Once upon a time, there was a beautiful DamselInDistress, a handsome hero on an epic [[TheQuest quest]], his magical sidekick, and a spell they needed to break before [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve the stroke of midnight.]]

But wait! The damsel's not so distressed after all! The hero's a buffoon! The heroine falls for the homely sidekick instead of the KnightInShiningArmor! The WickedStepmother is [[YamatoNadeshiko an angel]] with a [[DaddysGirl bratty stepdaughter]]! And just about everyone's ridiculously GenreSavvy!

What you have here is an example of a Fractured Fairy Tale, a tale with all the basic elements of a classic fairy tale, but all of them subverted or spoofed, and with modern-day sensibilities and morals. May also be a parody of fairy tales.

Virtually every Fractured Fairy Tale features one of perhaps a dozen fairy tales that are considered common knowledge in the culture. This is because they don't work without the audience recognizing the original and so being able to appreciate the divergences. When the Fractured Fairy Tale sticks to, and warps, one specific tale, it is a form of the TwiceToldTale.

May contain elements of {{Grimmification}}. MotherGoose elements frequently also appear. Not to be confused with DerailedFairyTale, when the chaos comes from outside the setting of the story.

The TropeNamer comes from a Rocky and Bullwinkle segment of the same title and overall premise.
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'''Examples:'''

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* One of the ''FullMetalPanic'' short stories is a complete parody of Cinderella.
* In ''FruitsBasket'', when they realize how woeful miscast the characters are in a {{Cinderella}} play, they rewrite the play. An ElegantGothicLolita Cinderella is impervious to her WickedStepmother's demands; but she loves her sweet and innocent stepsister, who suffers at the mother's hands because she wishes to [[ArrangedMarriage marry her off]]. While the Fairy Godmother succeeds in getting them to the ball, and the not very charming prince does find her, in the end Cinderella and her sister open a shop. They title it "Sorta Cinderella"
* ''YuYuHakusho'''s Dark Tournament arc had a combat team ''named'' Fractured Fairy Tales. All of their members were based off of Japanese folk legends.
* ''LudwigKakumei'' written by Kaori Yuki, deconstructs, spoofs and [[{{Grimmification}} Grimmificates]] all at the same time. appropriately enough all the tales portayed are based on the Brothers Grimm Version, in which the 2 main characters get their names from.
* {{MAR}} takes the "character as a Fractured Fairy Tale" idea to its logical extreme. Nearly every minor to important character is a parody of at least one fairy tale. Ginta [[GenreSavvy always takes the time to make note of this]], because he's obsessed with the stories. Justified by the fact that Mär Heaven is the world of Märchen, or fairy tales. Just on Ginta's team, we have:
** Princess Snow. From her name, we have a play on Snow White (she even fights a character who has a magic sword ask her "who is the fairest one of all"), Her introduction is more Snow White stuff combined with a bit of Sleeping Beauty (DistressedDamsel is in a death-like state, awakened with a kiss... sort of), and she runs away from her wicked stepmother, like Cinderella.
** Jack, who is a young farmer who lives in semi-poverty with his mother. His dream is to one day grow a beanstalk so tall he can see the world from it.
** Alviss, who is followed about by a jealous fairy named Bell, and who goes on to defeat a Chess Piece named Mr. Hook.
** Dorothy, who is a huge WizardOfOz reference: she is a "good witch" named Doroty, and her guardians include a scarecrow, a metal knight, a lion, and a dog named Toto.
** And the team itself was formed by a fortune teller prophesying that Snow would have to gather "the Seven Dwarves" to defend Mär Heaven. The Chess Pieces have even more, considering how many of them there are.
* A lot of ''PrincessTutu'' revolves around playing around with fairytale tropes (and ''SwanLake'' in particular) and subverting them, while also staying within the MagicalGirl genre. The knight's armor [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold isn't exactly shiny]], the Prince [[spoiler:ends up marrying the DarkMagicalGirl]], and several fairytales are mentioned and commented on. For example...
** The main character and the prince end up trapped in a woman's resturant while she keeps bringing them more and more food, and Ahiru thinks it's Hansel and Gretel and they're being fattened up for her to eat. In reality, the woman is just very lonely and trying to make them stay.
** The opening narration at one point questions whether Sleeping Beauty really ''wanted'' to wake up, or if she wanted to keep dreaming.
** In an episode titled "Cinderella", the main character loses the pendant that allows her to become the MagicalGirl, and it's found by one of the male characters. He spends the rest of the episode trying to find her...because he considers Princess Tutu an enemy and wants to attack her.
* Used in ''{{Monster}}'', where elements of fairy tales are brought together to inspire MindRape and HighOctaneNightmareFuel.
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[[folder:Comic]]
* ''Fables'' does this. For starters, Prince Charming is actually a scoundral who's been married and divorced three times, has had numerous affairs, and is a total womanizer. The Big Bad Wolf is still frightening but proves to be [[spoiler:a sweet and loving husband to Snow White and father to their "cubs"]]. Cinderella is a secret agent, Snow White [[spoiler:splits Goldilocks' head open with an axe]] the three little pigs start a rebellion and Goldilocks is a gun-toting revolutionary who's sleeping with Baby Bear.
* ''Nightmares & Fairy Tales'' loves this. Virtually every story is some sort of fairy tale variation, with twists. For example, Little Red Riding Hood has a love of wolves [[spoiler:and later turns out to be a werewolf herself]]. Cinderella's prince is a cruel man who she has no desire to marry and the stepmother summons demons. Snow White becomes a zombie after her stepmother rips her heart out and uses it to be beautiful. And Belle is a lesbian who is beaten and locked in the basement (and presumably raped) on her religious father's orders before he finally hands her over to the Beast.
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[[folder:Film]]
*''ThePrincessBride'' is mostly a fairy tale played straight, with a few notable subversions thrown in. Most fairy tales end with a beautiful girl getting married to a handsome prince. Buttercup's meeting and engagement to the handsome prince is completely skipped over, and he's the villain. The real hero is technically an infamous pirate who kidnaps her. Lastly, a climactic swordfight between the hero and villain is notably averted.
** They still manage to fit the climactic swordfight in (and it was properly researched, too), but it's done by two members of the supporting cast.
*The film version of ''EllaEnchanted.'' The book is borderline; for there the fairy tale setting really only exists to provide a fairy godmother. Other than that the plot could almost take place in any setting.
** Cosmetically, maybe, but the story itself relies on quite a few fantastical elements.
* ''{{Shrek}}'', which makes the ogre the main character, the damsel anything but in distress, and the Prince Charming the villain, even coming with a subversion of TrueLovesKiss.
**When you think about it, Shrek may possibly be the TropeCodifier - more of these types of stories and films came out during the peak of Shrek's popularity.
*''{{Enchanted}}'' occasionally borders on this.
* ''{{Hoodwinked}}''. Mixed with {{troperiffic}} AffectionateParody to some other genres, but still based on fairy tale.
* ''Happily N'ever After''
* ''TheFall''. Although a lot of fairy tale elements are played entirely straight.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* Simon Hawke's ''Reluctant Sorcerer'' trilogy is so directly inspired and informed by the original Fractured Fairy Tales that you can ''hear'' Edward Everett Horton playing the role of the Omniscient Narrator.
*The {{Discworld}} novel ''Witches Abroad'', where the witches are a disrupting influence in the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality, trying to stop a HappilyEverAfter that is nothing of the kind. The scene where [[spoiler: we see what it takes to make a "Big Bad Wolf" and what Granny Weatherwax does about it]] is a total TearJerker.
* The short novel ''The Glass-shoe Slip-up'' is set after the events of ''{{Cinderella}}'', where we find out why the not-so-wicked stepmother kept her hidden away: Cinderella is a complete social disgrace with bad table manners, a love of raunchy jokes, a fancy for certain... odd practices in the royal bedroom, and many other disastrous details that make Prince Charming very determined to track down the Fairy Godmother so she can correct her mistake.
* RoaldDahl's ''Revolting Rhymes'' turns up on banned book lists for the {{Family Unfriendly Aesop}}s it steers classic fairy tales into.
*''{{Stardust}}'' - both straight-up and fractured; the hero is successful on his quest, but instead of winning the girl he went questing for, by the time his quest is over he's fallen for someone else.
* NeilGaiman's short story ''Snow Glass Apples'' is a retelling of Snow White with the stepmother as the good guy.
* This is the basic concept of MercedesLackey's ''Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms'' series. Playfully subverted in that the ambient magic in the land tries to make a fairy tale play out straight (no matter how the characters might feel about it), and the only way to get out of it is to shift the situation to that it fits another tale better.
* One of Bruce Coville's Book of... short story collections (specifically, one of the two Book of Magic collections-I forget which specifically) features a story by PatriciaCWrede which sets up fairy godmothers and bad fairies and the like as part of the same organization, and is told from the point of view of a fairy godmother explaining why she wants a transfer to the curses department; namely, her last case, which was the straw that broke the unicorn's back. It sounds like a pretty standard Cinderella story; girl wants to go to ball, stepmother said no, fairy godmother is thus determined to see that she does, in fact, go. The problems start from square one: Cindy is tall, gangly, big-footed and not the prettiest thing ever. Her stepsister is the gorgeous waif the godmother has come to expect her clients to be, and is helpful, sympathetic, and wants nothing more than for Cindy to be happy. Then it turns out "Cinders" was the client's idea in the first place, and it's a stage name. She's not interested in the prince, she wants to play the fiddle as a musician at the ball. The godmother makes the best of things (she manages to save Cindy from getting roped into a "standard 10-percent contract" with a talent agent who looks like an encroaching mushroom and, when he's too drunk to lie, shamelessly admits that it means she forks over all but 10 percent of whatever she earns), but she's pretty despondent by the time the night's out (not least because the not-remotely-ugly stepsister ''does'' end up in the prince's arms) and after a case like that, her superiors will probably understand if she wants to transfer.
* The children's book ''The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales''. Enough said.
* The "politically correct" fairy tales by James Finn Garner.
* ''[=~Howl's Moving Castle~=],'' for the most part. While not necessarily a "fairy tale" overall, it does [[SubvertedTrope subvert]], [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]], and otherwise mess with many-a-fairy tale trope.
* The short stories in Andrzej Sapkowski's earlier Witcher books are all or almost all this [[UpToEleven pushed up to eleven]]. The Beauty and the Beast? [[spoiler: The Beast likes his transformation, whereas the Beauty is so much more monstrous than he is.]] Don't even ask about [[{{Grimmification}} what he did]] to [[{{Tearjerker}} Snow]] [[AlasPoorVillain White]].
* GregoryMaguire's books practically /run/ on this trope. His most famous? ''{{Wicked}}''.
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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''MontyPython's'' FairyTale sketch, featured in one of their German TV specials and on an album. Ya de buckety, rum ting fadoo...
* This was pretty much the point of the British television series ''Wolves, Witches and Giants''.
* The miniseries ''TheTenthKingdom'' places a couple of contemporary New Yorkers into a world where all the fairy tales took place centuries before, and plays fast and loose with fairy tale tropes.
** An interesting variation in that the New Yorkers are familiar with the modern versions, but it's the darker Grimm versions that actually happened in this universe. This leads to natives having to explain the differences to them and the audience.
* Kermit's ''SesameStreet'' News Flashes tended to be these.
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[[folder:Music]]
* The first part of Cole Porter's song "Two Little Babes in the Wood" is HansChristianAndersen's fairy tale played straight. The second part, "for the tired businessman," has the orphaned girls go from RagsToRiches and move to New York.
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[[folder:Theatre]]
* StephenSondheim and James Lapine's musical ''{{Into the Woods}}'' combines several well-known fairy tales, initially playing them straight but then gradually [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] them.
* The musical ''Once Upon a Mattress'' is a cheeky retelling of "ThePrincessAndThePea" with a mother-henpecked prince, a song based around the princess (originally Carol Burnett!) wryly commenting on "Happily, Happily Happily Ever After", and much more.
* ''{{Wicked}}''. 'nuff said.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''Chivalry is not dead''
* While ''{{Okami}}'' plays it a little more straight than the examples above, and is based on Japanese folk tales rather than European ones, it does feature quite a few fractured fairytale elements.
* In ''[[AmericanMcGeesGrimm American McGee's Grimm]]'', you play an ugly little dwarf who goes around messing up "cutesy" fairy tales, [[{{Grimmification}} making them dark and violent again]].
* The game Fairytale Fights has four Fairytale protagonists (Jack, Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Emperor of The Emperor's New Clothes) attempt to regain their former glory via killing everything in their way in as violent a way as possible.
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[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''ThePrincessPlanet'' combines this trope with SpaceOpera.
* [[strike:[[ThePrincessAndTheFrog The Princess]]]] ''[[http://www.jinxville.com/comics/frog/ The Tourist and the Frog]]'', a little gem by Diana Nock.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
*Named for the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segments in ''RockyAndBullwinkle'', which would take classic fairy tales and hilariously parody them.
* ''LooneyTunes'' shorts did this a lot, to the point that a whole disc in one of the DVD box sets focuses on them. "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Three Little Pigs", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" were particularly popular targets, with different versions to fit various characters and their shticks (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester and Tweety, etc.).
* Same with the early {{Hanna-Barbera}} comedy shorts through 1965 or so.
* Arguably, TexAvery's ''Red Hot Riding Hood''
* The JimHenson Company's ''Unstable Fables''
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[[folder:other]]
* Eric Berne demonstrated how easily [[{{Disneyfication}} disneyified]] fairy tales fracture under their own weight once you wash off all the sugar-cover and stick to the related events -- he called it "Martian point of view":
** Cinderella's stepmother and her daughter go to that ball, so who stays at home? Cinderella and her father, right? ''Then'' her godmother arrives, and does what? Of all imaginable things in her power she, godmother immediately ''sends Cinderella away''... and ''does not'' accompany the girl herself. Maybe, she's just not into the whole "ball" thing? But wait, who stays at home now? Moreover, she arranged it so that Cinderella should certainly return before her stepmother and step-sisters, right?..
*** Cinderella is NOT left home with her father. She's left home alone. In almost every version of the legend, her father is dead by the time the ball rolls around.
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