimistic voices, over the rainbow, oz blogathon, pentatonix, peter macdonough, phil wilson, Pogo, rock, rock music, scarecrow, somewhere over the rainbow, song, song cover, song covers, straight outta oz, the fifth estate, the jitterbug, the wizard of ahhhs, the wizard of oz, tin man, todrick hall, tony bennett, Trio de Paz, what a wonderful world, wicked witch, wicked witch of the west, witch, witches, wizard of oz, wizard of oz blogathon

To read the first entry of the By The Cover series and see what this is all about, click HERE.

I’ve already discussed at length how much of an impact The Wizard of Oz has made upon the world. Well today I’m doing it again. This time I’m focusing on a big part of what made it such an iconic film – the music. Needless to say a movie that gave us such memorable tunes would ensure decades worth of covers by plenty of voices that are worth revisiting and rediscovering. So, for The Wizard of Oz’s 80th anniversary and as a part of Taking Up Room’s Wizard of Oz Blogathon, we’re taking an audio journey over the rainbow.

March Review: Fantasia (1940)

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And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney’s original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it’s one I’m both anticipating and dreading. Fantasia isn’t just one of the crowning jewels in Disney’s canon, a landmark in motion picture animation, and second only to Snow White in terms of influential music and storytelling in the whole medium, it’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Discussing it without sounding like an old history professor, a pretentious internet snob, or a hyper Disney fangirl is one hell of a daunting task.

“Did someone say hyper Disney fangirl?! I LOVE Disney!!”

“I thought you only liked Frozen.”

“Well, DUH, Frozen is my favorite, which makes it, like, the best Disney movie ever! But Disney’s awesome! There’s a bunch of other movies I like that are almost as good!”

“And Fantasia’s one of them?”

“Yeah!!…Which one is that again?”

“The one with Sorcerer Mickey?”

“Ohhhh, you’re talking about the fireworks show where he fights the dragon!”

“No, that’s Fantasmic. I’m referring to Fantasia. Came out the same year as Pinocchio? All done in hand-drawn animation…has the big devil guy at the end?”

“THAT’S where he’s from?! Geez, that’s some old movie. Why haven’t I heard about ’til now?”

“Probably because you spend twelve hours a day searching for more Frozen GIFs to reblog on your Tumblr.”

“Ooh, that reminds me! I need to go post my next batch of theories about the upcoming sequel! Toodles!!”

“Thanks. Another second with her and I would’ve bust a gasket.”

“Don’t mention it.”

October Review: The Black Cauldron (1985) PART 1

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Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron. Shaped less by the average process of transforming a novel to film and more by the decade, regime, mindset towards animation and internal struggle of power of the studio that made it, The Black Cauldron is considered the black sheep of the canon; those who worked on it have few fond memories of the experience, and the result of all that blood, sweat, tears, and voodoo curses hurled in Jeffrey Katzenberg’s direction is an odd creature Disney is content to let wallow in relative obscurity. To this day it’s looked down upon by all but a few loyal fans who’ve elevated it to semi-cult status. The story of how and why this is is worth a documentary of its own.

As for my thoughts on the film itself…well…

“It’s complicated.”

I honestly can’t talk about my feelings towards The Black Cauldron without putting it into some context first. And there’s a LOT of context that needs to be explained. Hence why I’ve decided to split this review into two parts. This first half will go over the history of the movie and behind the scenes shenanigans, while Part 2, which is the review I know you’ve been anticipating, will be released next week. So if you want to avoid an engaging history lesson that discusses the climate in which The Black Cauldron was created in depth and go right to the film itself, I suggest you return at a later date. Or go watch Waking Sleeping Beauty. It’s a fascinating, personal look into the struggle that shaped Disney’s Renaissance era and they devote a good chunk of the beginning into what went down during the making of The Black Cauldron.