Happy Birthday, Fractured Fairy Tales

My first awareness of fairy tale fracturing came from two sources at a very young age. The first was The Berenstain Bears' Nursery Tales which was written more for straight humor before the bears became so overwhelmingly didactic. And, no, it's not very fractured, but it used the bears for some of the retellings which was enough to be a revelation to my toddler brain.


But the most important source, and the true lesson in fracturing, came from watching Rocky and Bullwinkle and seeing the Fractured Fairy Tales segments. Well, this week is apparently the 50th anniversary of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show's tv debut, so I thought I'd celebrate Fractured Fairy Tales while I was here.

Here's a great article about the anniversary: Happy 50th Birthday, Rocky & Bullwinkle! Moose and Squirrel Through the Years

It's a great article about the entire show and mentions the fractured fairy tales unlike most of the shorter articles in the media celebration today.

Here's my own bit about the series from the Fairy Tale Timeline on SurLaLune:

Jay Ward's "Rocky and His Friends" premieres on November 19, 1959 at 6:30 PM on ABC. One of its popular "shows within a show" is the Fractured Fairy Tales segment. The fairy tale segments are replaced the second year but return later after viewers write to the network and request that Fractured Fairy Tales return. In 1961, the show moves to NBC and is renamed "The Bullwinkle Show." A total of 91 four and a half minute fairy tales are produced. Later syndicated, the show has remained a cult classic.

And really, these were such a nice balance to the Disney retellings and more readily seen before the advent of home video. Syndication kept these visible for a very long time to several generations of kids and their grown-ups.



Several of the fractured tales are available on YouTube in blurry versions, but many are available on DVD now. There is one volume of just the tales, not all 91, but some of the best ones anyway, and there are three seasons of Rocky and Bullwinkle available, too. (That link to the list shows which tales show up on which DVDs, by the way, if you are interested.)


The Best of Fractured Fairy Tales, Vol. 1 (This has 15 tales on it.)


Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete First Season


Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Second Season


Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Third Season



I limited myself to embedding three of the videos in this post. I'm so proud.

I admit one of my favorite elements is Edward Everett Horton's narration. When I grew up, I discovered him as a character actor, especially in so many Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. But his voice always reminded me of fairy tales...


And because I will get emails otherwise, A. J. Jacobs wrote some of his own fractured fairy tales under the brand name and published a book of the tales ten years ago. I prefer the video shorts myself, but these are fun, too.