Once Upon a Time...

Once Upon a Time...

Once Upon a Time… ("Il était une fois…") is a French educational animation franchise, created by Procidis. There are seven distinct series, each focusing on different aspects of knowledge. These are mostly historical, with Once Upon a Time… Man being focused on the overall history of mankind, and most of the others are more focused on specified historical fields, such as the lives and exploits of the explorers or inventors. Life, however, featured an explanation on the workings of the body.

All feature the same stock characters, in similar archetypal roles. "Life" is the only one to not feature the children as grown up or adolescent archetypes of said characters, but as parts of the human organism.

Contents

Chronology

Once Upon a Time… Man

Originally produced in 1978, this series is the original series of the franchise, detailing the overall history of mankind. It was directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… Space

Produced in 1982, this series was a science fiction follow up to the last episode of "Man", which was futuristic in scope. Several episodes of this series were made into a movie. It was directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… Life

Produced in 1987, this series focuses on the workings of the human body, and has the children shown as the archetypes of various parts of the organism (cells, bacteria, etc.). It was directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… The Americas

Produced in 1991, this series focuses on the history of the American continent through all its settlements and their historical events. It was directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… The Discoverers

Produced in 1994, this series focuses on various thinkers and inventors throughout history, from the ancient Chinese, through Henry the Navigator, Gutenberg, Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Marie Curie, until "tomorrow". It was directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… The Explorers

Produced in 1996, this series focuses on various explorers, from "The First Navigators", through Vasco de Gama, Cabeza de Vaca and Humboldt, to Lewis & Clark and Alexandra David Neel. It was, as all the series before it, directed by Albert Barillé.

Once Upon a Time… Planet Earth

Produced in 2008, this series focuses on the preservation of the natural environment, and warnings about global warming, the greenhouse effect, pollution, and others. It features very different animation compared to earlier series. It was the last film directed by Albert Barillé, and the last series in the franchise to date. Unlike the others, this series has not yet been released in English.

Other series

  • In 2007, Once Upon a Time... Music ("Érase una vez… La música" in Spanish) was produced but only released in Spain. This series focuses on the history of the classical music.[citation needed]

Characters

The series Once Upon a Time… illustrated the various subjects (as listed above) from the point of view of a group that is always composed of similar recurring figures that represent different archetypal roles.:

  • Maestro (Roger Carel) - The wise old man. He usually serves as the head of the tribe, as a religious priest, as an adviser to the king and as an inventor. Maestro has long white hair and beard that covers his entire body. He is seen to stash things away in this beard, sometimes loitering quite a bit to find the object he wishes to present. He serves as the mentor to the children, telling them about the various subjects.
  • Peter / Pierre (Roger Carel) - The courageous and handsome young man. He represents the image of the good person.
  • Jumbo / Le Gros (Yves Barsacq) - The strong young man. Jumbo is Peter's best friend. A quite large person, with red hair and great physical powers. At times he tends to be a little clumsy but he is very strong. He often defends Peter, Pierrette (and Psi in the spinoffs) from the bad bullies.
    • Jumbo and Peter have also young counterparts (Little Jumbo and Pierrot (Vincent Ropion)) and their development is usually followed from childhood to adolescence.
  • Psi - The good young girl. Dark haired woman, serves mostly as Peter's girlfriend, or as Peter's wife.
  • Pierrette (Annie Balestra) - The good young woman. Blond haired, serves mostly as Pierrot's mother, or as Jumbo's wife.
  • The Pest / Le Teigneux (Claude Bertrand) - The big bully, friend of 'The Dwarf', large and strong bully that enjoys picking on others or attacking them. He is strong, but Jumbo is stronger.
  • The Dwarf / Le Nabot (Patrick Préjean) - The little bully, friend of 'The Pest', weak but intriguer and shrewd. He has a malicious giggle. Both he and his friend display downright negative characters (traitors, spies, conspirators, murderers), or at least skeptics or hypocrites. They are the ones to generally start up a conflict between the circle of children.
  • The Clock - Displays the year when the events occur. Sometimes it has a character and reacts to what the screen shows. For example complains when narration proceeds many years forwards or glares to the scenery when something interesting is shown.

Some of them had historical roles. For example Pest as Goliath and Pierrot as David. Maestro had the role of Leonardo Da Vinci and generally of benevolent or enlightened rulers (amongst these, he surprisingly represented Kublai Khan).

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Once Upon a Time — may refer to: Once upon a time , a stock phrase used to open the telling of a story in the English language. Contents 1 Film 2 Music 3 …   Wikipedia

  • Once Upon a Time — puede referirse a: Música Once Upon a Time (álbum), álbum de Donna Summer Once Upon a Time Tour, gira de conciertos de Donna Summer Once Upon a Time: The Singles, álbum de Siouxsie the Banshees Cine Once Upon a Time, película dirigida por… …   Wikipedia Español

  • once upon a time — {adv. phr.} Sometime before now, long ago. * /Once upon a time she was thought to be the most talented actress in the country./ Often used at the beginning of fairy stories. * /Once upon a time there lived a king who had an ugly daughter./ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • once upon a time — {adv. phr.} Sometime before now, long ago. * /Once upon a time she was thought to be the most talented actress in the country./ Often used at the beginning of fairy stories. * /Once upon a time there lived a king who had an ugly daughter./ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • once upon a time — ► once upon a time at some time in the past. Main Entry: ↑once …   English terms dictionary

  • Once upon a time — For other uses, see Once Upon a Time. Frontispiece to The How and Why Library, 1909 Once upon a time is a stock phrase that has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) in storytelling in the English …   Wikipedia

  • Once Upon a Time — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Once Upon a Time (série télévisée). Once Upon A Time Album par Simple Minds Sortie Octobre 1985 Producteur …   Wikipédia en Français

  • once upon a time — literary 1. a long time ago. Once upon a time there lived a young girl called Cinderella. 2. if you say that something happened once upon a time, you mean that it happened in the past and you wish that it still happened now. Once upon a time,… …   New idioms dictionary

  • once\ upon\ a\ time — adv. phr. Sometime before now, long ago. Once upon a time she was thought to be the most talented actress in the country. Often used at the beginning of fairy stories. Once upon a time there lived a king who had an ugly daughter …   Словарь американских идиом

  • once upon a time — 1) used for starting children s stories Once upon a time, in a faraway land, lived a beautiful princess. 2) spoken used for talking about a situation that existed in the past but no longer exists, especially when it was better than the situation… …   English dictionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”