History Series / TheStoryteller

** The Storyteller himself appears inside the story "Hans, My Hedgehog", something that doesn't otherwise happen except in "A Story Short", to read tarot for the king. He smiles at the camera and assures the audience that he's very good at this. (He and his tarot reading abilities would have also appeared in-story in "The Witch Baby" had it been filmed.)

** The series was originally supposed to have a full season. It's short run (and limited scheduling over three years) was more due to how expensive it was to produce the show.
* CharacterWitness: In "A Story Short", the hero is helped out of his predicament by a beggar he aided.

* ADayInTheLimelight: The Storyteller himself is the main character of "A Story Short". Aside from a bit part in "Hans, My Hedgehog" he does not directly appear in any other stories.

* HowIWroteThisArticleArticle: In "A Story Short," the Storyteller tells the story of why he couldn't think of a story.

* KarmicTrickster: The Beggar from "A Story Short". He turns up to torment the Cook (because [[spoiler: The Cook is an asshole]]) and the Storyteller (because [[spoiler: The Storyteller helped him at the beginning of the story and all that grief made for a ''fantastic'' story on a day when the Storyteller was facing execution for not having a story to tell]]).

** "A Story Short" features the storyteller, his wife, the beggar, the cook, the king, the queen, and the prince. None of them have names.

* OldBeggarTest: A lesson that the Storyteller learns in "A Story Short", alluded to before he begins telling the story:

* ScheherezadeGambit: "A Story Short" has the Storyteller himself challenged to give the king a new story every day for a year, with food, lodging, and a gold piece for every day he succeeds, and death by boiling oil if he fails. It's only on the final day that he finally runs out of stories, but a [[CharacterWitness friendly]] [[SidekickExMachina beggar]] he had helped get fed in the opening act gives him a fantastic dream vision for a final story.

* StoneSoup: Appears in "A Story Short," but with the BrokenAesop that rather than learning the value of cooperation, the cook is infuriated at being deceived and humiliated and demands that the Stone Soup makers be executed for stealing. In the end, though, he changes his ways.
* TheStoryteller: Our narrators, and the main character of the series. Such an archetypical example that [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep they're never given any name at all]]. John Hurt's Storyteller tells stories to his dog in a dilapidated house by a roaring fire, while Michael Gambon's Storyteller wanders around the Labyrinth of Minos is the FramingDevice for the stories within the episodes. John Hurt's Storyteller appears in two stories directly, the first being ''Hans, My Hedgehog'' where he is posing as a fortune teller and gets thrown in jail for offending the king with his fortune only to be pardoned in celebration of the princess' wedding. The second is his DayInTheLimelight episode ''A Story Short'' where he becomes a royal storyteller but runs out of stories before the last story mandated by his agreement with the King.

* AYearAndADay: In "Hans, my Hedgehog," when the king promises Hans the first thing to greet him when he returns to his kingdom, Hans says that he'll collect his reward after this amount of time.

* DelusionsOfEloquence: In "The True Bride", both The Troll and The Troll's Daughter speak in a strange manner, with word choices that suggest they don't ''quite'' know the meanings of all the words they're using. The Story Teller even lampshades this by saying trolls are always contradicting each other.

* DelusionsOfEloquence: In "The True Bride", both The Troll and The Troll's Daughter speak in a strange manner, with word choices that suggest they don't ''quite'' know the meanings of all the words they're using.

Since the end of the show further stories have been released in comic form. A graphic novel with [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160906122709/http://natecosboom.tumblr.com/post/5582647532/jim-hensons-the-storyteller-cast-revealed nine stories]] (one of which, "The Witch Baby", adapted an unproduced series script) came out in September 2011 by Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment. A four issue mini-series entitled ''The [=StoryTeller=]: Witches'' was also released by the same company in 2014 and likewise adapted an unproduced script ("Vasilissa the Beautiful"). That was followed by up by further four issue mini-series', each themed around a different class of mythical being, including:

* BarredFromTheAfterlife: One episode had a soldier who became EnemiesWithDeath... and "won", putting it in a bag but eventually releasing it. Because of this, Death was too afraid to reap him, Heaven would not take him for his sins, and Hell was afraid he'd take over.

** Played straight in "The Luck Child". At the beginning of the story, the evil king throws the eponymous baby off a cliff to the crashing waves below, but the blanket snags on a branch on the way down, unraveling and dropping the baby gently and safely on the soft sand, where he's found by a peasant couple.

* HonoraryPrincess: In ''The true bride'' tale, Anja was a poor orphan until a magical castle appear just for her and her abusive troll godfather die. Anja go on living in the castle where she is provided everything she needs (nice dresses, food, servants) and as an adult, she is considered as a princess by the neighborhood. The proof is, princes who started to pay her visits, to ask for her hand.

Since the end of the show further stories have been released in comic form. A graphic novel with [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160906122709/http://natecosboom.tumblr.com/post/5582647532/jim-hensons-the-storyteller-cast-revealed nine stories]] (one of which, "The Witch Baby", adapted an unproduced series script) came out in September 2011 by Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment. A four issue mini-series entitled ''The [=StoryTeller=]: Witches'' was also released by the same company in 2014 and likewise adapted an unproduced script ("Vasilissa the Beautiful"). That was followed by four issue mini-series including:

Since the end of the show further stories have been released in comic form. A graphic novel with [[http://natecosboom.tumblr.com/post/5582647532/jim-hensons-the-storyteller-cast-revealed nine stories]] (one of which, "The Witch Baby", adapted an unproduced series script) came out in September 2011 by Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment. A four issue mini-series entitled ''The [=StoryTeller=]: Witches'' was also released by the same company in 2014 and likewise adapted an unproduced script ("Vasilissa the Beautiful"). That was followed by four issue mini-series including:

** In "Sapsorrow", when one of the bad sisters [[spoiler:attempts to marry the prince and appears to fit the slipper, she says to call her "Princess Bad Sister".]]

* AdaptedOut: The king and the princess from ''Literature/TheStoryOfTheYouthWhoWentForthToLearnWhatFearWas'' are omitted from ''Fearnot.'' Instead of being sent into the haunted castle with the promise of marriage to a princess if he can survive its horrors, Fearnot is taken there by the CanonForeigner tinker McKay, who agrees to teach him fear in exchange for money, and in the end he marries Lidia, his sweetheart from his home village.

* AccidentalProposal: In "Sapsorrow," the King, needing a new wife, proclaims that whichever woman's finger fits the late queen's ring will become his bride. While playing with the ring, the youngest daughter misplaces it, and puts it on her ring finger for safe keeping. When she reveals what happened to the ring, the king and her sisters see that it fits perfectly, and as per the law, she must obey the proclamation and marry her own father. Luckily, some forest animals are there to make her make a costume and help her escape, and she later meets [[spoiler: a prince that she marries and help her out her original arraingment]].

'''Storyteller:''' ''[as if saying "that's it, thank you"]'' Exactly.

-->'''Storyteller''' ''(as he puts his hands over a candle flame, then walks over to his chair, keeping his hands together)'': Sometimes people are born lucky. You imagine that if they open their hands, there'd be a little piece of sunshine. ''(He opens his hands, and a glow starts to come from there.)'' A personal piece. It lights them up. Everyone loves these people. They're lit up. ''(He blows the glow out,)'' [[InnocentlyInsensitive Cats sit on their laps.]]\\

-->'''Storyteller:''' ''[puts his hands over a candle flame, then walks over to his chair, keeping his hands together]'' Sometimes people are born lucky. You imagine that if they open their hands, there'd be a little piece of sunshine. ''[he opens his hands, and a glow starts to come from there]'' A personal piece. It lights them up. Everyone loves these people. They're lit up. ''[blows the glow out]'' [[InnocentlyInsensitive Cats sit on their laps.]]\\

'''Storyteller:''' It's luck. It's a gift. It's a blessing, and therefore can't be undone. ''[dramatic lean in closer to the audience]'' This is also true of [[TheProphecy prophecies]].

-->'''Storyteller:''' "Death, a prisoner." The news went from one of the Tsar's 50 wives to the other, [[NewsTravelsFast spread through the town as fast as gossip,]] [[ShapedLikeItself which is what it was and nothing travels faster.]] And within four and a half minutes, the whole town knew. And within seventeen minutes, the whole country knew. And by the following morning, it was the talking point of a thousand languages! "Death, a prisoner!" "[[GratuitousSpanish Muerte, un prisionare!]]" "[[GratuitousGerman Tot, ein Gefangener!]]" "Smierz uns Nize!" ''[{{beat}}]'' I've forgotten the Greek...\\

->''When people told themselves their past with stories,\\

the best place by the fire was kept for... the Storyteller.''

* DidntThinkThisThrough: In "The Soldier and Death", the soldier attempts to trick his way into Heaven by handing his magic sack to one of the souls waiting to enter Heaven, and asking the soul to call him into the sack once he is within Heaven. However, the soldier forgot that all souls entering Heaving lose all mortal life, so once he is in Heaven, the soul has no memory of why he has a sack or what he is supposed to do with it. So the soldier remains BarredFromTheAfterlife and left to wander the earth without his magic sack.

* ParentalIncest: Sapsorrow has to marry her father because the queen's ring fits her finger; nobody desires it, but the law demands it. She disguises herself as a creature with fur and feathers and leaves her kingdom to avoid this.
** Sapsorrow's sisters, on the other hand, try on the ring in the hopes that their father will marry one of them. Not so much because of incest, but because then they would still get their inheritance.

* SelfFulfillingProphecy: In "The Luck Child", the reason the king wants to kill Lucky is because of a prophecy that the Luck Child will someday take his throne. His attempts to have Lucky circumspectly killed result in this happening.

** "Hans, My Hedgehog" only has the title character. The deuteragonist princess has a unique title (Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie) but not a name.