Customer Reviews

The Best of Fractured Fairy Tales, Volume One

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fractured Fairy Tales are not only fantastic classic toons, but they're also great for use in a high school english classroom to illustrate narrative elements! Pair it with the companion book (Fractured Fairy Tales, A.J. Jacobs) with 25 tales for even more fun. I just purchased this disc from Amazon and have enjoyed rewatching these great shorts from my childhood. I couldn't find a list of the included episodes anywhere before purchasing, so here's the rundown in case you're wondering too! The disk includes these 15 episodes:

* Rapunzel
* The Brave Little Tailor
* Rumpelstiltskin
* Cinderella
* Snow White
* Sleeping Beauty
* Pinocchio
* Ridinghoods Anonymous
* The Ugly Duckling
* Cinderella Returns
* Rumpelstiltskin Returns
* Leaping Beauty
* The Enchanted Frog
* The Pied Piper
* The Magic Fish

The disk also has some nifty Bullwinkle puppet intros as a bonus, as well as a cute case and menu theme.

If you're reading this, you know the Jay Ward's Fractured Fairy Tales are terrific and funny. Unfortunately, this compilation disk is flawed. The VERY irritating menu demands that you sit through too horrible trailers for terrible kid's movies before you can get to the main menu. They won't even fast forward or skip to main menu. Why would Sony insist on this very Disney-like irritation. What would Jay Ward think? This disk is for collector's, not brain-dead children who want to watch "Frosty the Sequel". The disk also has menu problems once you get to the main menu. I've contacted Sony and hopefully they will fix the problem.

The material is great, but I can't recommend this DVD because its programming is so irritating. The viewer is forced to sit through several tedious previews for some truly unimpressive children's videos. Attempting to fast forward or skip to the next item is produces the message "Operation Prohibited By Disc." This is unforgivable.

These are 5-star television comedy cartoons (not great animation, just great comedy). HOWEVER, if you already own the Rocky & Bullwinkle season sets you already have these. The number is the Fractured Fairy Tale sequence number, not the aired episode number.

From Rocky & Bullwinkle Season 1
3) Rapunzel
6) The Brave Little Tailor
7) Rumpelstiltskin
14) Cinderella
15) Snow White
18) Pinocchio
22) Cinderella Returns

From Rocky & Bullwinkle Season 2
19) Ridinghoods Anonymous
20) Sleeping Beauty
36) The Ugly Duckling
31) Rumpelstiltskin Returns
27) Leaping Beauty
40) The Enchanted Frog
25) The Pied Piper
32) The Magic Fish

Order seasons 1 & 2 here:
Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete First Season
Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete Second Season

I agree with reviewer Jerry Hunt. I love the Fractured Fairy Tales themselves; they were my favorite part of Rocky and Bullwinkle when I was growing up, and that's saying a lot. I put this DVD on my wish list and was thrilled to receive it for Christmas.

The stories are as gloriously crazy as I remembered (though I had not remembered how minimal the animation is). And it's a huge treat to watch one after another of them!

HOWEVER, having to sit through a REQUIRED, LONG commercial at the beginning makes this DVD a huge disappointment to me. I will not (as I was imagining) watch it over and over again. I will watch it maybe twice, and then it's going right into the recycle bin.

If it were not for the introductory commercial which cannot be bypassed or fast-forwarded through, my rating would be five stars rather than two. I am really tempted to give only one because of this design item which makes the DVD pretty much worthless as far as I'm concerned.

Huge disappointment.

I almost threw the DVD out it had some sort of kids advertisement, as if this collection had anything to do with brood. Someone doing the packaging evidently did not view the product. Wait there is more you can not fast forward; you can not go to the main menu; your and not pause. You just can not do anything but turn the sound off on the set and go to the fridge while waiting.

If you are lucking and have a DVD riper and copier you can fix the problem.

Once you finally get to view the disk it is worth your time. The 15 fairy tails are in blocs of five. Finally you get the fairy tale as it was meant to be unabridged and unvarnished.
Rapunzel
- The Brave Little Tailor
- Rumpelstiltskin
- Cinderella
- Snow White
- Sleeping Beauty
- Pinocchio
- Ridinghoods Anonymous
- The Ugly Duckling
- Cinderella Returns
- Rumpelstiltskin Returns
- Leaping Beauty
- The Enchanted Frog
- The Pied Piper
- The Magic Fish

An added plus id the narration by Edward Everett Horton. You may remember him from "Lost Horizon" (1837)

I leave you with this though "stay wood"- Gephetto.

These fantastic tales would have been given a five star rating except that all I can say is SHAME ON the distributors who repackaged this collection. How can any marketing guru think that by continually punishing us by forcing us to endure the non related promotional tripe that they attach like a virus in the form of unrelated promos will sell more dvds? Happy? NO. Ready to lynch the people who did this? YES.

I can only assume that these people weren't even born when we first viewed these timeless masterpieces as children and somehow feel threatened by the competition.It's enough to make you hunt down a dvd pirate who could make a copy with just the fractured fairy tales only. That's the only way I can think we will be able to repeatedly watch this dvd minus the opening advertising epics that we certainly didn't pay for.

This is a great DVD. My toddler children love watching it as well as the whole family from parents, grandparents and even great grandparents. The stories are written with humor. My children will grow up knowing the Fractured Fair Tales version of Snow White before the Disney version. This is a good thing in my opinion. I will definitely look for Vol 2 when it becomes available.

When I was a boy, many long years ago, I used to get home from school in time to watch the original broadcasts of Rocky and Bullwinkle. If memory serves me, it was composed of an episode of a serial featuring the titular heros, an episode of Mr. Peabody or an episode of Fractured Fairy Tales, then another episode of the serial. (For those who discovered R & B in it's incarnation as "The Bullwinkle Show" this was, I believe, before the advent of "Aesop and Son" or "Dudley Do-right"The Best of Dudley Do-Right, Vol. 1.)

Although over 40 years old, this collection of 15 cartoons from the original "Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete First SeasonRocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete Third SeasonRocky & Bullwinkle & Friends - The Complete Second Seasonshow are still a treat. They possess that delicate balance of wit and silliness that the Jay Ward cartoons were noted for, and along with "Mr. Peabody's Improbable History"The Best of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Vol. 1, were always one of the spots in the show that I eagerly awaited.

This collection is copyrighted 2005 therefore it is possible given the vagaries of the DVD industry that it will not be available much longer. Also while it is labeled Volume 1, I strongly doubt that Volume 2 was ever issued. (It may not have been possible to issue a Volume 2 due to lack of material. However, given that this is touted as the "Best of" one can only assume that there is more in the series that could be released.)

I will end this here as "I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge for a salad made of Rampian, a variety of European bell flower. If I can't have it, I will surely die."

I just received this DVD from Amazon and watched it right away. I don't know what other reviewers are saying about the previews on this disc. I just fast-forwarded to the menu and skipped the commercials, no problem. I like that you can choose to play one specific cartoon or select to play all.
The cartoons are just like I remember them, including the intro and ending to each one. I really enjoyed going back in time with one of the main reasons I watched Rocky & Bullwinkle at all.