Fabbri's ''Once Upon a Time'' series was based on the popular '' ''Story Teller'' series. It also had a slogan which was "''The world of Traditional Fairy Tales & Fables''." Like its predecessor, it was a collection of storybooks that came with cassette tapes. ''Story Teller'' regulars like Carole Boyd and Nigel Lambert lent their vocal talents to this collection. Actor John Shrapnel introduced each one and told one of the stories himself. The intro of each cassette always started with this: ''"Long Ago and Far Away in Enchanted Lands across the seas lived Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, Good Fairies and Wicked Witches, Ferocious Giants and Gentle Dwarfs. Their Adventures and Stories have been told for Hundreds of Years. Open the pages and listen to the words and you too can join the magical world of Once Upon a Time."'' The main title theme was "Christmas Box" by

Paddy Kingsland Paddy Kingsland (born 30 January 1947) is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggar's Grammar Sch ...

Issues

Each issue of ''Once Upon a Time'' was devoted to one story only with mostly Fairy Tales by

The Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among th ...

and

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...

. The canary yellow cassettes came without a small plastic protective case but a total of five large red plastic cases were given away free with Issues 1, 12, 24, 36 and 48. Each were made to hold twelve of every issue and cassette. Some also came with a giant poster showing 24 Issues as a checklist to those who were collecting each one. 60 issues were produced:

In other languages

*French "Il était une fois" *German "Die Märchen dieser Welt"

References

{{reflist

External links

Partworks.co.uk: Once Upon a Time
Children's short story collections Audiobooks by title or series Partworks Series of children's books