Faerie Tale Theatre: Hansel and Gretel

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 Gretel.”

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 Gretel” 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 Gretel, 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.

Faerie Tale Theatre: Little Red Riding Hood

Looking back over my blog, I can see that I haven’t done one of these in two years. But if this pandemic is good for anything, it’s in forcing me to finish what I started… back in 2016.

For those not in the know, Faerie Tale Theatre was a pet project of Shelley Duvall that aired back in the eighties, covering most of the traditional tales in a sincere attempt to bring them to a young audience. I missed these while I was growing up, but they certainly feel like something I would have enjoyed at the time, and in to revisit as an adult for all that eighties kitsch.

The premise was that each fifty-minute episode would dramatize a familiar fairy tale (usually with some modern comedy and plenty of filler to plump up the run-time) within the scope of an actual theatre. The sets and props are very stagey, and the actors perform has though they’re in a pantomime theatre, with a live audience watching.

A lot of the stories are pretty hit-or-miss, with a general goofiness that offsets the surprising level of talents that Shelley Duvall managed to rope into this production, but I’d say it all holds up pretty well.

Though this instalment, Little Red Riding Hood, poses a challenge. How do you convert a story that can be rattled off to a child in under two minutes into an hour-long episode? Well, you throw in a love story between the main character (now called Mary) and her father’s apprentice, give plenty of screen-time to the wolf talking to himself (he’s been kicked out of his pack because he killed a boy – the one who cried wolf?) and construct a shaky character-arc in which Mary’s wish to be treated like an adult is tied to her parents’ overprotectiveness – though this peters out as it becomes more about her love interest proving himself to her father.

That’s a lot of padding for a pretty simple story about stranger danger, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen it done: I grew up with the Cannon Movie Tales, whose take on this story involves Red Riding Hood’s father’s evil twin taking over his brother’s position in the community while he’s away at some unspecified war, and terrorizes the people with his werewolf-for-hire. Yeah, suffice to say that adaptations struggle with this story… 

Faerie Tale Theatre: Jack and the Beanstalk

Yikes, I keep forgetting to write up these posts! Can you believe that the original plan was to do one episode of Faerie Tale Theatre per month?

Well, in any case Shelley Duvall's take on Jack and the Beanstalk is pretty rote, despite how creative she's getting in her introductions:

Whimsy!

As with most takes on the old story, Jack is a bit of a nincompoop, but one whose lack of intelligence ends up being his strongest asset when he keeps going back to the giant's house for more and more treasure despite only barely escaping death each time.

Duvall adds two new twists to the proceedings: the first that the old man who sells the magic beans to Jack for the dried-up cow is also the old woman who greets him at the top of the beanstalk, giving him some important advice on how to proceed (well, an old woman or a guy in drag – it's not actually made very clear. Heck, the story doesn't even explain why he wants to help Jack in the first place. Deeply eccentric family friend, maybe?)

The second is that the giant's castle and all its treasures were originally the property of Jack's father – he was murdered by the giant, leading to his wife (somehow) completely forgetting the circumstances of his death, something she struggles to remember throughout the course of the story.

This means of course, that Jack isn't actually stealing from the giant, just reclaiming what's already his. In cutting down the beanstalk and sending the giant to his doom, he's simply avenging his father's death.

I'm not sure how I feel about it actually. Both Once Upon a Time (second season) and the 2001 miniseries Jack and the Beanstalk: The True Story played around with the boy/giant dynamic, each one casting Jack into the role of villain, but here it feels like the story is trying to have its cake and eat it too.

Naturally, this Jack doesn't know he's reclaiming his own property till the end of the story, so when he tells his mother that he "found" the coins, harp and hen that lays golden eggs, it's a blatant lie. And an unnecessary one. Guys, there's nothing wrong with stealing stuff from a villain who admits to burning houses, pillaging villages and eating human beings! Jack doesn't have to be white-washed or retconned in order to keep him the archetypal trickster-hero/wise fool.

Am I overthinking this? Of course I am. Let's get to the funny stuff:

Faerie Tale Theatre: Sleeping Beauty

No, I haven't forgotten about Faerie Tale Theatre, it's just that my free time has been whittled down to practically nothing. Next on the programme is the show's take on Sleeping Beauty, which puts a spin on the usual proceedings by relocating the story to Eastern Europe (allowing for some crazy accents) and throwing in some subplots involving undesirable suitors along the way.

It's also the most racy of the episodes (so far) with several jokes that are bound to go WAY over the heads of younger viewers.

This is not taken out of context. What you think is happening is happening.

But what makes this one really different is that for the first time it embraces the definition of "faerie tale theatre". Not only does it take place on a soundstage with fake plywood trees, but our narrator is a woodsman who talks directly to the audience as well as to the prince and his squire (which serves as a framing device for the whole thing).  

Faerie Tale Theatre: The Nightingale

This is the first episode in the series that's not based on a story from oral folklore, but one written and published by a single author. The Nightingale is not the most famous of Hans Christian Anderson's work (it's obviously not as well-known as The Snow Queen or The Little Mermaid or even The Steadfast Tin Soldier or The Tinder Box, but neither is it as obscure as Tommelise or The Swineherd). It's certainly not his best work, but unique among his stories for being the only one set in China.

But I have to admit, I misremembered the story. In my memory, the Emperor of China befriends the nightingale in his garden, only to replace her with a clockwork bird that's covered in gold and jewels. You all know that part, right? But until watching this, I was under the impression that when the Emperor falls sick, he's told only the sound of the nightingale might cure him. When it becomes clear the clockwork bird is no substitute for the real thing, the true nightingale agrees to sing for the Emperor on the condition that she's never caged again.

It turns out that's not the way story goes. The Emperor does get sick, but there's no talk of the cure being the nightingale's song. Instead the little bird turns up at the palace of her own volition, and sings away the personification of Death that's sitting on the Emperor's chest. (And then extracts the Emperor's promise that she can come and go as he pleases).

Faerie Tale Theatre: Rapunzel

Rapunzel is one of my favourite fairy tales, mostly due to what is left unsaid and unexplained. It has an underlying sense of cohesion to it: a deal is made and followed through, a taboo is broken and duly punished, a miracle occurs that reunites a family, but at the same time we're given little understanding as to why all this happens.

Why does the witch want the infant Rapunzel in the first place? To raise a child of her own or to punish the girl's parents? Why does she lock the teenage Rapunzel in a tower? Is it a sincere attempt to keep her safe from the outside world, or because she's a controlling monster? And why is she so furious to learn that Rapunzel had been visited by the prince without her knowledge? Because her rules have been broken or because she's jealous that her daughter's affection has been bestowed elsewhere? Because she's projected herself onto her daughter's youth and beauty or because she once had her heart broken and can't bear to see anyone else happy?

We can make a vague guess at certain things, but never really know for sure. Whether we think of the witch as a cruel oppressor or a confused mother, the fact remains is that we know absolutely nothing about her true motivations. What remains are the bones of the story, and the ability to project what we like onto the characters involved (or at least one of them – unsurprisingly it is the villain who has the most agency, and therefore holds the most opportunity for different interpretations).

But in broad strokes, Rapunzel is a story of stolen childhood and twisted motherhood, in which a woman futilely tries to keep her daughter a child forever. So what does Shelley Duvall do with this template?

Faerie Tale Theatre: Rumplestiltskin

Back in April I watched and reviewed the first episode in Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, having never seen it as a child but being interested in its subject matter and Eighties aesthetic. I always meant to continue with the show, but haven't had the chance until now.

On reflection, Rumplestiltskin is a tough fairy tale to adapt. It’s a strange and sad story in a number of ways, centred on a woman who is surrounded on all sides by completely terrifying men. Her father's bragging lands her in captivity, her future husband keeps threatening to kill her if she doesn't obey his impossible commands, and the little man who comes to her rescue demands her firstborn child in exchange for saving her life.

It's horrifying. This woman's only speckle of agency comes when she orders servants to go out and discover Rumplestiltskin's name and so save her child. Yet even after she successfully defeats her baby from God only knows what fate, it's difficult to feel too happy for her: she's still married to a psycho who holds her life in his hands.

How to adapt such a depressing tale for a children's afterschool show?

Faerie Tale Theatre: The Tale of the Frog Prince

I wanted to watch something light. Something fun. Something vaguely stupid. Shelley Duval's Faerie Tale Theatre answered my call.

Best described as a live-action anthology of televised fairy tales, the show devotes each episode to a self-contained story that's introduced by Shelley Duval and which stars an astonishing array of famous (at least at the time) actors. Directors such as Tim Burton and Francis Ford Coppola got involved, and according to the Wikipedia page, a great deal of attention was given to ensuring each episode had a unique aesthetic – one often based on specific artists and children's book illustrators.

Hello, I'm Shelley Duval, and welcome to
my awkward and largely needless introduction.

It all sounds mightily impressive, but (as with most fantasy of the Eighties) it's dated drastically. There's no mistaking Eighties television: the giant hair, the ugly clothes, the drab colours – and I say all this as a survivor of the decade. A lot of Faerie Tale Theatre is just plain unpleasant to look at, even when weighed against my fondness for practical effects in the wake of today's overstuffed CGI fests.

But Faerie Tale Theatre walks a fascinating line between Disneyfication and Grimmification – that is to say, nothing is too saccharine or too dark. It's by infusing the stories with a heavy dose of comedy (including a few adult jokes) that the show finds a somewhat unsteady balance between faithful adaptations of the familiar stories, and a fresh take on well-trod material. There is a quite a "stagey" atmosphere to the proceedings, with a preference for long takes, wide shots and the occasional close-up on what are obviously decked-out soundstages, which bring to mind the pantomimes we saw as children – but considering the show openly identifies itself as a "theatre", it's an impression that works in its favour.

And as it happens, this is my first time seeing Faerie Tale Theatre, which is a remarkable feat considering my dual love for fairy tales and the Eighties. I grew up watching Jim Henson's The Storyteller and playing Roberta Williams's King's Quest series, and yet somehow Faerie Tale Theatre slipped through the cracks of my childhood.

But hey, we're here now. And I have twenty-six episodes of fairy tales set in the Eighties to enjoy!

First up is The Tale of the Frog Prince.