The Fairy Tale Project | Faerie Tale Theatre (1982)

In the '80s, Shelley Duvall produced an awesome series of fairy tale adaptations for Showtime. It was shot on video and the sets weren't always lavish, so the look doesn't necessarily hold up as top tier, but Faerie Tale Theatre had top talent working on it, in front of the camera as well as behind.

The sets were often designed to imitate the work of famous illustrators, so "The Frog Prince" looks like Maxfield Parrish's work, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is inspired by Norman Rockwell, "Hansel and Gretel" has an Arthur Rackham vibe, and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is based on NC Wyeth. I understand that the "Beauty and the Beast" episode was designed to mimic Jean Cocteau's excellent 1946 adaptation of the tale.

Duvall also got great directors to work on the episodes. Eric Idle directed "The Frog Prince," Roger Vadim did "Beauty and the Beast," Nicholas Meyer did "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," Tim Burton did "Aladdin," and Francis Ford Coppola did "Rip Van Winkle."

And the actors are a Who's Who of '80s (and beyond) celebrities like Robin Williams, Teri Garr, Hervé Villechaize, Jeff Bridges, Mick Jagger, Mako, Edward James Olmos, Anjelica Huston, Mary Steenburgen, Malcolm McDowell, Ricky Schroder, Joan Collins, John Lithgow, Pee Wee Herman, Carrie Fisher, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Lee, Jeff Goldblum... As impressive as that list is, it's maybe a third of the top-name people who appeared in these stories.

I watched three episodes for this project and I bet you can guess which ones they were.

Elizabeth McGovern (She's Having a Baby, Downton Abbey) plays Snow White and she's certainly beautiful, but her performance isn't as inspired as the true stars of the show: Vanessa Redgrave (The first Mission: Impossible movie) as the Evil Queen and Vincent Price (oh, you know) as her Magic Mirror. Price is charming and droll as he rolls his eyes at the Queen's vanity, but Redgrave is next-level amazing with the way she prances and primps in front of the mirror. I'm pretty sure Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs learned everything he knows about preening from Redgrave's Queen. She's marvelous and tragic as a woman who deep down understands that Snow White has replaced her, but is fighting it with every ounce of will that she has.

Other cast members in this one are Tony Cox (Spaceballs, Bad Santa) as one of the dwarfs, and Rex Smith as the Prince. Smith's coolest other role has to be Daredevil in the Trial of the Incredible Hulk TV movie from 1989, but he also appeared opposite Linda Ronstadt in the '83 movie adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance. He puts those singing skills to good use in Faerie Tale Theatre.

"Cinderella" has Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, The Bride) in the title role, Jean Stapleton (All in the Family) as her fairy godmother, and Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) as the Prince. A highlight of this one is how much time it spends building a relationship between Cinderella and the Prince. It shows a lot of the ball and Beals and Broderick do a nice job convincing me that they're falling in love. That's especially good since the theme of the FTT version is that Cinderella is perfectly capable of winning the Prince over by herself. The Fairy Godmother just gets her in the door.

There's also a fun bit between the stepsisters and the prince at the ball, since one of them is played by Edie McClurg. She was also Ed Rooney's secretary in Ferris Bueller the following year, so we get to see Grace hit on Ferris. Another actor worth mentioning is James Noble as the King. If you're familiar with the sitcom Benson, Noble is basically still playing Governor Gatling in this.

"Sleeping Beauty" was easily my favorite of the three episodes, mostly because it has Bernadette Peters as the princess and Christopher Reeve as the prince. It also keeps Perrault's Don't Rush Into Love as a theme and presents it in a really fun way. Most of the story is told in flashback by a woodsman to the prince and his squire (Ron Rifkin from Alias), but we also get flashbacks to the prince's past. We see both the prince and the princess trying to find potential spouses, but failing because their parents throw them at awful people, who are also hilariously played by Peters and Reeve. Other actors in this one include Rene Auberjonois (Benson, Deep Space Nine) and Sally Kellerman (MASH, Back to School) as Peters' parents, Beverly D'Angelo (National Lampoon's Vacation) as the evil fairy who curses the princess, and Carol Kane (The Muppet Movie, Taxi) as the good fairy who modifies the curse.

The Fairy Tale Project | Fractured Fairy Tales (1959)

In the '50s, the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show had a segment called Fractured Fairy Tales, which were humorous adaptations of the classic stories. I wasn't around at the time, but Rocky and Bullwinkle were still in heavy syndication when I was a kid. And Fractured Fairy Tales was always one of my favorite parts of any episode.

I didn't want to watch all of them for this project, but I thought I might watch at least the three stories that I've read up to this point. I was surprised to find the silly, little spoofs actually insightful.

Like in the Grimm Brothers' version, "Snow White" focuses on the Queen and her obsession with holding onto the value her culture assigns her as a woman. When her magic (coin-operated) mirror sends her to the dwarfs' house to find Snow White, the princess isn't there, but the dwarfs have just opened a gym that they're happy to sell the Queen a lifetime membership to. When that doesn't return her to Fairest In The Land status, she goes back to the dwarfs again. This happens several times. Snow White is never there and the dwarfs have some new scheme to help the Queen find her value: dance lessons, health food, charm school. At the end it's revealed that the whole thing is a scam with one of the dwarfs working inside the mirror to drum up business and capitalize on the Queen's insecurities.

FFT's "Cinderella" is about appearances and materialism. Cinderella is actually pretty lazy and just wants an easy way to get the lifestyle she craves. (Her sisters are barely in it, but they're hardworking scullery maids, so Cinderella is solely responsible for her attitude.) The fairy godmother shows up to grant Cinderella her wishes, but there's a catch. Cinderella has to sell a huge supply of kitchen utensils by midnight or she'll lose her fabulous prizes. Meanwhile, the prince is going bankrupt and has to pay off his creditors by midnight or he'll lose the castle. When Cinderella shows up to sell the prince some pots and pans, he's fooled by her appearance and thinks she's rich. So while she's trying to get him to buy utensils, he's trying to get her to marry him, both getting increasingly desperate as 12:00 approaches. Both Perrault and the Grimm's versions are about more than marrying a rich prince, but Cinderella certainly uses appearances to obtain her escape from her stepfamily. There's a lot more to her than just looks, but the other characters in the story don't see that. FFT's commentary on appearances is a valid focus.

Finally, "Sleeping Beauty" also gets a materialistic makeover. It rushes through the early part of the story to get to the prince's arrival. We're told that he's supposed to kiss Sleeping Beauty (borrowed from Disney, possibly, since this episode didn't air until the early '60s), but the prince decides at the last moment that an awakened princess is after all just a princes. A sleeping princess is a novelty, so he turns the castle into a tourist attraction. That's darkly fascinating when I consider that the Grimms' version of the story is about pausing the princess' maturation process. In FFT, the prince keeps it paused even longer than it needs to be, simply for financial gain. And it occurs to me that modern Disney sort of does the same thing with the young teenage girls that it turns into stars.

The Fairy Tale Project | Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Who's in it?: I was pretty dismissive of the casts for Snow White and Cinderella, but I'm starting to recognize some recurring voices now. For instance, Eleanor Audley who plays Maleficent was also the voice of Cinderella's stepmother. And Barbara Luddy who plays the delightful fairy Merryweather was also the voice of Lady in Lady and the Tramp and would go on to be the voice of Kanga in Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh films. Verna Felton is another fairy and came to the role with experience as Cinderella's fairy godmother (among other Disney roles like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland).

What's it about?: It credits Charles Perrault's version as its inspiration, but it's a very loose adaptation, restructuring the whole story around some familiar elements.

How is it?: I don't envy Erdman Penner and his fellow screenwriters for the job of adapting "Sleeping Beauty" for an all-ages audience. In both Perrault and Grimm, the themes are rather grown up. Perrault advises his audience to take romance seriously while the Grimms more or less celebrate puberty. But there's so much cool imagery in the fairy tale that it's begging for Disney to put it on the big screen. The result is a beautiful spectacle with a light story.

It's remarkable how great the characters are though. Maleficent of course is an A+ villain, but the fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) are also super memorable and fun. Prince Phillip is the best developed and most Charming of all the Disney princes so far. And the film spends a surprising amount of time with the two kings Stefan and Hubert who pledged their children to each other as infants and are rethinking that decision now that their kids are older and able to think for themselves.

It's too bad that the title character doesn't have more to do. Aurora (named after the daughter of the title character from Perrault's version, while her alias - Briar Rose - is the title character of the Grimms') is beautiful and pleasant and has her own opinions about things, but she never gets to do anything about them. Penner and Company add a nice element by having Aurora meet Phillip before they're supposed to so that they fall in love without realizing who each other are. This calls into question the arranged marriage and leads to some nice teen rebellion, but of course it's all temporary and ultimately meaningless since the conflict isn't real. It's just an easily resolved misunderstanding.

Outside of just how gorgeous the film is (artist Eyvind Earle's concept designs and background paintings are breathtaking and it's amazing how successfully they're incorporated into the film), its hard to see the point of the story. No one learns anything. The stated message in the film is that Love Conquers All (primarily illustrated by Phillip's determination to defeat Maleficent and rescue Aurora, but also in the power of Love's First Kiss to awaken the princess, something that this film came up with as far as I can tell), but it's a hollow idea. Phillip and Aurora barely know each other, so while I believe that they're attracted to each other and have the beginnings of a fine relationship, it's too flimsy to hold the weight of the professed theme.

Rating: Four out of five crazy kids in love.

The Fairy Tale Project | "Briar Rose" by The Brothers Grimm

Illustration by Maxfield Parrish

The literal translation of the Brothers Grimm's "Dornröschen" is "Brian Rose" or "Little Briar Rose," but some collections just call it "Sleeping Beauty" since it's Perrault's title that most people know the story by. The Brothers have whittled down Perrault's tale though into what we recognize today. It's got a true Happily Ever After ending with no post-wedding adventures involving a monstrous mother-in-law. But it also removes a lot of the detail even from the familiar parts of the story.

Before I get into that, there are a couple of other changes that I found interesting. The fairies are changed to Wise Women and the King and Queen are much more accountable for not inviting one. They don't omit her for any good faith reason, but simply because they don't have enough gold place settings for all the Wise Women in the area. It seems like maybe there's a better way out of that dilemma than just blowing one off, but I'm no king, so what do I know. The rest of the banquet plays out mostly like it does in Perrault until it comes time for one of the Wise Women to modify the curse of the offended one.

She still changes the death curse into a hundred-year sleep, but there's no prophecy about a prince being involved in waking her up. And there's still certainly no mention of a kiss. It's just that the sleep has a hundred-year expiration date on it. And when the forest of brambles grows up around the castle, there's no explanation for why. It could be the kind Wise Woman protecting the princess like she does in Perrault. Or it could just be nature reasserting itself and taking over.

There's also no reason given for why the brambles turn to flowers at the end of the hundred years, letting in the first prince to come along, but that does seem to suggest that the bramble forest is more than a natural occurrence. Most likely it's part of the good Wise Woman's blessing. Readers are just left to figure that out for themselves.

Readers also have to figure out the point of the story for themselves, too. The prince finds the princess, immediately falls in love with her and kisses her and that's when she opens her eyes. The kiss doesn't break the spell; I imagine the princess lying in bed half-awake, but with her eyes closed like you sometimes do after a long, peaceful sleep. She may even have heard the prince enter the room, but ignored it, confusing it with a dream. She can't ignore the kiss though and that's what gets her back to full consciousness. The Grimms' just write that she "looked at him kindly" and the next thing we know they're getting married. The End.

So what does it mean? In absence of any specified meaning in the story itself, I'm going to modify the one given by Perrault. There does seem to be this theme around the princess' arrested development in the areas of romance and sex, but the Grimms don't moralize about it. They don't specifically warn readers against rushing into romance. In fact, rushing into romance is exactly what the princess and prince do once she wakes up.

So that turns "Briar Rose" into something of a fantasy about a young woman blossoming into maturity. Just as she reaches the threshold of sexual awakening, she's thrown into suspended animation and made to wait. And any potential mates will have to hold off as well. The title of the story supports this. The princess is nicknamed Briar Rose after the bramble forest that springs up around the castle during her sleep. She's cut off sexually; unattainable. But as she nears awakening, the forest that she's named after literally blossoms. The Grimms write that the flowers "open a path" for the prince. I don't suspect that all of this blossoming and opening language is accidental.

Like with "Snow White," the Grimms' point with "Briar Rose" isn't to teach a lesson. It's simply to highlight a reality. "Snow White" is a tragic example of the devaluing of women as they age. "Briar Rose" pauses the moment of a young woman's sexual awakening as something to be savored and celebrated. No wonder Disney made some changes.

The Fairy Tale Project | "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" by Charles Perrault

Illustration by Warwick Goble

I love Charles Perrault for spelling out his morals at the end of his stories and telling me exactly what he wants me to get from them. In "Sleeping Beauty," it's all about delayed gratification and not rushing into romance. The young princess in the tale waits a hundred years for true love.

And true love it is. I was surprised by how much energy Perrault invests in developing the romance. This isn't Snow White where the prince simply sees a beautiful girl and immediately wants to possess her. And in Perrault, there's no Love's First Kiss needed to break the spell.

There are some other surprises in the story, too, so let me get those out of the way first. I'm most familiar with the Disney version and expected a certain amount of malevolence out of the being who curses the princess, but it's simpler than that. We're dealing with fairies and if there's anything they teach you in Fairies 101, it's that you don't slight them, even accidentally. When the princess' parents give a banquet to celebrate her christening, they neglect to invite an older fairy whom no one's heard from in a long time. They assume that she's dead or busy or something. When she shows up, they're embarrassed, but immediately try to correct their error by inviting her to eat. She accepts, but is offended again when they're short a set of the golden table settings they'd had made for the occasion. It's nobody's fault, but that's what happens when you get involved with fairies.

Like in the Disney version, one of the other fairies is able to hold back her blessing until after the child has been cursed. But in Perrault, it's a young fairy who suspects that the old fairy will do something nasty and so intentionally waits until last to bestow her gift. When the old fairy curses the child with death by spinning wheel, the young fairy changes it to a sleeping curse. She stipulates that the princess will sleep for a hundred years, but "at the end of that time a king's son shall come to awaken her." There's no kiss or even love required to break the spell; just the boy's presence.

And it's also the young fairy who creates the forest of brambles and thorns to surround the castle so that no one messes with the sleeping girl. The young fairy is really quite thoughtful and foresightful in the story. She's got dwarfs for servants and a fiery chariot pulled by dragons. I like her a lot.

A hundred years later, the kingdom has been overthrown and a new royal family has taken over. When the new prince is hunting in the woods, locals tell him the story of the enchanted castle and he realizes that the time is about right and he is a prince, so he goes to check it out. Again, nothing is said of marrying or even kissing the girl. It's really just an adventure that the prince is curious to see through. The bramble forest parts automatically and forms a path for him.

When he finds the princess, she wakes up. All it takes is his being in the room. And it's her who immediately falls for him out of gratitude. "Is it you, dear prince?" she says. "You have been long in coming!" And because of how she reacts to him, he starts to fall for her, too. Perrault says that the prince kind of stumbles over his words, but that the two of them talk for a good long time. "The less there is of eloquence," Perrault writes, "the more there is of love." That's pretty cool.

After a few hours of conversation, they decide to have supper and then go ahead and get married. So it is fairly whirlwind, but not immediate and certainly not the shallow, courtly romance that I expected from a story by an 18th century Frenchman.

Another surprise is that the story doesn't end with Happily Ever After, either. If romance is worth waiting for, it's also worth working through. Perrault reveals right away that something is amiss, because the prince keeps his marriage a secret from his parents for two years. He even has a couple of kids with the princess before his folks find out.

Turns out that the prince's mom is part ogre and prone to eating children. I won't spoil what happens when she finds out, but the story is short and easily available online. It's worth checking out. It's a cool fairy tale adventure in itself and I like the refusal of Perrault's whole story to paint romance as something easy.