The latest entry in the Scholastic Video Collection from Weston Woods groups two high-profile fairy tales with two lesser-knowns and a Grimm fairy tale that many may not have heard of at all.
"Cinderella," retold by Barbara Karlin and illustrated by James Marshall, is the lead story in this collection. Based on a 1989 book, "Cinderella" covers familiar ground in a way that's made more interesting by Karlin's slight variations and Marshall's take on the way the characters look. In this version, the drawings and narrative seem more compatible with folk tales than fairy tales, with chubby, cherubic (or not-so) faces and a rustic style that will remind many viewers of self-taught folk artists. The house in which Cinderella and her father live with that odious stepmother and her daughters is smaller here--more a peasants' cottage--and that makes the situation all the more intolerable for our heroine, especially when the three intruders are drawn as human piggies.
But the stepmother and her daughters aren't nearly as evil as they are in Disney's version, and in this one Cinderella has to meet her fairy godmother half-way. She has to go fetch the ingredients for the magic spell: a great pumpkin, six white mice and a rat, and two lizards. The prince, meanwhile, isn't quite so dashing. He lolls about in a hammock strung from statue to stone-rail in the palace garden and seems lucky to catch anyone, much less someone as even-tempered and selfless and Cinderella. Karlin takes a short cut to the happy ending, minimizing the prince's search and, like most modern versions, doing away with the idea of the stepsisters maiming themselves to try to fit the glass slipper or having their eyes pecked out by birds at the story's end. It's a pretty upbeat tale, reinforced by bright primary colors and rounded objects and people, so that there are no harsh angles or edges. Ernest V. Troost's gentle music gets an assist here too, amply adding to an atmosphere that's kinder and gentler than Disney's famous film.
"Hansel and Gretel" is also drawn by Marshall and offers more of the same rounded objects and plump people who, again, shuffle from frame to frame to the gentle music of Ernest V. Troost. In the fairy tale, a woodcutter's wife who's worried about famine convinces her husband to take their two children into the woods and abandon them. To lighten the mood in his 1990 book, Marshall makes the mother corpulent and a chain-eater. As she talks about the shortage of food she's stuffing her face with an apple, a chunk of bread. And kids pick up on this. They also pick up on a little language, like the mother saying "I know what's best, you dolt." As with "Cinderella," the scary elements are downplayed and undercut by whimsical, folk-style drawings to make it palatable for even the youngest of viewers. In both this story and "Cinderella," the animation added to original drawings is seamlessly fluid. Actress Kathy Bates narrates.
"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" has many variations, just like the rest of these tales. In some, the goats cross over a bridge one by one, youngest to oldest, en route to the meadow to graze. As the troll who lives under the bridge threatens to eat each of them, they argue that they'd be much fatter if the troll caught them on their return. So the danger is deferred until they want to cross back again, and then their trickery comes into play. In this version by P.C. Asbjornsen and J.E. Moe, the authors take a short cut and incorporate the sequence involving trickery into the very first crossing.
The drawings are more free-hand and expressionistic that in the first two stories, which may also reflect on the fact that the Marcia Brown illustrations were made for a book that was published in 1957. There are also very occasional flickers of horizontal light that pop up as another indicator of age. But the style of illustration makes sense when you get to the ending. If it were drawn more charmingly, more humorously, or more realistically that this, the violence at the stories end (where big billy goat gruff pokes out the eyes of the troll with his horns and tears him to pieces) would be too much for young viewers. Here, when pieces of the troll are show, it looks very much like puzzle pieces, and the matter-of-fact narration also helps to soften the impact of the violence.
"The Elves and the Shoemaker" is a beloved tale of an old shoemaker and his wife who've fallen on hard times, with no customers and no resources to buy materials to make more shoes. Just enough for one pair, and, exhausted, the shoemaker goes to bed after cutting the patterns. While they're asleep, two elves sneak into their shop and do the work for them. The shoes they craft are so wondrous that the customer pays double the price. Day after day and night after night the pattern repeats, with the elves making more shoes every night and then disappearing.
"Cinderella," retold by Barbara Karlin and illustrated by James Marshall, is the lead story in this collection. Based on a 1989 book, "Cinderella" covers familiar ground in a way that's made more interesting by Karlin's slight variations and Marshall's take on the way the characters look. In this version, the drawings and narrative seem more compatible with folk tales than fairy tales, with chubby, cherubic (or not-so) faces and a rustic style that will remind many viewers of self-taught folk artists. The house in which Cinderella and her father live with that odious stepmother and her daughters is smaller here--more a peasants' cottage--and that makes the situation all the more intolerable for our heroine, especially when the three intruders are drawn as human piggies.
But the stepmother and her daughters aren't nearly as evil as they are in Disney's version, and in this one Cinderella has to meet her fairy godmother half-way. She has to go fetch the ingredients for the magic spell: a great pumpkin, six white mice and a rat, and two lizards. The prince, meanwhile, isn't quite so dashing. He lolls about in a hammock strung from statue to stone-rail in the palace garden and seems lucky to catch anyone, much less someone as even-tempered and selfless and Cinderella. Karlin takes a short cut to the happy ending, minimizing the prince's search and, like most modern versions, doing away with the idea of the stepsisters maiming themselves to try to fit the glass slipper or having their eyes pecked out by birds at the story's end. It's a pretty upbeat tale, reinforced by bright primary colors and rounded objects and people, so that there are no harsh angles or edges. Ernest V. Troost's gentle music gets an assist here too, amply adding to an atmosphere that's kinder and gentler than Disney's famous film.
"Hansel and Gretel" is also drawn by Marshall and offers more of the same rounded objects and plump people who, again, shuffle from frame to frame to the gentle music of Ernest V. Troost. In the fairy tale, a woodcutter's wife who's worried about famine convinces her husband to take their two children into the woods and abandon them. To lighten the mood in his 1990 book, Marshall makes the mother corpulent and a chain-eater. As she talks about the shortage of food she's stuffing her face with an apple, a chunk of bread. And kids pick up on this. They also pick up on a little language, like the mother saying "I know what's best, you dolt." As with "Cinderella," the scary elements are downplayed and undercut by whimsical, folk-style drawings to make it palatable for even the youngest of viewers. In both this story and "Cinderella," the animation added to original drawings is seamlessly fluid. Actress Kathy Bates narrates.
"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" has many variations, just like the rest of these tales. In some, the goats cross over a bridge one by one, youngest to oldest, en route to the meadow to graze. As the troll who lives under the bridge threatens to eat each of them, they argue that they'd be much fatter if the troll caught them on their return. So the danger is deferred until they want to cross back again, and then their trickery comes into play. In this version by P.C. Asbjornsen and J.E. Moe, the authors take a short cut and incorporate the sequence involving trickery into the very first crossing.
The drawings are more free-hand and expressionistic that in the first two stories, which may also reflect on the fact that the Marcia Brown illustrations were made for a book that was published in 1957. There are also very occasional flickers of horizontal light that pop up as another indicator of age. But the style of illustration makes sense when you get to the ending. If it were drawn more charmingly, more humorously, or more realistically that this, the violence at the stories end (where big billy goat gruff pokes out the eyes of the troll with his horns and tears him to pieces) would be too much for young viewers. Here, when pieces of the troll are show, it looks very much like puzzle pieces, and the matter-of-fact narration also helps to soften the impact of the violence.
"The Elves and the Shoemaker" is a beloved tale of an old shoemaker and his wife who've fallen on hard times, with no customers and no resources to buy materials to make more shoes. Just enough for one pair, and, exhausted, the shoemaker goes to bed after cutting the patterns. While they're asleep, two elves sneak into their shop and do the work for them. The shoes they craft are so wondrous that the customer pays double the price. Day after day and night after night the pattern repeats, with the elves making more shoes every night and then disappearing.
The latest entry in the Scholastic Video Collection from Weston Woods groups two high-profile fairy tales with two lesser-knowns and a Grimm fairy tale that many may not have heard of at all.
"Cinderella," retold by Barbara Karlin and illustrated by James Marshall, is the lead story in this collection. Based on a 1989 book, "Cinderella" covers familiar ground in a way that's made more interesting by Karlin's slight variations and Marshall's take on the way the characters look. In this version, the drawings and narrative seem more compatible with folk tales than fairy tales, with chubby, cherubic (or not-so) faces and a rustic style that will remind many viewers of self-taught folk artists. The house in which Cinderella and her father live with that odious stepmother and her daughters is smaller here--more a peasants' cottage--and that makes the situation all the more intolerable for our heroine, especially when the three intruders are drawn as human piggies.
But the stepmother and her daughters aren't nearly as evil as they are in Disney's version, and in this one Cinderella has to meet her fairy godmother half-way. She has to go fetch the ingredients for the magic spell: a great pumpkin, six white mice and a rat, and two lizards. The prince, meanwhile, isn't quite so dashing. He lolls about in a hammock strung from statue to stone-rail in the palace garden and seems lucky to catch anyone, much less someone as even-tempered and selfless and Cinderella. Karlin takes a short cut to the happy ending, minimizing the prince's search and, like most modern versions, doing away with the idea of the stepsisters maiming themselves to try to fit the glass slipper or having their eyes pecked out by birds at the story's end. It's a pretty upbeat tale, reinforced by bright primary colors and rounded objects and people, so that there are no harsh angles or edges. Ernest V. Troost's gentle music gets an assist here too, amply adding to an atmosphere that's kinder and gentler than Disney's famous film.
"Hansel and Gretel" is also drawn by Marshall and offers more of the same rounded objects and plump people who, again, shuffle from frame to frame to the gentle music of Ernest V. Troost. In the fairy tale, a woodcutter's wife who's worried about famine convinces her husband to take their two children into the woods and abandon them. To lighten the mood in his 1990 book, Marshall makes the mother corpulent and a chain-eater. As she talks about the shortage of food she's stuffing her face with an apple, a chunk of bread. And kids pick up on this. They also pick up on a little language, like the mother saying "I know what's best, you dolt." As with "Cinderella," the scary elements are downplayed and undercut by whimsical, folk-style drawings to make it palatable for even the youngest of viewers. In both this story and "Cinderella," the animation added to original drawings is seamlessly fluid. Actress Kathy Bates narrates.
"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" has many variations, just like the rest of these tales. In some, the goats cross over a bridge one by one, youngest to oldest, en route to the meadow to graze. As the troll who lives under the bridge threatens to eat each of them, they argue that they'd be much fatter if the troll caught them on their return. So the danger is deferred until they want to cross back again, and then their trickery comes into play. In this version by P.C. Asbjornsen and J.E. Moe, the authors take a short cut and incorporate the sequence involving trickery into the very first crossing.
The drawings are more free-hand and expressionistic that in the first two stories, which may also reflect on the fact that the Marcia Brown illustrations were made for a book that was published in 1957. There are also very occasional flickers of horizontal light that pop up as another indicator of age. But the style of illustration makes sense when you get to the ending. If it were drawn more charmingly, more humorously, or more realistically that this, the violence at the stories end (where big billy goat gruff pokes out the eyes of the troll with his horns and tears him to pieces) would be too much for young viewers. Here, when pieces of the troll are show, it looks very much like puzzle pieces, and the matter-of-fact narration also helps to soften the impact of the violence.
"The Elves and the Shoemaker" is a beloved tale of an old shoemaker and his wife who've fallen on hard times, with no customers and no resources to buy materials to make more shoes. Just enough for one pair, and, exhausted, the shoemaker goes to bed after cutting the patterns. While they're asleep, two elves sneak into their shop and do the work for them. The shoes they craft are so wondrous that the customer pays double the price. Day after day and night after night the pattern repeats, with the elves making more shoes every night and then disappearing.
"Cinderella," retold by Barbara Karlin and illustrated by James Marshall, is the lead story in this collection. Based on a 1989 book, "Cinderella" covers familiar ground in a way that's made more interesting by Karlin's slight variations and Marshall's take on the way the characters look. In this version, the drawings and narrative seem more compatible with folk tales than fairy tales, with chubby, cherubic (or not-so) faces and a rustic style that will remind many viewers of self-taught folk artists. The house in which Cinderella and her father live with that odious stepmother and her daughters is smaller here--more a peasants' cottage--and that makes the situation all the more intolerable for our heroine, especially when the three intruders are drawn as human piggies.
But the stepmother and her daughters aren't nearly as evil as they are in Disney's version, and in this one Cinderella has to meet her fairy godmother half-way. She has to go fetch the ingredients for the magic spell: a great pumpkin, six white mice and a rat, and two lizards. The prince, meanwhile, isn't quite so dashing. He lolls about in a hammock strung from statue to stone-rail in the palace garden and seems lucky to catch anyone, much less someone as even-tempered and selfless and Cinderella. Karlin takes a short cut to the happy ending, minimizing the prince's search and, like most modern versions, doing away with the idea of the stepsisters maiming themselves to try to fit the glass slipper or having their eyes pecked out by birds at the story's end. It's a pretty upbeat tale, reinforced by bright primary colors and rounded objects and people, so that there are no harsh angles or edges. Ernest V. Troost's gentle music gets an assist here too, amply adding to an atmosphere that's kinder and gentler than Disney's famous film.
"Hansel and Gretel" is also drawn by Marshall and offers more of the same rounded objects and plump people who, again, shuffle from frame to frame to the gentle music of Ernest V. Troost. In the fairy tale, a woodcutter's wife who's worried about famine convinces her husband to take their two children into the woods and abandon them. To lighten the mood in his 1990 book, Marshall makes the mother corpulent and a chain-eater. As she talks about the shortage of food she's stuffing her face with an apple, a chunk of bread. And kids pick up on this. They also pick up on a little language, like the mother saying "I know what's best, you dolt." As with "Cinderella," the scary elements are downplayed and undercut by whimsical, folk-style drawings to make it palatable for even the youngest of viewers. In both this story and "Cinderella," the animation added to original drawings is seamlessly fluid. Actress Kathy Bates narrates.
"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" has many variations, just like the rest of these tales. In some, the goats cross over a bridge one by one, youngest to oldest, en route to the meadow to graze. As the troll who lives under the bridge threatens to eat each of them, they argue that they'd be much fatter if the troll caught them on their return. So the danger is deferred until they want to cross back again, and then their trickery comes into play. In this version by P.C. Asbjornsen and J.E. Moe, the authors take a short cut and incorporate the sequence involving trickery into the very first crossing.
The drawings are more free-hand and expressionistic that in the first two stories, which may also reflect on the fact that the Marcia Brown illustrations were made for a book that was published in 1957. There are also very occasional flickers of horizontal light that pop up as another indicator of age. But the style of illustration makes sense when you get to the ending. If it were drawn more charmingly, more humorously, or more realistically that this, the violence at the stories end (where big billy goat gruff pokes out the eyes of the troll with his horns and tears him to pieces) would be too much for young viewers. Here, when pieces of the troll are show, it looks very much like puzzle pieces, and the matter-of-fact narration also helps to soften the impact of the violence.
"The Elves and the Shoemaker" is a beloved tale of an old shoemaker and his wife who've fallen on hard times, with no customers and no resources to buy materials to make more shoes. Just enough for one pair, and, exhausted, the shoemaker goes to bed after cutting the patterns. While they're asleep, two elves sneak into their shop and do the work for them. The shoes they craft are so wondrous that the customer pays double the price. Day after day and night after night the pattern repeats, with the elves making more shoes every night and then disappearing.
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