Line #16 Main/StorybookEpisode


1	%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.
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3	[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/SonicAndTheBlackKnight https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sonic_black_knight.png]]]]
4	[[caption-width-right:350:Camelot is about to get radical.]]
5
6	-> ''"Once upon a time, there was a little girl with an adorable red cape... and GREAT FLAMING EYEBROWS!"''
7	-->-- '''Aku''', ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''
8
9	A branch off the FormulaBreakingEpisode tree, in which in the characters are cast into a "storybook land" in which there are [[HeroicFantasy chivalrous knights]], [[DamselInDistress beautiful maidens]] and, of course, dragons.
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11	Such archetypes will be applied [[AndYouWereThere to each of the lead characters, their current situations and relationships]] in order to draw on [[FairytaleMotifs familiar archetypes]], but also to suggest a Happily Ever After Ending.
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13	Note that these "Storybook" settings are incredibly generic. They are not adaptations of any previous material, just TheThemeParkVersion of fables and chivalry. If it is a straight adaptation of a specific fairy tale, then it falls under FairyTaleEpisode. If it is a parody or subverted version of a popular story, it's a FracturedFairyTale.
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15	[[AllJustADream May or may not be a dream]], as one character is often narrating. See also TrappedInTVLand and RPGEpisode.
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17	----
18	!!Examples:
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20	[[foldercontrol]]
21	[[folder:Anime]]
22	* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasDorabianNights'' is set in the world of storybooks, after Shizuka accidentally got lost in the world of ''Literature/ArabianNights'' during a misadventure.
23	[[/folder]]
24
25	[[folder:Comic Books]]
26	* The ComicBook/NewMutants graphic novels "Rahne of Terra" and "Knight of Terra" feature a fantasy alternate universe in which Rahne is a princess and the other characters are knights and mages.
27	* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': "Bedcrime Story" (issue #17) had the girls interpreting the story of Little Red Riding Hood in their own individual perspectives.
28	* In the Elseworld Story ''Franchise/{{Superman}}: Kal'', Kal-El arrives on Earth in the Middle Ages, and he defends the lady Loisse from the villainous Baron Luthor.
29	* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}: Feary Tales'' is a five-issue miniseries in which the titular protagonist is sucked into a book of fairy tales.
30	** Issue #1 has her facing Bluebeard and then escaping the captivity of her Wicked Stepmother and Ugly Stepsisters.
31	** Issue #2 places Vampirella in the role of Snow White and then later on has her rescue the Little Mermaid from the abusive Sailor Jim.
32	** Issue #3 has her against the The Three (were)Bears, then escapes the Nutcracker and finally in the role of Little Red Riding Hood.
33	** Issue #4 has Vampirella acting out the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes in which the con artist tailors are asura and the villagers are BDSM vampires. She then goes on to battle evil, monstrous versions of Hansel and Gretel who were cursed by the food the witch gave them.
34	** Issue #5 has Vampirella in a grittier version of the Princess and the Frog in which the Frog Prince is actually a serial killer. Then she goes on to the Sleeping Beauty tale where Sleeping Beauty is actually [[spoiler: her evil twin sister Draculina who had been imprisoned in the book by Lilith.]]
35	* In ''[[Comicbook/XMen Uncanny X-Men]]'' #153, "Kitty's Fairy-Tale", Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story in which the X-Men are fantasy characters. The concept was re-used in the [[WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries '90s cartoon]] with Jubilee.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
39	* The first fantasy segment in ''Film/BedtimeStories2008'' was along these lines.
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Light Novel]]
43	* One [[ShowWithinAShow Short Story Within a Short Story]] in the ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels takes this form after Haruhi asks Mikuru to write a fairy tale complete with illustrations for the Literature Club's magazine. The illustrations are all SuperDeformed depictions of the SOS Brigade members ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Tsuruya-san]]) as storybook characters such as Literature/SnowWhite (Haruhi) and the seven dwarfs (''[[MesACrowd all]]'' [[MesACrowd Yuki]]), [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid a mermaid]] (Mikuru), and [[PrinceCharming a prince]] (Kyon).
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
47	%%* ''Andy Richter Controls the Universe'': "Final Fantasy"
48	* ''Series/TheCosbyShow'' had an episode where it was Rudy's fairy tale story, with all the actors as characters (in costumes that looked as if they were drawn with crayon).
49	%%* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': "John Quixote".
50	* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': Excellently done in "Brown Betty" where Walter tells young Ella a story. Instead of a generic fantasy tale, he casts her aunt Olivia as the heroine of a film noir mystery full of SchizoTech, in which characters (and corpses) [[MusicalEpisode break out in song]].
51	* The game show ''Series/TheHollywoodSquares'' did a week as ''The Storybook Squares'' with the celebrities as storybook characters.
52	%%* ''Series/ILoveLucy'' did it first.
53	* ''Series/{{Jessie}}'' has "The Princess and the Pea Brain", in which the peasant Tony and the dashing "Prince Smarming" (a counterpart to GuyOfTheWeek Brody) compete for the hand of the fair princess Jessie. The entire story is told by Zuri as a way to [[ShipperOnDeck get Jessie to go out with Tony instead of Brody]] -- and it ''worked'', especially after Brody proved himself to be as charmless as his fairy tale counterpart.
54	* ''Series/MacGyver1985'': "Good Knight [=MacGyver=]" transports Mac back to the court of King Arthur.
55	* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' did a "pirates" episode, complete with David Garrison making a return as the bad guy.
56	* In one episode of ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', Kimberly, Tommy, and Rocky find themselves trapped in an in-universe children’s book called ''Grumble the Magic Elf'' while volunteering at a book fair.
57	%%* ''Series/TheMonkees'': "Fairy Tale"
58	* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' does this in [[spoiler:"[[Recap/ThePrisonerE15TheGirlWhoWasDeath The Girl Who Was Death]]"]] (though the frame doesn't get revealed until the end of the episode).
59	* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': "My Princess", which consists of Dr. Cox relating his day at the hospital to his son [[WriteWhatYouKnow in the form of a fairy tale]] as a bedtime story. Elliot is the princess, [[SickeninglySweethearts Turk and Carla]] are a two-headed witch, JD is the village idiot, Cox is the [[HerCodeNameWasMarySue brave, attractive knight]], and Kelso is the villain (either a demon or TheDevil). The princess's handmaiden is being attacked by a monster, and the only way to save her is to retrieve a ring from the forbidden forest being guarded by the villain. (Elliot's patient is dying and needs to be diagnosed [[RaceAgainstTheClock as quickly as possible, while Kelso is trying to prevent potential lawsuits by preventing the doctors from working overtime]].) The story itself had a happy ending (the girl was saved in time), but in reality, the diagnosis [[YouAreTooLate was made too late]], so she was unable to be saved.
60	* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' has an episode which takes place largely in Alex's magical SecretDiary. Shedding her typical "tough-girl" image, the diary is filled with knights and, whenever she transports herself into it, she turns into a princess.
61	[[/folder]]
62
63	[[folder:Video Games]]
64	* The ''VideoGame/SonicStorybookSeries'' is a video game take on this, transporting Sonic to the Literature/ArabianNights and [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Camelot]].
65	* ''[[VideoGame/{{Grow}} Grow Cinderella]]'' is an adaptation of Cinderella with the gameplay, art style and weird logic of the ''Grow'' games.
66	[[/folder]]
67
68	[[folder:Western Animation]]
69	* ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'': "Knights are Brave and Strong", "A Giant Problem", "Tale of the Mighty Knights" and "Escape from Fairy Tale Village".
70	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Clementine}}'' sorta uses the concept in its first part, with Hemera sending Clementine to different worlds that are based in either tales (Pinocchio, the legend of Momotarou, Hansel and Gretel) or fictionalized biographies of real-life people (Leonardo Da Vinci, Akenathon, Saint Kateri Tethawicka, etc.) so she can banish the BigBad Malmoth from there.
71	* There's a fantasy Fairy Tale-ish land in the Ghost Zone of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'', complete with knights (what Danny is anyways), princesses, and dragons--not to mention a DamselInDistress plot (though subverted). The only problem is that it isn't happy, thanks to a [[FisherKing certain]] EvilPrince.
72	* The ''[[WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines Magnificent Muttley]]'' installment "What's New, Old Bean?" has Muttley as Jack from "Jack And The Beanstalk" and Dick Dastardly as the giant ("Fee, fi, fo, fooch...I smell the blood of a mangy pooch!")
73	* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', "Dee Dee Locks and the Ness Monster": Dexter tries to read his sick sister a story, but she quickly gets bored when he's just reading from a science textbook. Dee Dee takes it and reads it for herself, making up a crazy story combining all sorts of fairy tale elements (such as a three-headed bagpipe creature called the Ness Monster; three pigs made entirely of straw, sticks, and bricks; and a not-so-Big Bad Wolf who's [[TheNapoleon small in stature but big in ego]]).
74	%%* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': "Timmy the Barbarian".
75	* The third act of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}: Bender's Game'' sees our heroes pulled into a weird fantasy AlternateUniverse based on Bender's sudden obsession with ''Dungeons and Dragons''.
76	* ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'' had "Furry Tales", in which a "handsome cat" (Garfield) had to help Prince Jon find a wife, lest he lose his royal title to Viceroy Whipple, who plans on putting taxes on numerous things (including lasagna consumption). Along the way, he has to fight off a dragon and a witch (the latter being in the Viceroy's employ).
77	* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': "Nursery Crimes". When Billy is unable to fall asleep and won't leave Mandy alone because of it, Grim decides to tell them "Hansel and Gretel", except they have to be the kids in the story. Then they get side-tracked and Billy meets Pinocchio, who believes that if he eats Billy he will become a real boy!
78	* ''WesternAnimation/MarthaSpeaks'' had an episode called "Martha Spins a Tale", where Martha the dog tells a story where she's Goldilocks, Helen is Little Red Riding Hood, Daniel, Mariella and Jake are the Three Bears, T.D. is Robin Hood, Mrs. Demson is the Queen of Hearts, Alice is Sleeping Beauty's cousin, Pablum and Otis are ogres and Nelson breathes fire.
79	* ''WesternAnimation/KryptoTheSuperdog'': In [[ChristmasEpisode "Storybook Holiday"]], Krypto and Kevin are transported inside a magical storybook and meet characters resembling Kevin's visiting relatives.
80	* Even though ''WesternAnimation/PeterPanAndThePirates'' is ''already'' a fairy tale story, one episode is a re-telling of ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' with Tinkerbell's magic turning all characters into Wonderland's denizens.
81	%%* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': "Excaliferb".
82	* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': "Yarn Benders". When Filburt falls ill, Rocko decides to tell "Hansel and Gretel" to him, but Heffer [[DerailedFairyTale keeps injecting random elements into the story]] in a "Mad-Libs" fashion.
83	* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': Aku reads some fairy tales to children with Jack as the villain of each one.
84	* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': "Woodland Critter Christmas". Its twisted nature is no surprise -- not just because it's ''South Park'', but because [[spoiler:it's Cartman telling the story]].
85	* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': In "Dunces and Dragons", Spongebob and Patrick end up in a MedievalEuropeanFantasy version of Bikini Bottom, where Plankton is an evil wizard threatening the land, Mr. Krabs is the king, Squidward is a bungling CourtJester, and so on.
86	%%* ''WesternAnimation/TomGoesToTheMayor'': "Rat's Off to Ya!" (incidentally doubles as the ChristmasEpisode)
87	* ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'': "Jubilee's Fairytale Theater" has Jubilee telling a story to a group of children: she, Wolverine and Gambit are a trio of travelers, Xavier is a Merlin-like wizard, Magneto is the EvilSorceror, Jean is a princess, and Scott is her KnightInShiningArmor.
88	[[/folder]]

Context Main / StorybookEpisode