Faerie Tale Theatre: Hansel and Gretal

Shelley Duvall passed away two years ago now, though back when I first heard the news I initially planned to return to a VERY long-gestating first-time watch of her passion project, Faerie Tale Theatre. I started this ten years ago, folks. All I can say is better late than never.

The show was best described as an anthology series, comprised of twenty-seven comic retellings of traditional fairy tales. They all look pretty low-budget, but there was some eye-opening talent involved (the ones I’ve watched so far have starred Robin Williams, Mick Jagger, Jeff Bridges, Christopher Reeves, Mary Steenburgen and Joan Collins – insane!) I’ve already covered the first seven episodes in the series, and this is its eighth: “Hansel and Gretal.”

The episode is different in a couple of important respects: firstly, that it actually casts children in the child roles (in “Little Red Riding Hood,” a fully-grown Mary Steenburgen played the titular character) and secondly, that it eschews a soundstage in order to go out on-location. Those real kids are in a real forest, and the Gingerbread House is clearly a real construct – not just a badly rendered drawing on a backdrop.

“Hansel and Gretal” is a quick, simple story, but one that’s surprisingly easy to adapt into a full-length feature. In fact, I grew up with a version that was part of the Cannon Movietales collection (another series of fairy tale retellings made in the eighties) and which clearly derived a lot of inspiration from this episode – particularly in the use of Engelbert Humperdinck’s score for his “Hänsel und Gretel” opera.

It’s also a very frightening story, featuring legitimate child endangerment not only from the cannibal witch, but also the children’s parents: a homicidal stepmother and a useless father. It’s only the quick-thinking of the children (mostly Gretal, which is surprising given the period when this tale was originally told) that gets them out alive.

I’d go so far to say that this fairy tale lies at the root of a huge chunk of our horror stories. Cannibalism, like in The Silence of the Lambs? You saw it here first. Child abandonment and/or endangerment found in things like The Black Phone? Has its roots here. Creepy old hags such as Aunt Gladys in Weapons? Definitely born from this story. Is somebody being tempted to do something or enter somewhere because of the delicious food on display, such as Ofelia in Pan’s Labryinth? That’s the Gingerbread House trope at work. How about aesthetics like those found in Robert Eggers’s The Witch or Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm? Goes without saying.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer pulled off a subversion in the episode “Gingerbread,” in which two dead children (referred to as “Hans and Gretta”) are actually a demon that feeds off the paranoia and mob mentality that follows in the wake of a tragedy. The first King’s Quest game requires the player to enter a Gingerbread House and win extra points for pushing the witch in the fire. I’m pretty sure one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies bases itself heavily on the story (sorry, I’ve only seen the first) and the phrase “follow the breadcrumbs” has entered the vernacular as a way of following clues left behind someone.

I believe even this year’s Obsession made direct references to the fairy tale of “Hansel and Gretel.” In other words, it’s everywhere.

Most Surprising Guest Star: Joan Collins pulls double-duty as the Evil Stepmother and the Wicked Witch. And for someone who was so renowned for glamour and glitz, she seemed to embrace the chance to appear on-camera like this:

Most Muddled Moral of the Story: Shelley Duvall spells out to us this story teaches us “not to take candy from strangers.” Does it though? Was that really the purpose of this story? I always thought this was more about the desperation of poverty and a bias against ugly old crones, but that’s just me.

Saddest Half-Orphans: “I wish mother was still alive.”

Worst Anachronism: Has to go to the Stepmother, who is dirt poor but apparently can still style her hair and wear heavy makeup.

Most Impressive Deep-Cut Detail: When the family leave the house for the first and second time to abandon the children in the woods, Hansel drags his feet in order to start dropping the pebbles/breadcrumbs on the ground. His father asks him what he’s looking at, and he replies it’s his little white cat (and then little white pigeon) on the rooftop, to which his stepmother replies that it’s just the reflection from the sun.

This is straight out of the Brothers Grimm story; a superfluous detail that nevertheless gets included here. (While we’re here, the episode also includes the children comforting themselves in the forest at the sound of their father’s axe in the distance, only to eventually discover “it was only a dry branch hanging to a withered tree that the wind moved to and fro,” and the fact they’re led to the witch’s house by a “pretty snow-white bird.” It does however, leave out the fact that the children return to their father’s house on the back of a duck. Seriously.)

Most Eye-Opening Innuendo that Somehow Made It Into a Children’s Show: On trying to convince her husband to abandon his only children in the forest, the Evil Stepmother promises: “we can start to make noise again tomorrow.”

(Later, when the children return after nightfall from their first sojourn into the woods, they do indeed interrupt an attempt at sex).

Worst Hiding Place:

Here are the adults in bed together:

Here are the children eavesdropping on said adults:

And here’s the wide shot that shows us for the first time what exactly the proximity is between parents and children:

HOW DID THEY NOT SEE THEM? THEY ARE IN THEIR DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT!

Most Premature Initiation of Plan: Hansel starts dropping stones/breadcrumbs while he’s still right outside the house. My dude, if you can SEE the house, if the house is IN CLEAR VIEW, then you don’t need a marker to guide you to it. Save them for when you’re miles deep in a forest.

Most Disappointed Child: Sorry, but Gretal’s expression just cracks me up.

Funniest Reaction: On grieving his presumably dead children, the Woodcutter asks his wife if the knock on the door might be Hansel and Gretal. Her response?

"Who?"

Worst Fence:

Why is there even a gate at all when there’s a giant gap between the gingerbread people off to the right? Just walk through that!

Most Impressive Bout of Vandalism: Gretal punches through this pane like a shoplifting pro.

Most Obviously Evil Person to Ever Exist:

Don’t trust the deformed elderly.

Most Horrific Scene That’s Treated as No Big Deal:

When Hansel is thrown into the witch’s dungeon, he’s not alone. There’s another child in there with him, who has grown nice and plump thanks to the witch’s cooking. Onscreen, we see her drag him off to the oven and latter pour the batter from his heart (I’ve no idea how this is supposed to work) into a child-shaped skillet in order to construct her gingerbread fence.

Hansel and Gretal remain relatively chill about this whole thing – though perhaps it’s got something to do with their fatphobic panic later on, in which Hansel cautions Gretal against eating since she faces death-by-cannibalism.

Scene That Will Later Be Stolen By the 1987 Cannon Movietale Adaptation: At the end of the story the gingerbread people that comprise the witch’s house turn back into human children, which doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense, but the exact same thing happens in the later film (and since this scene doesn’t exist in the traditional story, I’m forced to conclude they swiped it from this show).

Worst Father of All Time Award: Yeah, the Stepmother was a narcissistic psychopath and the Wicked Witch tried to eat them, but the Woodcutter remains an absolute pushover. When the children finally return home, he tells them: “I searched for you every day.” And then what, just gave up? Cos those kids got back by themselves, mate.

Still, he also informs them that their stepmother has died with no further elaboration on how or why. Oh yeah, he definitely killed her.

Most Depressing Update on the Child Actors: Well, it’s a tie. Hansel grew up to be a right-wing prick whose most recent stunt is making a statement in the wake of Dolly Parton’s death that criticized her support of vaccines and the transgender community, and Gretel died of a heroin overdose in 1997 at the age of twenty-one. Hey, it put a dampener on my day, so now it has to put a dampener on yours too.