The Muppet Snow White

Muppet Snow White (Muppet Graphic Novels) was released a few years ago and is already out of print, but I've not shared it here in my memory so here it is! This was part of a series but only one outright fairy tale was interpreted. Although it wasn't 2012, Snow White was the tale of choice to go along with Peter Pan, Robin Hood and others. The following are some images from David Petersen who did the cover art and a few of the interior images (found on his website) and one page representing the interior work by Shelli Paroline.

And, yes, let me tell you, I think we can find some deep psychological and sociological meanings to Miss Piggy playing both the evil queen and Snow White. What do you think?

Sesame Street Book of Fairy Tales

Since I am posting about The Muppet Snow White today, I had to share another, even rarer fairy tale book, Sesame Street Book of Fairy Tales. This one dates from my youth. The book was recently featured on Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves where you can read more about the book and its contents as well as view more of the images. I borrowed two from there to share here. I admit the idea of The Count interrupting Goldilocks and The Three Little Pigs to count things makes me giggle because I am of that generation. John and I will even channel the count sometimes in our own conversations. Sesame Street sticks with you! I wish I had had this book back in the day, but I only had The Berenstain Bears Fairy Tales.




Sesame Street has also offered up other fairy tale retellings, including, but I am sure not limited to:

  

  

Season Rankings for Fairy Tale Shows

With the fall/winter tv seasons behind us, we can now look at the final rankings for our two fairy tale inspired series this past year. Deadline published the Full 2011-2012 TV Season Series Rankings which shows that Once Upon a Time came in 16th overall of all network shows while Grimm came in at 81. There's more data on the site, of course, but OUAT ended up one of four freshman shows in the top 20. .

Then if you page down to look at Grimm, you will see that the shows that shared its similar ranking on other networks overall were canceled or on the bubble of nearly so. So if it had been on any other network, it may have suffered the same fate but NBC didn't have a good showing overall beyond football and The Voice so the Grimm will stay with us for a while longer at least.

Grimm, along with OUAT, is available for preorder on DVD and Blu Ray, too.

Snow White and the Huntsman on HSN

Don't forget the special 24 hour event on HSN devoted to Snow White and the Huntsman starting tonight. There are several pretties and if I hadn't just bought, well, a house I might have been able to justify a belated birthday gift of the Frog Prince necklace by Heidi Daus or her Rare Beauty necklace also pictured below. But I will have to be content with pictures instead! There is everything from clothing to housewares to makeup to jewelry, some more directly related than others. You can browse here. Or you can tune in to the network and watch all the special promos for the movie along with the items for sale. I just picked a few that photographed well to share here.

Frog Prince Necklace by Heidi Daus

Rare Beauty Necklace by Heidi Daus

Enchanted Wall Mirror by Hutton Wilkinson

Enchanted Tree Table by Hutton Wilkinson

 

Enchanted HandHeld Mirror by Hutton Wilkinson

David Edelstein's Review of Snow White and the Huntsman

The above is David Edelstein's review of Snow White and the Huntsman from CBS News and it has been one of my favorites so far.

He begins by saying:

A friend recently showed her daughter the wonderful mock fairy tale "The Princess Bride," from 1987, and the little girl was horrified when the hero and heroine were attacked by a giant rat.

It's not that it was violent. It's that the princess didn't pick up a sword. What's the matter with her? Does she expect to be, like, RESCUED?

And the review is fair to the film, but is even more about Snow White and although not expressly stated, why this film and its success is important. With the token female in Avengers--as good as a film as it is this summer--it's wonderful to see some options with strong female leads. It will be interesting to see the box office on this one.

Snow White: It Girl of 2012

So I've been watching the clips and trailers for Snow White and the Huntsman and I'm curious. Of course, more of the men in my life are interested in seeing this film than the women, but at least someone is interested, right? We want a successful fairy tale movie so that the impetus continues for a while. Or at least I do. Now, I admit, that one of the first things that jumped out at me was the sound effects that are from Star Wars from a Jabba the Hut laugh to a Tauntaun's whinny (or some other Star Wars creature, I didn't replay it to doublecheck but my first instinct was Tauntaun!) You can watch some of them here.

So if you haven't read Why we so desperately want Snow White and the Huntsman to be good By Meredith Woerner at IO9 yet, please do.

We need Snow White and the Huntsman to be good. It's moved past mere desire to a full-on burning inflammation in our fantasy loins. Why? Perhaps it's because what we've seen in the trailers so far looks pretty damn good. We were raised on Beastmaster, Willow, Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but there's been a fantasy dry spell in Hollywood for years (Return of the King came out in 2003, people). It's time for some good, new fantasy, sans Lion Jesus.

So we desperately want Snow White and the Huntsman to be good, because that would mean a victory for dark fantasy and potentially more fantastic bloody battles fought on the big screen. We're not sure if it will be. The only thing we can do while we wait is whip up a pro/con list, so here it is. Let's contemplate how Charlize Theron's Evil Queen movie could prevail, and how it could fail.

Click through to read it all.

And now I ask you, how much of a Snow White theme would you like here on the blog for the next few weeks? Is it overkill or part of the excitement and fun of all the hype? This is the biggest hyped fairy tale inspired movie in a while, especially one not animated by Disney. I can write quite a bit about the fairy tale--after all, I have an entire book on the topic with my name on the cover--Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World. And after working on that book, I have an affection for Snow White that had never existed prior. I will do some--and anything is still a challenge since I am still painting, unpacking and trying to rebuild my nest so I can work comfortably again. The good news? I have finally unpacked my folklore library. I don't feel nearly as handicapped as I have been the last few months for I have my resources more accessible again even if my time is still limited.

Snow White and the Seven Movies

In case you haven't seen this yet, here it is!

Where they messed up? Sleeping Beauty. With two tv shows on the horizon, it looks like Beauty from Beauty and the Beast is the next it girl. But it's hard to say her name without invoking Belle and Disney, so I don't mind the Sleeping Beauty reference, just think she may have to wait for 2014...

According to IO9, "Snow White and the Seven Movies was directed by Alberto Belli and was written by its fairest star Genevieve Farrell."

Red Riding Hood Smoking House

I stumbled across this Red Riding Hood Smoking House when I was looking for something else. Intrigued, I had to know what a smoking house is, especially when it is marketed as a toy! It is a charming set.

From the seller's site:

Graupner
Erzgebirge, Germany

A miniature smoking house with a fairy-tale scene of Little Red Riding Hood saying goodbye to her mother before leaving for Grandmother's house, with the Wolf slinking by outside their cottage. Remove the house to insert an incense smoking cone to add the look of real smoke coming from the cottage's chimney! A charming decoration to be kept out all year!

Incense cones sold separately.

And more images:

Favorite Adaptations: ABC's Once Upon a Time

Jhane offered a second favorite fairy tale adaptation, one that has inspired many people over the last several months. Coincidentally, the DVDs and Blu Ray sets are now available for preorder. The price hasn't dropped much on Amazon yet, but they will price match if you preorder and you will always get the lowest price listed between now and release date--which is what I always do. The discs are released on August 28th. Now here are Jhane's words:

Another adaptation of fairy tales that I love is ABC's Once Upon A Time TV series.

It is one of the few series I have been watching and I am hooked to it for many reasons. Even before it was shown, I was already interested in it because I really have this fascination about fairy tales, and the series gave more than just that.

The main conflict of the series is that the fairy tales being snatched off of their happy endings, and them being brought and stuck in the modern world by no other than the Evil Queen. And only one person could save them all and bring back their happiness, and it happens to be Snow White and Prince Charming's child - a daughter, actually.

The many reasons I loved it:

For one, it really has a modern take in it, being the fairy tale world and the modern world entangled. What happens in the original fairy tales also happen in the modern world, only on a different yet similar manner. It unfolds differently in the modern world, yet, the conflict is there and much more chaos ensues.

Another is that, I loved how they connected the different fairy tales making it seem that all of these tales happened in one setting and time. Like how Snow White and Red Riding Hood became the best of friends; how Cinderella became friends with Snow White and Prince Charming; how Rumpelstiltskin seems to be omnipresent; and among others.

There is also a different take yet wonderful version of the tales, you would actually like to think that the real tales happened that way. Like [SPOILER ALERT!] how Prince Charming and Snow White actually met because of the latter's thieving scheme; how Grumpy the dwarf was actually named Dreamy at first but was turned into Grumpy because of loving a fairy - that could never happen; how Red Riding Hood was actually the wolf her town feared; how Rumpelstiltskin became that powerful because of his desire to protect his child; how Belle fell into the hands of the Beast (who happens to be Rumpelstiltskin); how the Evil Queen became that evil after having her heart broken and blaming it to Snow White, who revealed her secret to her evil mother; and among others.

Also, I love how the story revolves around Snow White and Prince Charming (in the modern world, Mary Margaret Blanchard and James), and true love, like how every fairy tale should.

And also, the morals each episode give that make you think more and make you appreciate the tales more. And along with that is your excitement for each new episode to come, and you just wonder what would happen to your favorite fairy tale, how they would connect it to the current plot, and how different yet wonderful it would be.

And lastly, it gives you the feeling that fairy tales are really for everyone, for the children or the teens or the adults, for the females or the males; to just everyone who appreciates it and who has the belief that fairy tales are there to give us hope, that anything is possible, that magic is everywhere, and that love is the most powerful magic of all :)

I am Jhane from the Philippines.

Mythopoeic Awards: 2012 Finalists Announced

Oh, time again for one of my favorite awards announcements since it is guaranteed to include fairy tale and myth. My congrats to all of the nomineess. Without much further ado, from Mythopoeic Awards: 2012 Finalists Announced:

The Mythopoeic Society has announced the finalists for the 2012 Mythopoeic Awards. Download the press release in PDF format. For more information about the awards, visit the Awards section of this site; the finalists for the literature awards, text of recent acceptance speeches, and selected book reviews are also listed in this section. The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon 43, to be held August 3-6, 2012, in Berkeley, California.

The nominees are:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature:

The Uncertain Places by Lisa Goldstein (Tachyon)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)

The Heavenly Fox by Richard Parks (PS Publishing)

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (Tor)

Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature:

  

Theatre Illuminata series by Lisa Mantchev (consisting of Eyes Like Stars, Perchance to Dream, and So Silver Bright) (Feiwel and Friends)

  

Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce (consisting of Terrier, Bloodhound, and Mastiff) (Random House)

The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies:

Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays edited by Jason Fisher (McFarland)

The Art of the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (HarperCollins) (Text link is to edition to be released later this year. The pictured deluxe edition is out of print already.)

Tolkien and Wales: Language, Literature and Identity by Carl Phelpstead (University of Wales Press)

C.S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy by Sanford Schwartz (Oxford University Press)

The Power of Tolkien's Prose: Middle-earth's Magical Style by Steve Walker (Palgrave Macmillan)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies:

Fairy Tales: A New History by Ruth B. Bottigheimer (SUNY Press)

The Christian Goddess: Archetype and Theology in the Fantasies of George MacDonald by Bonnie Gaarden (Farleigh Dickinson University Press)

Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. Le Guin (Aqueduct Press)

The Fantastic Horizon: Essays and Reviews by Darrell Schweitzer (Borgo Press)

The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films by Jack Zipes (Routledge)