Underplayed Gems

Once Upon a Time... (1978)

Once Upon a Time... poster
Genre
educational television
Country
Netherlands, Belgium
Length
7 seasons, 190 episodes
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More series like this

How it feels

This is a French educational animation franchise with eight series. Each series teaches a different topic like human history, the body, or space using the same cast of recurring characters.

educationalinformativenostalgiclightheartedgentlestructuredwhimsicalretro

What happens

Once Upon a Time... ("Il était une fois...") is a French educational animation franchise, created by Albert Barillé for his animation studio Procidis. There are eight distinct series, each focusing on different aspects of knowledge. Once Upon a Time... has been shown in a hundred countries, and 150 million video cassettes and DVDs have been sold around the world, as well as 250 million tie-in books. There are eight series in all. These are mostly historical, with Once Upon a Time... Man being focused on the overall history of mankind. Most of the others are more focused on specified historical fields, such as the lives and exploits of the explorers or inventors, except for Space and Life. The former was a science fiction series, while the latter 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. Most of the series are in the animated documentary genre and teach in an expository style. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.