Customer Reviews

The Complete Faerie Tale Theatre Collection (26 Titles)

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After years of waiting, Faerie Tale Theatre fans can finally own the series on DVD. Shelley Duvall's series originally appeared on Showtime 20 years ago and featured well-known and rising stars of the time. The series' enthusiastic interpretations of beloved fairy tales has made it a cult classic. Better yet, the DVD prices are affordable, especially after the high prices the used VHS copies have been earning in recent years.

The collection package featured here contains all of the 26 fairy tales created for the series. The original series had an extra special, called Grimm Party, that was a retrospective of the series with various casts and Shelley Duvall. Unfortunately, this episode has never been made available on VHS, laser disc, or DVD, not being included in licensing packages. While this might be a disappointing omission, it shouldn't lessen the thrill of finally having DVD editions of the 26 tales themselves at a great price.

Here's a list of all 26 episodes contained in this collection:

The Tale of the Frog Prince
Rumpelstilskin
Rapunzel
The Nightingale
Sleeping Beauty
Jack and the Beanstalk
Little Red Riding Hood
Hansel and Gretel
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Princess and the Pea
Pinocchio
Thumbelina
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Beauty and the Beast
The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers
The Three Little Pigs
The Snow Queen
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Cinderella
Puss 'n Boots
The Emperor's New Clothes
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
The Princess Who Had Never Laughed
Rip Van Winkle
The Little Mermaid
The Dancing Princesses

FAERIE TALE THEATRE is a magical series featuring some of the greatest stars performing in adaptations of the classic fairytales. Created and hosted by Shelley Duvall and originally released on video between 1984 and 1987, the episodes themselves have proven to be quite hard to come by in recent years.

Now thanks to Starmaker II, the series has finally been released on DVD at a bargain price. Your whole family will love this series, though the show itself will be extra-special to those who grew up with it in the 80's (like myself).

Sit back and enjoy! "The Tale of the Frog Prince" (Robin Williams, Teri Garr); "Rumpelstiltskin" (Shelley Duvall, Herve Villechaize); "Rapunzel" (Shelley Duvall, Jeff Bridges, Gena Rowlands); "The Nightingale" (Mick Jagger, Barbara Hershey); "Sleeping Beauty" (Beverly d'Angelo, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Reeve); "Jack and the Beanstalk" (Dennis Christopher, Elliott Gould, Jean Stapleton); "Little Red Riding Hood" (Mary Steenburgen, Malcolm McDowell); "Beauty and the Beast" (Susan Sarandon, Klaus Kinski); "Thumbelina" (Carrie Fisher, William Katt, Burgess Meredith); "The Three Little Pigs" (Billy Crystal, Valerie Perrine, Jeff Goldblum); "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Elizabeth McGovern, Vanessa Redgrave); "The Princess Who Had Never Laughed" (Ellen Barkin, Howie Mandel); "Rip Van Winkle" (Harry Dean Stanton, Talia Shire), "Pinocchio" (Paul Reubens, Lainie Kazan); "Puss in Boots" (Ben Vereen, Alfre Woodard, Gregory Hines); "The Dancing Princesses" (Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Weller); "The Little Mermaid" (Pam Dawber, Treat Williams, Helen Mirren); "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers" (Peter McNicol, Dana Hill); "The Princess and the Pea" (Liza Minnelli, Tom Conti); "The Snow Queen" (Melissa Gilbert, Lance Kerwin, Lee Remick); "Hansel and Gretel" (Rick Schroder, Joan Collins); "Cinderella" (Jennifer Beals, Matthew Broderick, Jean Stapleton); "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" (Valerie Bertinelli, Robert Carradine, James Earl Jones, Leonard Nimoy); "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" (Eric Idle); "The Emperor's New Clothes" (Art Carney, Alan Arkin, Dick Shawn); "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (Tatum O'Neal, John Lithgow).

All the titles are also available seperately

Long before Disney, these stories were both terrifying and entertaining children. Then, during the 1980s, Showtime produced the Faerie Tale Theatre. This is an excellent collection of fairy tales, and features some outstanding talent, including the main narrator, Shelly Duvall. I loved seeing her in this role after not particularly liking how Stanley Kubrik used her in "The Shining." Other pople to look for in this great collection: Billy Crystal, Mick Jagger, Jeff Bridges, Elliot Gould, Elizabeth McGovern, Vanessa Redgrave, Treat Williams, Melissa Gilbert, Tatum O'Neal, John Lithgow, and the list goes on. While these stories are told in the traditional manner, each of them also contains a bit of an O. Henry type twist at the end. Very entertaining and well worth the price when you consider there are 26 discs involved and about 20 hours of footage. I also noticed that these productions are popular on Ebay, but the prices seem to run about $12 per episode.

This collection features productions of:

The Tale of the Frog Prince
Rumpelstiltskin
Rapunzel
The Nightingale
Sleeping Beauty
Jack and the Beanstalk
Little Red Riding Hood
Hansel and Gretel
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Princess and the Pea
Pinocchio
Thumbelina
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Beauty and the Beast
The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers
The Three Little Pigs
The Snow Queen
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Cinderella
Puss 'n Boots
The Emperor's New Clothes
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp
The Princess Who Had Never Laughed
Rip Van Winkle
The Little Mermaid
The Dancing Princesses

I had no idea this was out on DVD; it was just a pipe dream that I thought would never come true. Out of all the halcyon memories of my early '80s childhood, these faerie tales stand out the most. Once I was old enough to appreciate what Shelley Duvall had done, I marveled at what an awesome concept it was: take well-known tales, let famous directors helm them, and put celebrities in the starring roles. The good thing is that none of them seem to have more than one or two famous people in them, so that the tales themselves don't lose their sense of timelessness.

If you've never seen one of the faerie tales, I'm sure you will be impressed at how "grown up" they seem, not hokey or melodramatic or overly sentimental but somehow grounded in reality even in scenes where a heroine travels into a dream, or a frog retrieves a golden ball, or a big bad wolf quarrels with his wife. Admittedly, there are a couple of innuendos here and there, but young kids will not get them--I sure didn't.

The best part about many of these episodes is the music. In "The Frog Prince," a young court musician (who is actually the episode's composer) sings a song that may seem throwaway but is actually quite haunting, especially for a kid's tale. And "Thumbelina" has some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard; I was so enamored with it that I arranged it for my orchestration class just so I could hear our philharmonic play it live.

Although my dad taped many of them for me when they originally aired, there are quite a few I had never seen. Though he recently burned them to DVD the quality is still rather poor, so it is one of the delights of the year that I can finally have the real thing for posterity. Believe me, you won't find a lot of entertainment these days as pure and enthralling as the faerie tale theater. If you decide to give them a chance, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Some of my favorites are "The Dancing Princesses" with Lesley Anne Warren; "Snow White" with Vanessa Redgrave; "Sleeping Beauty" with Christopher Reeve; "Cinderella" with Matthew Broderick; and "Thumbelina" with Carrie Fisher.

I have to respond to the previous reviewer who dismissed the series as inappropriate for children and full of sexual innuendo. Obviously, Faerie Tale Theatre's prime audience today is going to be adults and teens who grew up with the series and have fond memories of their favorite episodes. However, it would be unfair to deny today's children the opportunity to fall in love with it as well. I honestly can't remember a series that sparked my imagination and sense of wonder more than Faerie Tale Theatre. Discerning parents of course should watch each episode before allowing their children to see them. The series had different writers and directors creating each episode, so that the style and content can change significantly from one to the next. Some episodes are very faithful adaptations of the original tales (more comparable to the reverent Storyteller series), while others use the source material as a jumping off point for more satirical or zany flights of fancy (think Fractured Fairy Tales or the Stinky Cheese Man stories). While the series never ventures beyond PG-rated territory, some episodes would be too "adult" to show in a classroom setting for example. I would advise watching "Tale of the Frog Prince" and "Sleeping Beauty" especially before letting your children see them. However, I'd say the majority of the episodes are fine for all ages, and I hope a new generation of kids can enjoy this show just as I did. Thanks to these DVDs, I don't see why not.

Instead of buying this Collection of 26 DVD's, buy the box set collection for half the price.... Its has all the episodes (I think on 4 discs). You'll save space and money.
If you have never heard of this series before, if you love fairy tales, they are the best! There's plenty of big name stars (like Robin Williams and Susan Sarandon). These tales are full of laughs and romance, I would beg for these everytime we went to the video store when I was a kid. I can't wait to share these with my nephews and niece! They are not big budget, but looks similar to watching a play, which adds to the charm.

It is not easy being a responsible parent today. There is no shortage of material targeted towards kids, unfortunately, so much of it is cynical, violent, suggestive, badly produced, and grimy.

Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre shines out like a diamond in the rough. Don't just plunk your kid down in front of the tv and leave, watch it with him/her. You will both be delighted.

These are classic tales appealing to the imagination, lovingly presented by a staggeringly talented group of professionals. The cast is a regular Hollywood Who's Who - Vanessa Redgrave, Vincent Price, Susan Sarandon! But it doesn't stop there, all the talent is top shelf - directors, designers, etc.

The stories are presented with a smart, tongue-in-cheek sensibility that makes it fun on every level, regardless of age. You can feel good about having your children watch these videos, and if you decide to join them, they will make you feel good, too.

My daughter and I were devoted FTT viewers when they first aired on Showtime. When the entire collection finally became available, I bought two sets - one for me, and one for my three-year old niece.

I have been waiting for this series to come on DVD for years. I've always enjoyed the interpretations of these adaptations of the classic fairie tales, mainly because they are more accurate to the original tales than what Disney has put out. Yes, the tales have been altered for time constraints but they give a wonderful picture of the tales themselves (as I have said before). And the lengths of each episode is quite reasonable; I think most of them are under an hour in length.

I remember watching these shows when they were on and I couldn't wait to see the next one. I was always quite fond of the Nightingale, Thumbelina, the Dancing Princesses, Aladdin, Snow White, and Cinderella. And as I grew older, I became amazed at the talent that decided to act or direct these wonderful tales.

Every time I found a VHS copy of the episodes, I would pick them up, which has become increasingly more difficult. Now I have the entire set, and I am so happy I have them!

I grew up watching this show when I was a little girl; I am now 24 years old and the show still never fails to amaze me. I own the entire collection on the old CBS/FOX videos, complete with the collector's boxes intact, and I had been watching them for awhile, so imagine my surprise when I find out that a company has put the collection on dvd. I just purchased it and it is defintely worth a try. The quality of the picture is clean, and the sound is clean as well. The episodes are serious and funny, and they were made for children and adults to enjoy. Some episodes are definitely for the kids, while a few might be too serious, therefore, teens and adults would understand them better. So its for all ages, plus, the sets are cool because they try to recreate a storybook feel to it. And the humor has wit, which makes it all the better. Two episodes: "Rapunzel" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" have new scenes to it that weren't on any of the videos that I know of, and they help the episodes out a lot."The Tale of the Frog Prince" has the original intro added to it that was not on the videos as well. Also, a scene from "Pied Piper of Hamelin" was cut, (the scene where a rat that survives the terrible day tells his side) and I found that refreshing since it didn't make since for that scene to even be in the tale. Up until that point, that episode was the most serious out of all of the faerie tales, and all of the rats that were used were real, and they did not speak to each other; it was dealt with in a serious manner; so why are they going to put in a rat talking and acting like a human, telling his side of the story? Doesn't make since, huh? So its obvious the producers decided it wasn't right and they cut that one little scene out, and it makes the episode so much better. Okay, enough of that little tirade. Anyways, I think it is worth it to get this set, especially since it has come down in price and this is defintely something that parents with kids today should get because of a lot of the junk that has been coming out since the 90's. ( I am a child of the 80's and you know something is defintely wrong when there are lots of toys that you grew up with in your time, are all of a sudden coming back out with new revisions to it.) Obviously they are running out of ideas now. And especially since Hollywood isn't making too many good films or shows for kids, this is something that I think would be fun and interesting for kids today, and even educational in some ways, to get kids interested in fairy tales. It might encourage them to start reading some of the tales. I had always said that when I have kids that this would be something I would show to them to show that's what I grew up watching when I was their age. That's just my opinion, though, and I would defintely recommend this to kids, parents, and even the occasional movie buff who wants to see some of the best entertainers in stage, film, music,and television do some quality acting on these episodes. Or even a child of the 80's, like me, who just wants to relive their own memories.

Like many others, I loved faerie tale theatre as a child and rented them on video. Shelly Duvalls series is lifelike and tansports you to another world, I am also excited because of my mother, there were episodes I wasn't allowed to see and now I DO!!! But there is yet another reason I made this purchase just last week, It is because of the horror of what is being done to faerie tales in America today. Kids are being protected to the point that the stories are losing valuable life lessons, such as: if you tell a lie enough, it could put your life in danger, Dont talk to strangers, haste makes waste, dreams can come true, love can be a glorious thing and being a good and loving person on the inside is whats important not whats on the outside.
Faerie Tale theatre doesn't take creative license with the ending, it stays true and THATS important!