An animated series that originally aired on
HBO and ran for three seasons. The episodes take different Fairy Tales and set them in a variety of cultures from all around the world (and occasionally with female leads instead of the original male characters). The most common practice was casting the European fairy tales with African-Americans, and placing the fairy tales in China or the surrounding Asian countries. Each episode is narrated by Robert Guillaume, with a recurring cast of guest stars including Sinbad, Rosie Perez, and B.D. Wong. And yes, every story ends with the characters living
Happily Ever After. Not to be confused with the
Filmation movie
Happily Ever After.
Tropes:
- Adipose Rex: The Emperor in "The Emperor's new clothes"
- Adult Fear: Seeing as this is a fairy tale based show this is a given really. Just the whole idea of having childern in danger of being kidnapped or worse runs through out several episodes of the show.
- All-Star Cast
- Big Bad Wolves: The Three Little Pigs episode has an educational film about avoiding these.
- Break the Haughty: Happens to many times to count.
- Disneyfication
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Fairy Tale Motifs and Fairy Tale Tropes in general.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Most notable in the Aesop's Fables episode.
- Gender Flip: "Three Little Pigs", "The Prince And The Pauper", "Robin Hood", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and "The Bremen Town Musicians" get this treatment, not to mention a few of the characters from Aesop's Fables in the last episode.
- Which is somewhat unneeded considering most of the fairy tales the show adapted already had female protagonists to begin with...
- Handicapped Badass: Goldie from "The Steadfast Tin Soldier".
- Hey, It's That Voice!: In addition to the All Star Cast, you may be able to recognize Raven Simone as both the princess and her peasant look-alike.
- I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The fisherman's final wish in "The Fisherman and his Wife".
- Ink Suit Actor: Not as common as you'd think, but why else would the Rooster from The Bremen Town Musicians (voiced by George Clinton) have his comb tied up like that?◦ Also very prevalent in the "Henny Penny" episode.
- Mother Goose, played by Whoopi Goldberg does look a lot like her character.
- Interactive Narrator: Usually averted, but a few of the more tongue-in-cheek stories have the narrator getting in on the act, such as becoming a golf announcer in "The Frog Princess," and having Henny Penny treat him like the reporter back at the studio.
- "Rip Van Winkle" features a female co-narrator near the end.
- Love Redeems: Happens in "Beauty and the Beast" and to the king in "Rumpelstiltskin".
- Setting Update
- Snake Oil Sales Man: The tailors in "The Emperor's new clothes"
- The Fair Folk: Rumpelstiltskin fits this trope to a T.
- The Powerof Love: Is often used to save the day.
- The Trickster: Rumpelstiltskin, Puss in Boots, The Pied Piper, and the beggar in "The Golden Goose" just to name a few.
- Twice Told Tale
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