Western Animation / Rolf Kauka's Once Upon a Time

"For what you've done of your own accord, you'll both receive your just reward!"

— Mrs. Holle

Rolf Kauka's Once Upon a Time is a 1973 animated film from West Germany and the only animated film directed by Rolf Kauka, the creator of Fix und Foxi.

In a faraway kingdom, kind-hearted Maria lives an idyllic life with her father, Mr. Bottle, and her blue dog Bello - until a fake fortune-teller cons Mr. Bottle into marrying her. She and her spoiled daughter Mary-Lou make the Bottles' lives miserable, from spending Mr. Bottle's fortune on themselves to forcing Maria into servitude. One day while hunting in the woods, a Prince finds and comforts a crying Maria after Mary-Lou slaps her. The two fall instantly in love. The Prince, who tells Maria that he is only a poor hunter, gives her a garnet stone necklace, saying it will bring them together again. Unfortunately, Mary-Lou steals the necklace and drops it down a well.

Later, the Prince announces that he intends to marry a girl with a garnet stone and make her his queen. When Mary-Lou realizes he is referring to Maria and her necklace, she tricks her into retrieving it for her, only for both girls and the necklace to fall down the well into the magical realm of Mrs. Holle. There Maria and Mary-Lou must prove themselves worthy of the garnet stone by completing some seemingly ordinary tasks for Mrs. Holle and the unusual inhabitants of her topsy-turvy world.

While this seems like a mashup of Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland^note one of the alternate titles even advertises it as such, it is actually an adaptation of the fairy tale Mother Holle, which shares some similarities to Cinderella.

This movie was released in theaters under the title Maria D'Oro und Bello Blue with an animated Fix Und Foxie short, "Symphonie und Müll". It was re-released under several titles in Germany and the UK, including Cinderella's Wonderland and Der Zauberstein ^note The Garnet Stone. While it's a relatively obscure film, it has fans among those who discovered it on VHS as children. The DVD release is currently out of print, but it is currently available to watch on YouTube here..

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"Rolf Kauka's Once Upon A Time" contains the following tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: A gender-inverted version of this trope regarding Master Shoelace and Mary-Lou.
• Accidental Proposal: More like accidental engagement. When Master Shoelace overhears Mary-Lou and her mother say that all they need for her to marry (the Prince) is a garnet stone, he assumes that he can marry Mary-Lou if he gives her one. Mary-Lou and her mother think that Master Shoelace is doing them a favor and graciously accept his offer. The misunderstanding comes to light when Master Shoelace arrives with the garnet stone expecting to be wed immediately.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Mother Holle in the original story is described as an ancient woman with very large front teeth. The mere sight of her is almost enough to scare away the protagonist. The only giveaway that Mrs. Holle is old are a few facial lines and a double chin, and she exudes a warm, grandmotherly vibe.
  • The wicked stepdaughter is usually ugly to accentuate the good stepdaughter's purity and goodness. Mary-Lou isn't bad-looking per se, but she'd be far more attractive if she weren't so nasty to everyone.
• Adaptation Distillation: While Maria and Mary-Lou made separate journeys to Mother Holle in the original story, here they venture there together and go through the trials at the same time.
• Adaptation Expansion: The original story of Mother Holle has a nameless girl living only with her wicked stepfamily who goes through Mrs. Holle's trials to retrieve a spindle and comes home showered in gold. Here there are more elements from Cinderella grafted on, including a neglectful father and a prince trying to find his girl via a trinket. There are more trials in Mrs. Holle's world, Mary-Lou has an unwanted suitor in Master Shoelace in stark contrast to the Prince, and Maria is given an animal sidekick. Also, most of the characters are named.
• The Alcoholic: Mr. Bottle. The narrator even states that "he loved his daughter, but he loved brandy more"!
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Gender-swapped version. Master Shoelace is infatuated with Mary-Lou, never mind the fact that she obviously can't stand him and treats him horribly. He even enjoys it when she throws things at him! When Mary-Lou tries to foist the much kinder Maria on him, he has this to say:
  "You're too nice for me. When I get hitched, it'll be to a witch, like your sister!"
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Mary-Lou. She's a brunette who looks down her nose at everyone, even the Prince.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Bello Blue is a blue puppy...but not the one you're thinking of. The kangaroos in Mrs. Holle's world are also blue, and there are yellow and white cows.
• The Artifact: At the end of the film when Maria is given the garnet stone and a new dress from Mrs. Holle, one of the townspeople who marvels at her declares "Maria's all in gold!" even though her dress is white and pink. In the original story, the victorious daughter returns home covered in pure gold by Mrs. Holle as a reward for her kindness (though this line could be an allusion to the shimmering golden spotlight Maria momentarily stands in).
• Art Shift: Once the story goes into Mrs. Holle's world, the backgrounds and character designs change from a Disney-esque fairy tale look to a trippy cross between Alice in Wonderland and Yellow Submarine.
• Awful Wedded Life:
  • Mr. Bottle's life becomes this after marrying Mary-Lou's mother. She constantly pesters him for money and insults him every chance she gets, and the only thing that brings him happiness is his microbrewery.
  • It'll most likely be this for Mary-Lou once she's wed to Master Shoelace.
• Badass Boast: Mary-Lou does this when she thinks she's finally gotten her hands on the garnet stone:
  "The necklace with the garnet stone, now I'll be queen and reign alone. And all the heavens, the brightest stars, I'm a thousand times more beautiful than you are!"
  
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Mary-Lou is frequently nasty to Bello. The only time she tries to be nice to him is so she can get him to find the garnet stone for her. When he refuses, she ties him up in the woods and leaves him to freeze to death.
• Bathing Beauty: The Prince stumbles upon Mary-Lou bathing in the woods, which is how he meets Maria.
• Bee Afraid: After Mary-Lou and her mother try to pass her off as the Prince's intended, they, along with a dozen other girls who tried to do the same, are chased out of the palace by a swarm of the King's bees.
• Big Entrance: Mary-Lou and her mother ride into town at top speed on a cart pulled by goats as her mother proclaims their arrival, drawing the attention of the bewildered townsfolk.
• Bitch Slap: Mary-Lou delivers a shockingly hard one to Maria early on in the film, just because her stocking fell on the ground while she was bathing.
• Bizarre Seasons: Winter is brought about in Mrs. Holle's world by her and her babies and Maria shaking feather pillows, making it snow, and even then it lasts only a night and a day before it melts and spring returns.
• Book Ends: The story begins with Mary-Lou's mother wildly driving her cart into town, and ends with Master Shoelace driving away with Mary-Lou and her mother in tow.
• Born from Plants: Or rather, reborn from a plant in Bello's case.
• Chariot Pulled by Cats: Mary-Lou's mother drives a rickety cart pulled by goats.
• Cinderella Plot: Evil stepfamily? Check. Good girl forced to be a servant? Check. A prince trying to identify his beloved via a specific article of clothing? Check. The fact that Maria bears a passing resemblance to Disney's Cinderella right down to similar clothing is no coincidence.
• Clothing Switch: Master Shoelace pulls this off with a random bystander wearing a fancy suit and hat as he prepares to marry Mary-Lou.
• Cool Train: One appears in Mrs. Holle's world to bring the girls and Bello to their destination. Despite the fact that Maria and Mary-Lou are from a fairy tale setting, they know what it is and board it.
• Creative Closing Credits: The credits depict an elaborate spinning weathervane featuring all the characters.
• Crowd Song: Master Shoelace's song turns into this as he celebrates his impending marriage to Mary-Lou.
• Daddy's Girl: Maria adores Mr. Bottle and the feeling is mutual (even though he's utterly henpecked and too busy wallowing in self-pity to stop his new wife and Mary-Lou from being mean to his daughter). Maria rejects the Prince's proposal at first since she doesn't want to abandon him to her stepmother's cruelty. When Maria and the Prince do marry, he comes to live with them at the palace.
• Dark Reprise: The reprises of the Prince's song count; Maria sings the first wishing to see her beloved again, comforted only by the fact that she has his necklace to remember him by, and the second has her forlornly singing by the well after losing said necklace.
• Death Glare:
  • The only time Maria does not seem to tolerate Mary-Lou's behavior is when she gives one of these to her after she fakes an injury in order to flirt with the Prince.
  • Mrs. Holle is no slouch, either. She makes it pretty clear how she feels about Mary-Lou and her incessant snobbery without having to say a word.
• Disney Death: Bello. Mary-Lou abandons him in the woods where he gets buried under a pile of snow, from which a blue flower springs up. When Maria finds the flower and picks it because it reminds her of Bello, it magically transforms into him, bringing him back to life.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While bathing in the river, Mary-Lou has Maria hand her a change of clothes like a servant. When Maria accidentally drops to much as a stocking, Mary-Lou's reaction is a cruel and sudden slap to the face.
• Distant Duet: The two reprises of the Prince's song have Maria singing with an image of his reflection in the well.
• Dramatic Irony: After learning the poor hunter was the Prince all along, Mary-Lou realizes that the red garnet he gifted Maria is the necklace that could make her queen. Unbeknownst to her, he's already witnessed her true nature when she was nasty towards Maria, and he did not approve. Not to mention getting whipped in the face with his riding crop and being robbed of his horse certainly left a bad impression of her. So Mary-Lou is wasting her time trying to win the Prince's heart over with the garnet necklace alone.

• Empathy Pet: Bello reflects what Maria's feeling, and cries whenever she is sad.
• Engagement Challenge: Master Shoelace thinks getting Mary-Lou a garnet stone is this. He has no idea that she's only looking for one so she can marry the Prince.

• Exploding Cigar: One of the kangaroos smokes these. He hides it in his pouch when the drill sergeant is inspecting the troop, only for it to explode in the form of fireworks in the sergeant's face.
• Fiery Redhead:
  • The baby that Mrs. Holle gives to Mary-Lou to care for counts. He makes sure she doesn't have an easy time of it.
  • Master Shoelace may be going bald, but he still counts, considering his determination to woo Mary-Lou.
• For the Evulz: What drives most of Mary-Lou's actions. Why steal a horse from someone who's trying to help her, drop her stepsister's beloved necklace down a well, and leave her (and her little dog too) for dead? Because she can.
• Foreshadowing: Mary-Lou seems sympathetically down-trodden by hers and her mother's humble lifestyle, but when her mother is trying to seduce Mr. Bottle to be her husband, Mary-Lou tries to steal him away. This is meant to establish that despite her humble beginnings, Mary-Lou was never a good person to begin with, and will certainly get worse.

• Fourth-Date Marriage: Maria and the Prince marry the second time they lay eyes on each other.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: When Maria and Mary-Lou return from Mrs. Holle's world and are rewarded and punished for their actions respectively, the whole town is there to see it and react accordingly.
• Friend to All Children: Mrs. Holle's babies adore Maria, obeying her when she feeds them and singing her a peppy reprise of the Prince's song. Also ties into...
• Friend to All Living Things: Maria is nothing but kind and helpful to everyone she meets, even Mary-Lou. This plays a big part in her passing Mrs. Holle's tests.
• The Good King: The King is adored by his people, as seen when the messenger's announcement is constantly interrupted by the people cheering for him. He cares for his son's wellbeing and is eager to cheer him up when he notices how sad he is. When he learns that he's in love, he's thrilled; the fact that she's a commoner doesn't matter a bit to him. He encourages his son to find his dream girl and is willing to give him the throne once he marries so he can tend to his bees.
• Gossip Evolution: The King's dining table is so long that the only way he can communicate with his son is via a row of servants who pass along the message to each other until they reach him. Apparently, the King and the Prince are so used to the misunderstandings that inevitably crop up in the process that they're still able to understand the intended meaning and pass on an appropriate reply. Eventually, the King gets sick of the whole routine and confronts the Prince directly.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Subverted. Mary-Lou's stepmother tricks Master Shoelace and the notary into going for a quick walk out the window when they arrive to marry Mary-Lou. They walk out on the open air for a moment before realizing what's happening, but they manage to edge their way back onto the roof of the house before gravity sets back in.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Maria. Also most of the babies that Mrs. Holle looks after.
• Happily Married: The Prince and Maria at the story's end. Master Shoelace ends up married to his dream girl as well, though the feeling is far from mutual...
• Hen Pecked Husband: Maria's father ends up being this to Mary-Lou's mother. In order to avoid dying as she "foretold", the widower father marries her and lets his new wife and step-daughter buy whatever they please, even though it depresses him.
• Hypocrite: When Mary-Lou sees Maria and the Prince alone together, she loudly scolds Maria for flirting with someone instead of working. Mary-Lou then proceeds to shamelessly flirt with the prince. Not to mention that earlier in the story, she nearly tried to gold-dig her future stepfather.
• Ignored Epiphany: When Mary-Lou returns home with the horse of the "poor hunter", her stepfather is the first to notice the horse's saddle bears the royal emblem, suspecting it belongs to the Prince. Instead of realizing there's some truth to his observation, Mary-Lou dismisses that her stepfather is drunk.
• Ignored Vital News Reports: Maria misses the big announcement about the Prince's search for the girl with the garnet stone because she is upset at losing her necklace - the very same the Prince gave her - and sits sadly by the well lamenting her loss. As such, she has no idea he is looking for her and is under the assumption that the Prince is just a kind but poor hunter until they see each other again at the end of the film.
• Incoming Ham: Mary-Lou's mother barges into town riding her wagon at top speed while whooping and hollering "WAKE UP EVERYBODY, HERE I AM!"
• Karmic Jackpot: Maria, who remains unfailingly kind and helpful to everyone, even after spending the entire film being tormented by Mary-Lou, is given a gown befitting a princess, reunited with both her garnet stone and the Prince who gave it to her, and goes off to be a queen as the whole town celebrates her, while her evil stepsister is humiliated and forced to marry the hunchbacked cobbler who drives off with her and her evil stepmother out of town.

• Kick the Dog: Mary-Lou just loves this trope to bits. She abandons Bello in the woods to freeze to death, steals the Prince's horse after he helped her "broken" ankle, and drops the garnet necklace he gifted to Maria to spite how she allegedly fell in love with a "poor hunter". She just seems to have a penchant for spiting everyone around her.
• King Incognito: The Prince passes himself off as a poor hunter in front of Maria and Mary-Lou. Mary-Lou doesn't suspect a thing, even after she steals the Prince's horse and Mr. Bottle notices the royal crest on the saddle. She makes the connection only after facing the Prince with the fake garnet stone.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Maria's kindness and selflessness earns her the love of everyone she meets, Mrs. Holle's approval, and the Prince, while Mary-Lou's selfishness and jackassery get her repeatedly humiliated, covered in pitch and sulfur, and married off to the hunchbacked cobbler she despises.
• Loyal Animal Companion: Bello accompanies Maria everywhere. He tries to save her when Mary-Lou lets her fall down the well, and even goes to find Mary-Lou at Maria's behest when she's lost in the woods just because she asks him to.

• Maternally Challenged: Whereas Maria has no trouble taking care of Mrs. Holle's babies, Mary-Lou can't handle even one.
• Let's Duet: The love song the Prince sings to Maria has her joining in at the end.
• Locked in a Room: Master Shoelace and the notary endure the rooftop variation of this for most of the film's second half.
• Love at First Sight: Maria and the Prince, naturally.
• The Marvelous Deer: The Prince chases a white stag through the woods which leads him to Maria and Mary-Lou.
• Never Given a Name: The King, the Prince, the notary, and Mary-Lou's mother all go unnamed.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Despite that he clearly witnessed (and was repulsed by) Mary-Lou's cruelty, against his better judgement, the Prince takes pity on her when she (seemingly) sprains her ankle. He even offered to ride them both to get some help. His kindness is rewarded when Mary-Lou slaps him with his own riding crop and steals his horse. And to (literally) add insult to injury, she tells him to his face she's too good for a poor hunter like him.
  • When Mary-Lou offers to help Maria retrieve the garnet stone she threw down the well, Maria takes her up on it. She has no idea that Mary-Lou isn't doing this out of remorse, but because she wants the necklace to become the Prince's bride. Once Maria finds it, Mary-Lou snatches the necklace and lets go of the rope holding Maria. Had Mrs. Holle not opened the door to her world and sucked the girls and the garnet stone in, Maria (and Bello too) would have drowned.
  • Maria later sends Bello to look for Mary-Lou and make sure she's all right after she refused to spend the night at Mrs. Holle's and left to look for a way home herself - despite knowing that Bello and Mary-Lou don't get along. Bello finds Mary-Lou, but since he won't help her get the garnet stone, she ties him to a tree and leaves him alone in the woods. Mary-Lou does return to Mrs. Holle's eventually, but lies and says she never saw Bello. This is made even worse when it starts snowing and it's implied Bello freezes to death. Luckily, he gets better.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Bello is this to Maria.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Mary-Lou's reaction on meeting the Prince and realizing he's the hunter she whipped in the face and stole a horse from, and that Maria's necklace - the one she dropped down a well - is the one the Prince is looking for.
  • Happens again when, on their way back to their world from Mrs. Holle's, Maria discovers a blue flower in the snow that's all that's left of Bello after Mary-Lou left him for dead. At first, Mary-Lou doesn't want Maria to go near it as she doesn't want her to learn she's responsible for Bello's death. Then Bello springs from the flower alive and well, and Mary-Lou freaks out that he's supposed to be dead.
• Painting the Frost on Windows: When it gets cold out, Mrs. Holle and her babies shake out feather pillows, which becomes snow.
• Phony Psychic: Mary-Lou's mother. Give her a good coin and she'll instantly see good fortune in your future. Once she discovers that Mr. Bottle is rich and single, she's determined to milk him for all he's worth; she tracks him down and "predicts" that a terrible fate will befall him unless he marries her.
• Pimped-Out Dress: In addition to rewarding Maria with the garnet stone, Mrs. Holle also changes her peasant dress into this.
• Pink Means Feminine: Mrs. Holle, a wise, magical old woman who looks after babies and imparts lessons of patience and kindness onto Maria and Mary-Lou, wears a pink dress and bonnet.
  • The princess dress Maria wears at the end has pink accents.
  • Mary-Lou's dress at the start of the film has pink on it.
• Precious Puppy: Bello, naturally.

• Princess Classic: Maria is sweetness and innocence personified, and she marries the Prince at the end.
• Recycled Animation: Some animation of Mary-Lou trying to coax Bello towards her and reacting in fear in Mrs. Holle's woods are clearly reused several times.
• Redemption Rejection: You'd expect Mary-Lou to learn some sort of lesson or at least stop being mean to everyone while in Mrs. Holle's world in order to get the garnet stone, but she actively refuses to change.
• Rhymes on a Dime: All the characters fall into this at least once throughout the course of the film.
• Rotoscoping: The animation falls into this occasionally, especially where Maria and Mary-Lou are concerned.
• Running Gag: The notary demanding to be paid, and also driving up his fee every time his situation goes from bad to worse. It's even the very last line of the movie.
• Sky Face: Mrs. Holle appears in the sky after the girls return home to deliver the page quote and give them their karmic reward.
• Secret Test of Character: Everything in Mrs. Holle's world that the girls come across is this.
• Shopping Montage: Happens immediately after Mr. Bottle agrees to marry Mary-Lou's mother, further establishing how she only did it to get her hands on his money. Also counts as Villains Out Shopping.
• Something We Forgot: Mr. Bottle completely forgets about Maria when he rushes into remarrying, only remembering her when she walks in on him dancing with her new stepmother.
  "M-m-my daughter! I-I have forgotten my daughter! Oh dear, what am I going to tell her?" (faints)
• Spoiled Brat: Mary-Lou. Though she starts the film poor and homeless, this side of her comes out once her mother marries Mr. Bottle and she gets more clothes, shoes, and jewelry than she could ever dream of.
• Stock Beehive: The King, who dabbles in beekeeping on the side, houses his bees in these.
• Tension-Cutting Laughter: Master Shoelace and the notary break into this after they just manage to make it back on to to the roof before gravity sets in.
• Trap Door: The girls who present fake garnet stones in order to marry the prince are sent down this along with their pushy mothers. The King accidentally falls down it at one point while carrying a beehive, which results in the bees getting loose and chasing everyone out of the castle.
• The Trees Have Faces: Like in the story this is based on, Maria and Mary-Lou encounter a talking tree whose branches are weighed down by apples and begs them to shake them loose.
• True Blue Femininity: Mary-Lou's dress for most of the film is blue and orange, and Maria wears a blue skirt.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Mr. Bottle looks like a short obese version of Christopher Columbus while his daughter, Maria, is a Cinderella expy. Gender-flipped in that Mary-Lou looks virtually nothing like her mother, and the Prince doesn't resemble the King in the slightest.
• Ungrateful Bastard: The Prince is rather kind to Mary-Lou when she fakes a broken ankle, helping her onto his horse and offering to ride her home. On the basis that he's a "poor hunter" , Mary-Lou repays his generosity by cruelly whipping his face with his own riding crop and stealing his horse.
• Urine Trouble: One of Mrs. Holle's babies pees on Mary-Lou when she makes him cry.
• Virgin in a White Dress:
  • Pure, saintly Maria gets a white and pink princessy dress from Mrs. Holle to further show how good she is. The Prince takes her away to her castle afterward, meaning this doubles as a wedding dress.
  • Averted with Mary-Lou. The first dress we see her in is white and pink, but she's a terrible person.
• Wardrobe Wound: Happens to Mary-Lou twice - one of Mrs. Holle's babies pees on her in retaliation for force-feeding him, then she gets covered in pitch as punishment for her selfishness and terrible behavior in front of the entire town. Needless to say, she doesn't take it well.
• What You Are in the Dark: When Mary-Lou has Maria fetch the garnet necklace from the well from her, she makes it a point to allow her (and Bello) to fall back into the well and drown once she gains her prize. With no one to witness she doomed her stepsister and pet to a watery grave, she boasts about how she'll be queen (with implications she'll kill her prince to reign alone). This is meant to establish that in spite of her humble beginnings, she has come a long way to the cruel-hearted, wicked stepsister she is today. And it doesn't help her case when she makes a Blasphemous Boast that not even the Heavens can stop her now.

• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Mary-Lou pretends to twist her ankle in order to gain the Prince's sympathy and steal his horse.