Prince Harry to Marry Former Sleeping Beauty

Five years before Prince Harry proposed, Meghan Markle was already a fairy tale princess. The American actress, best known for her role as Rachel Zane on the legal drama Suits, guest starred as Sleeping Beauty in a 2012 episode of the crime drama Castle. In the episode “Once Upon A Crime,” (season 4, episode 17), …

Edutainment Strategies: Sesame Street’s Story Book Community School

The first of four case study posts about my presentation for Western States Folklore Society’s Annual Meeting in April 2018. Introduced here, the presentation was titled Princess and the Letter P: Fairy Tales and Edutainment in Preschool Television. The other case studies can be found here. Sesame Street started in 1969 as one of the most …

Follow the White Rabbit

The following is a guest post written by Erica Smith, who was enrolled in Dr. Rudy’s 394R class Winter Semester. This was a final writing assignment for Applied English Visualizing Wonder: Fairy Tales and Television. We hope you enjoy!   When Lewis Carroll’s novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was published in 1865, it was received as …

Henry Mills, Child in Distress

Written by Erica Smith, one of our new team members! The traditional fairy tales which Once Upon A Time adapts often cast women in the role of damsel-in-distress. Since Once Upon A Time is structured around empowering the adult woman, Henry, a male child, steps in whenever the story calls for a “damsel” character. Targeted …

Preschool Edutainment and Fairy Tales: The Groundwork

My last big project was about fairy tale mashup episodes in children’s television, and took a large-scale data approach. In choosing a new research topic, I remained interested in the phenomenon that, currently, fairy tales are marketed as “kid stuff.” If marketers want adults to watch their content, they usually sell it as either “gritty” …

Unbirthday Tea Party: “We’re All Mad Here” Event Recap

Our 4th annual Unbirthday Tea Party brought in a wide variety of Alice fans and fairy tale fans alike. Everyone knows that our research team is mad about fairy tales, and we wanted to share that passion by discussing the portrayal of madness in Alice in Wonderland adaptations across time. As the audience enjoyed tea …

From the Page to the Screen: Why We Study Fairy Tales on Television

Just as Scheherazade spun tales for the king that kept his interest for 1001 nights, so do the shows we watch spin tales that entrance and delight us until we’ve binge-watched our way through an entire series. From the oldest listed fairy tale based television program in our database, a Disney Animated Short on Cinderella …

Promotional Small-Screen Fairies

Visualizing Wonder is project devoted to the neglected study and education of fairy tales on television. With tools like a searchable teleography and visualizations showing which characters show up on which shows we’ve made great strides is showing television’s love affair with fairy tales. That being said, there is one aspect of fairy tales on …

Everything in Proportion: “Goldie and Bear” 1.1 Review

  Goldie and Bear is a clever, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, fairy tale romp that is aimed towards children (it will premiere on Disney Junior) but delighted even this fully grown grown-up. Granted, this grown-up has a very high threshold for whimsy, but this children’s show is the real deal. Fairy tale’s own Maria Tatar—who, amongst her many …

The Clothes Make the Fairy Tale: “Goldie and Bear” 1.2 Review

For new viewers and readers, Goldie and Bear is Disney Junior’s latest fairy tale-themed television show. It’s cute and clever and computerized-cuddly. The season premiere confirmed that this show could prove its mettle. And most wonderfully, this second episode bought my viewership by showcasing my obsession, the one and only Little Red Riding Hood! Goldie and …