Once Upon a Time, known in its original French as Il était une fois (not to be confused with the popular, long-running Edutainment Show of the same name), is an obscure French children's animated television series that ran for 26 five-minute episodes in 1995. It is a Fractured Fairy Tale Anthology Series, with each episode consisting of an adaptation of a familiar Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen etc. fairytale as interpreted by a different comic book artist per episode, each with some kind of twist/gimmick/reimagination, and each in a different animation style.
Once Upon a Time provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: In The Little Mermaid, the Sea Witch is traditionally portrayed as at least a very harsh sort of neutral, demanding great sacrifices from the Mermaid in exchange for her magic, or even an outright villain. In the episode, her role is taken by the far more sympathetic circus magician. Who pulls the stealth equivalent of a Big Damn Heroes at the end by using his magic to give the transformed mermaid wings, allowing her to save her beloved acrobat and successfully claim his love, all without demanding any kind of payment.
- The Pied Piper doesn't steal away children, but instead lures the adults of the underground transit station to come with him to a world away from the bleak, soul-crushing reality in which they currently live.
- Adaptational Villainy: In The Three Little Pigs, the titular porkers are the antagonists, trying to drive the poor, out-of-work wolf out of the houses where he is squatting, even though they keep being forced to rebuild the houses when they destroy them.
- All Just a Dream: The episode based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier uses this twist; the Tin Soldier and the Ballerina aren't living toys, but instead the Soldier is dreaming he's a toy after having been injured on the battlefield. At the episode's end, he wakes to discover himself alive, human, and being tended to by the beautiful ballerina.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the seven dwarfs are all a different solid color.
- Anthology Series: The premise of the series consists of familiar fairytales as reimagined by a different comic book artist per episode.
- Anticipatory Breath Spray: The prince in "Sleeping Beauty" summons a breath spray to use before he even lands on the planet that sleeping beauty is on.
- Awful Wedded Life: The Cinderella episode ends with not only the Wicked Stepmother and Stepsisters being reduced to cleaning Cinderella's home like slaves, but her husband too!
- Beary Friendly: The Three Bears are surprisingly forgiving of Goldilocks for breaking into their home and poking around amongst their stuff. It pays off for them big time, as she turns out to be a natural talent as a rap-singer, catapulting them out of povery and into fame and fortune.
- Bullying a Dragon: The Three Little Pigs continually harass the wolf for squatting in a house they own, until he sees a typical cartoon of a wolf chasing and trying to eat pigs on the TV. That's when the wolf confirms they are pigs, and attempts to eat them. The episode ends with the three pigs hunkering in their latest house, watching the security systems in terror as dozens of wolves gather in a massive pack to try and break in, determined to drag them out and eat them.
- Carnivore Confusion: The episode twisting Little Red Riding Hood is set in an Africa where the Africans are either black-furred dogfaces or humanoid mice, and hyenas are... equally humanoid and sapient creatures. This does not stop the hyenas from wanting to eat the Africans. Nor does it stop the Africans from eating the hyenas.
- Cats Are Mean:
- Puss in Boots ends with the cat revealing that, once he'd used the human guy who'd found him as a patsy to build up sufficient wealth, he got rid of him and took over as the Marquis of Carabas himself.
- In The Chimney Sweep and the Shepherdess, the family cat is the primary antagonist, menacing the titular living figurines at the behest of the evil desk.
- Child Prodigy: In Ricky of the Tuft , Ricky's Fairy Godmother blessed him with an incredible intelligence to make up for his distinctly subpar features. He grows up to be a Teen Genius.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Three Little Pigs are a trio of sleazy real estate monguls who harass the wolf in order to drive him from a house where he has been squatting, starting by blowing down his house.
- Darker and Edgier: Many of the episodes portray either a grim, morbid twist on their fundamental fairy tale, or a Black Comedy slant on it.
- Deal with the Devil: Bluebeard sold his soul to the Devil for wealth.
- Doing In the Wizard: In Beauty and the Beast, the Beast is actually deformed by exposure to a rare floral toxin, and is cured when Belle's father, informed of this by his daughter, uses his botanical knowledge to brew an antidote.
- Driven to Suicide: In The Little Match Girl, the Match Girl's neighbor is a failing musician trying to build up the courage to suffocate himself in the gas oven. At the episode's end, he does just that, only for the titular Match Girl to inadvertently ignite the gas with her match, killing them both in the explosion.
- Enfant Terrible: In the Hansel and Gretel episode, after learning the cakemaker is a cannibal who chose to spare them, the titular kids thank her by luring their parents to her shop and serving their parents to her as food!
- Evil Uncle: In The Chimney Sweep and the Shepherdess, the initial antagonist is the Shepherdess' uncle, a porcelain statue of a Chinese noble, who wants her to wed a desk with three devilish faces. Ironically, he gets killed off within the first few minutes of the episode.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: The core premise of the series. Exactly how fractured varies from story to story, such as The Frog Prince being a jazz-playing frog who never changes back into a human, despite hooking up with the girl.
- Getting Eaten Is Harmless: Tom Thumb spends pretty much his entire episode in the bellies of a cow, a fish and a cat before his father finally gets him back.
- Gonk: Ricky of the Tuft is so ugly that he works in the family's jokes & novelties shop, and his face is considered scarier than any of the masks there!
- Grotesque Gallery: The defining feature of the art in The Brave Little Tailor episode is that everyone, from the titular tailor up to the princess, are all hideous.
- Hard Truth Aesop: In Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack continually steals magical items that could lift him and his mother out of poverty from the floating mansion of the giant, only for his mother to force him to take the items back out of honesty. Eventually, the affronted giant gives them a check because he's insulted that Jack has kept bringing everything back, then uproots the beanstalk and leaves. But the money from the check quickly runs out, leaving them as bad as they were to start with, Jack regarding his mother with disdain whilst the narrator notes that principles are a poor substitute for food.
- Insectoid Aliens: The Wicked Stepmother and Stepdaughters from the Cinderella episode are depicted as members of an alien race of Ambiguous Robots with an appearance akin to humanoid beetles, save for their Slaying Mantis like arms and the fact they hop around on a single leg. Cinderella herself looks like a human woman with purple scaly skin and pink hair.
- I Should Write a Book About This: A variation at the end of Donkeyskin: the Fairy Godmother is shown giving a book containing the story of Donkeyskin to an author, who pays her well for it before writing down the title and his name — Charles Perraultnote .
- Karmic Death:
- Bluebeard has his soul sucked out and trapped in a life-sized doll, just as he did to all of his wives.
- The hyena from Little Red Riding Hood is killed and eaten by the girl he was trying to eat.
- The Evil Uncle in The Chimney Sweep and the Shepherdess tries to yank out the dancing ballerina's key, only to pull so hard he trips and falls off of his high shelf, shattering on the floor.
- Latex Perfection: Fitting the Fractured Fairy Tale theme, in Ricky of the Tuft, rather than Ricky magically being transformed to be made handsome after finding a woman he loves, he instead claims that's what's happened, whilst secretly donning a super-realistic mask of a handsome face.
- Literal Man Eater: A rather unusual twist is Little Red Riding Hood, where the titular girl is deliberately sent out into the bush to seduce hyenas into pursuing her, only so she can trap them and kill them to feed herself and her village.
- Love Triangle: The Little Mermaid revolves around a love triangle between the titular mermaid, who performs at a circus, and two human acrobats; a man whom the mermaid loves and who reciprocates, and the acrobat's domineering female partner.It culminates with the female acrobat attempting to murder her male partner after realizing he loves the mermaid instead of her.
- Magicians Are Wizards: In The Little Mermaid, the circus magician practices real magic, and takes the role of the Sea Witch, giving the mermaid the legs she feels she needs in order to be with her human beloved.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: At the end of The Brave Little Tailor, the Princess gives birth to septupletsnote .
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In The Chimney Sweep and the Shepherdess, the titular Chimney Sweep is about to be destroyed by the cat, but the desk gets so excited whilst cheering the cat on that it accidentally launches one of its drawers at the cat, hitting it in the head and stunning it, giving the Chimney Sweep the chance to escape.
- Prince Charming: It's unclear if the prince from Donkeyskin is this or Prince Charmless; he does scold his men for tripping Donkeyskin into the mud in front of him and does help her up, but he also very visibly takes notice of the gold ring she's wearing, before he spies on her and uncovers her secret.
- Recycled In Space: The premise of the series is basically just familiar fairytales with some kind of twist, gimmick or reimagining, as envisioned by a different comic book artist per each episode. Several of the episodes (such as the "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" ones) more literally just portray the original stories more-or-less straight but in a sci-fi setting.
- Rubber-Forehead Alien: Cinderella is depicted as beautiful alien woman who would pass for human were it not for her scaly purple skin and flowing pink hair. It's implied her Prince Charming looks the same, but he remains clad in form-covering, skin-tight golden armor throughout the episode.
- See-Thru Specs: The twist of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that the entire family are secretly wolves wearing masks and the the boy could see their true faces through his glasses.
- Shout-Out: In the museum from the "Snow White", there are statues of Marsupilami, an off-color Tintin and Snowy, alongside busts of Mickey Mouse and Charlie Brown with a petrified Snow White dressed in the same dress as the Disney version.
- Stock Ness Monster: The Ugly Duckling grows up to be this instead of a swan.
- The Trickster:
- As in the original novel, The Brave Little Tailor is this. After being emboldened by managing to swat seven flies in a single strike, he goes out and defeats a giant just for fun, then captures two giants to win the hand of a princess, both times using trickery to defeat the much bigger, stronger foes. After he is disgraced when his former cleaner sneaks into the wedding feast and reveals his "seven in one blow" was dealt to flies, he manipulates seven of the greatest warriors in the kingdom into killing each other to win back his princess.
- Tom Thumb, after being sold by his father to a traveling circus ringmaster, spends the episode tricking him into paying ever greater sums for animals that have harmlessly swallowed Tom, culminating in him getting home and making the ringmaster pay a bag of gold before leaving with a completely ordinary cat and cow.
- In Donkeyskin, the penultimate twist is that the story Donkeyskin tells her smitten prince of being a princess chased into exile is all lies: she's a common pig farmer's daughter who is being given some illusory help from a pig-faced fairy in order to trick the prince into marrying her.
- Trophy Room: Little Red Riding Hood has a cupboard filled with shoes taken from hyenas she's seduced, killed and eaten.
- Umpteenth Customer: In the Hop-o'-My-Thumb adaptation, the father keeps trying to abandon his children at a theme park only to be foiled by the youngest finding his way back with a trail of popcorn that he left behind. The third time, a dog eats the trail, leaving the boy wandering the park until he is picked out as the millionth visitor and given a bunch of gifts that causes his father to reclaim him.
- Urban Fantasy: Many stories are set in distinctly modern environments, including The Little Mermaid, Puss in Boots, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Pied Piper, despite featuring magic.
- Winged Humanoid: At the end of The Little Mermaid, the titular mermaid gains small wings on her ankles that allow her to fly.
- Women Are Wiser: The twist in The Princess and the Pea is that the whole thing about the princess feeling the pea through all the mattresses is a scheme cooked up by the Queen-Mother and the women in order to trick the foolishly romantic prince into settling down and getting married, which is quite important given the devastated, post-apocalyptic state of their kingdom.
- Would Hurt a Child: Subverted, ironically, in The Pied Piper. When the city officials refuse to pay him for removing the rats from their subway system, he uses his magic flute to lure the adult commuters away to a magical realm through a picture on the subway wall.
