Mad Hatter Tea Party at BYU

On January 27th, the BYU Fairy Tales group hosted a Mad Hatter Tea Party in celebration of  Lewis Carroll’s birthday and the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland. Students and faculty enjoyed tea, Alice in Wonderland mad-libs, pin the smile on the Cheshire cat, and learning to use the Fairy Tales in Television Database (FTTV). Party-goers visited the website (fttv.humwp.byu.edu) and then explored the various infographics and left a notecard with a possible research question. The number and quality of responses left by students and faculty at this party were incredible: …

Fractured Fairy Tales and the American Dream

“And now for something we hope you’ll really like!” If you read that line the cheery voice of Rocket J. Squirrel, you are probably a fan of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  And you probably know that after that announcement, a short fairy tale segment would begin– hello, Fractured Fairy Tales. Fractured Fairy Tales, like The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, was full of biting wit and satire. Most of the satire of the Fractured Fairy Tales segment poked fun at the American entertainment …

La Llorona versus Appalachian Jack: Assigning ATU numbers to International folktales

All of the fairy tale references in television in this database are categorized by a number from the Aarne Thomspon Uther index. This is an extensive list of mostly European fairy tales. Categorizing tales using these numbers was essential for the software that would show us the prevalence of specific tale types, but it also presented an endless rabbit hole of interesting questions, most of them dealing with the very broad question of what a fairy tale really is. This post …