Advertising: Sky TV Spots and Fairy Tales

Frog Prince

I first featured the Princess and the Pea Sky commercial when this blog was fairly new and the ad campaign of Sky fairy tales was brand new. But I have never shared the other spots, so here they all are together. Surprisingly enough, I think the Aladdin is my favorite followed perhaps by Emperor's New Clothes. Red Riding Hood annoyed me with its editing.



Aladdin



Princess and the Pea



Emperor's New Clothes



Little Red Riding Hood

Nathan Hale's Fairy Tale Humor

 

Back in February, Nathan Hale--illustrator of Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack--featured a Picture Book Marathon on his blog in which he brainstormed picture book ideas and created cover art for them for almost every day of the month. It was all in fun and a few were fairy tale related and my favorite wasn't but it was obviously children's book related, so I am going to show it anyway. The text is Nathan's and just as fun as the illustrations.

The Three Little Trilobites

The story of the three little pigs, told in the pre-historic Silurian sea. Instead of being chased by the big bad wolf, the three little trilobites are on the run from a nasty Mixopterus--a sea scorpion. First the trilobites build their homes from loose shells, then Crinoid stalks, last of all they build themselves a home deep in the mud, where they live happily ever after--they even end up as a fossilized display in a museum!

Don't confuse this story with last year's "One Trick Ponies," where the three Pleistocene ponies were on the run from the Giant Terror Bird. That was a prehistoric take on the Seven Chinese Brothers--this one is based on the Three Little Pigs. Similar, but different.

 

The Emperor-tron's New Mecha-Battle Armor

The story of The Emperor's New Clothes told with giant killer robots.

 

The Very Hungry Computer Virus

"On Monday he ate through an Apple computer, but he was still hungry..."

 

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Last year, he offered The Ugly Pterodactylus and Goldilocks and the 300 Bears.
 
If you're a fan of the Rapunzel and Calamity Jack books, do look for the Lego tie-ins on Nathan's blog, too, such as here and here. 

Fairy Tales Retold from BBC on DVD

For the last few years, the BBC has been airing modernized movie-length retellings of classic literature. First was Canterbury Tales in 2003 which hasn't been released stateside. That was followed by Shakespeare ReTold (US link and UK link) which also aired on BBC America.

Most recently, the series offered Fairy Tales in 2008 which included movie treatments of Cinderella, Rapunzel, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Emperor's New Clothes. For some reason, the DVD set for Fairy Tales [2008] has never been released in the states, but it is available at over well over 50% (63% off at the time of this writing) from Amazon.co.uk right now. Actually, all three series are listed at deep discounts for a short time if any of the above interest you. Just follow the links provided.

I haven't seen these movies but have been eager to see them for well over a year since they were first announced. The DVDs from AmazonUK are Region 2 but if you have a region free player, they should play without a problem.

Here's a link to the original press releases about The Series, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Billy Goat.