MovieChat Forums > Snow White (1989) Discussion > What is your fav Movie tale?

What is your fav Movie tale?

posted 20 years ago by dac87
11 replies | jump to latest

Ever since I was a kid, I watched Cannon Movie Tales. I remember when Disney would show them like once a year for a period of five years. I never watched all of them...in fact, I only watched about four of them. I never really realized until just now that I was not the only one to watch and obsess (misspelled) over them. I also didn't realize that they had all most become cult movies, popular with those of us who grew up in the late eighties and early ninties. And they are perfect entertainment for everyone ( I am a straight 17 year old guy and I love em!) I had owned a copy of SLEEPING BEAUTY for many years and all ways wanted to get my hands on the other movies in this series.
The movies I remember the most were: SLEEPING BEAUTY, SNOW WHITE, HANSEL AND GRETEL, and RUMPELSTILSKIN. I think, even though I liked SLEEPING BEAUTY enough to buy it, it was only my second favorite, SNOW WHITE was my fav. In a close third comes HANSEL AND GRETEL. Even though I had not watched it in eight years or so, SNOW WHITE made an everlasting effect on me. I just recently bought HANSEL AND GRETEL off ebay and plan to buy SNOW WHITE when I get enough money...it's pretty expensive. I am hoping that the rumours about a possble release of Cannon Movie Tales on DVD are true!

I was wondering, what is everybody's favorite movie Tale and which ones you suggest to me to watch?

[–] cmoore0013 20 years ago

Definatly Snow White!!!! It has the best songs, original sets(well for the most part, the other Cannons seemed to recycle sets), great acting, and cool special effects.

Next would be Red Riding Hood. It had great songs(Isabella and Craig can't really sing that well though), a good backstory, creepy atmosphere, and good acting.

Sleeping Beauty is great as well. Good songs(but the music is very cheesy), nice costumes, acting is top notch, a creepy villan.

Hansel and Gretel is just too scary. Cloris Leachman owns the part of the witch and runs with it. She is very scary in the role. Nicola Stapelton and Hugh Pollard are really good child actors and are really cute.

Beauty and the Beast is great. It has a nice chemestry betwen the leading couple(Rebecca De Mornay and John Savage), great songs, nice costumes, good acting,but the special efects are rarely used.

Rumpelstiltskin is nice. It is very slow, though. The songs are fun and catchy, actors are great, sets and costumes are terrfic and special effects are pretty good.

I have yet to see the others.

[–] AnneofGreenGables83 20 years ago

Ok, well, considering its the only one I've got a copy of, Puss in Boots is definitly my favorite! (see my post on the page for Puss in Boots for more of my feelings about it!) I have slight but vivid memories of Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Sleeping Beauty. I don't believe I've seen the rest, although, I could be wrong, I mean, they showed on Disney when???... We have an enormous collection of movies. We have three very big shelving units (two to hold vhs and one for dvd) plus the bottom half of our amoir (spelling?) is filled with vhs that we taped onto off of the Disney Channel. Considering that each of these tapes (and there's over a hundred of them) has on average 4 programs or movies taped onto them, I had a lot of looking to do, to determine that the copy we had of Snow White was no longer in my family's possesion. (if you're looking for things that aired on Disney in the late 80's or early 90's- I'm your go-to girl!)We actually had 2 other things labeled Snow White- the Disney cartoon, and a live stage production of the disney cartoon (kinda like a low budget version of Lion King and Beauty and the Beast on Broadway). It was only recently that an aunt of mine informed me that she had been loaned our copy of the Cannon version, and had lost it. I scoured the local video stores and libraries looking for Hansel and Gretel, but I only managed to find the claymation version (that I detested as a child- due to the bear with the bulgy butt) and many others that just were nowhere near as good as what I remembered the version I was looking for to be. Please tell me for certain: Is this the Hansel and Gretel where the house blows up into green ooze in the end, and the kids break their way out of their gingerbread coatings??? I really hope it is! I barely remember Sleeping Beauty, but I looked for that one too, with no avail. I actually had started a list of films that I wanted to find (unfortunatly, I don't know the titles of a few, I just have memories of clips of them)and was using the internet to search for them, when I discovered a site that gave all these movies terrible reviews! I was depressed and thought that I was all alone in being obsessed with these movies. So when on a whim I did a search on Yossi Graber (the actor who plays the king in Puss in Boots- I was conversing with a friend and discussing interesting names of actors)I brought up all of these, and found that the posts on this site were all very close to my own feelings! I would now suppose that you are right that these have become like a cult classic for those who grew up in the late 80's and early 90's, because, well, I am obsessed, and that's when I grew up (I'm 19). By the way, to answer your question, of which you should watch, you should definitly watch Puss in Boots! (Referring again to my earlier post on that page, my bro-who likes to sing Happy Cat- is a straight 17 year old too, and he loves that movie! You definitly don't have to be effeminite to like musicals!)

[–] dac87 20 years ago

Hi AnneofgreenGables83,

Yes, you are right, the version of Hansel and gretel you are refering to is in this series of Movie Tales. This is fairly hard to locate, but, if you look on ebay, you should be able to find a copy of it.(and Sleeping Beauty too) Hansel and Gretel has Cloris Leachman in it and is truly great! It is rather scary. There is a site on the web... if you just go to yahoo and type in Cannon Movie tales, you will come across the site Cannon movie tales encyclopedia. That gives you some info on them. I hope I have helped you!

[–] AnneofGreenGables83 20 years ago

Thank you, you did! (hehe, took me awhile to get back here, though!)

"I'm not getting braces, guys.....I'm getting fake teeth! ~Jenny

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] iii_3 20 years ago

My favorite is Hansel and Gretel. I've seen all of them, and H&G touched me the most. I loved the casting, although the casting is good in all of the Cannon Movietales, I loved the songs, and it really scared me. Cloris Leachman was really hideous and creepy.

My second fav. is Snow White. It is very atmospheric and I love Diana Rigg as the wicked Queen.

Third is Beauty and the Beast. I still sing the songs to myself, sometimes.

Fourth is Rumplestiltskin. Billy Barty scared me, too, but not as much as Chloris, and I've seen it too much. It still comes on t.v.

Fifth is Sleeping Beauty. I wish I was Tahnee Welch.

Sixth is Red Riding Hood. It is sooo atmospheric, but I couldn't really get into the story, and I don't know about the songs. Out of all of them, this one is different to me. It is so unlike the others.

Seventh is Puss in Boots- -eventhough the Prince was cute and shy, and I liked the Puss' song, I didn't like the recycling of the princess- -she was a sister in Beauty and the Beast. I liked the ending, though.

Eighth is The Frog Prince. I liked Eileen Quinn and Helen Hunt, but it was just too cutesy for me. The princess should have been an adult; I could never get into her and the prince as just being friends.

Ninth is Emporer's New Clothes. It is darker and less entertaining to me. Also, it is the last one that I ever saw- -the last one that they played on the Disney Channel that I saw consecutively.

I have loved these movies ever since I saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time, the first time that I realized that they were a series, on Disney when I was six (15 years ago). The first of the whole series that I saw was Rumplestiltskin; I borrowed it from the library when they still lent people children's movies. My favorites to borrow were Rumplestiltskin, Anne of Green Gables, and Shelly Duvall's Snow Queen. I want them for my children, eventhough I don't have any, yet, and when they come out on DVD, I will do summersaults all over. They have to come out on DVD- -they are too good to be ignored. No one else has since made any fairytale programming as watchable and memorable as these. I mean, Shelly Duvall's was good, but they always felt like a play, or a set to me. Real dinky, although the acting was good- -all except for Shelly Duvall's (Rapunzel). The Cannon Movietales were movies. No matter how cheap they actually were, I always thought of them as serious storytelling. They had household names in them, and they were just magic. I love them, I always will.

[–] raptor147 19 years ago

All of them are great. Very realistic and acted well. I personally like Red Riding Hood (Never Talk to strangers was a great song) the setting and story seemed like it could happen. Snow White is second; the sets and costume designes were the best. Lastly would be Hansle and Gretle; this one actually used to scare me, when seeing the witch stir the large pot when you first find out she's a witch and she turns around saying "I know you're there".

But they are all good, I really think it's what I am in the mood for.

[–] guod83 19 years ago

What? The part where the witch is at her cauldron and with her back to Gretel says "I know you're there" is the best scene ever. Cloris Leachman is amazing as the witch and this is my favourite Cannon Movie Tale because it is kind of scary. I have been watching it for years and it continues to be exciting.

[–] LizardKingBey 19 years ago

When I was young, I rant Snow White a hundred times. Last week, I bought it and I could still say what was going to happen (I hadn't seen it for twelve years). I remember Rumpelstilskin a little bit. And Hansel & Gretel... OMG I NEVER wanted to watch it. The cover used to give me nightmares. I'm not kidding, I was weaking up in the middle of the night, screaming because of Leachman's face on the f u cking cover... Lol I also bought Red Riding Hood on DVD, and it's pretty good. Those are the only four I remember, in fact THREE, 'cause I never watched H&G... But Snow White is fantastic!

Even she's ruining you're life. There's something about my mother. - Ann, Anywhere But Here

[–] Doctor_Mabuse 19 years ago

I'm interested in fairy tales and folklore. I've only seen a few of the Cannon Movie Tales but Snow White was by far my favorite, an outstanding version of this story. Diana Rigg is amazing as the evil Queen, the adaptation is true, the production nicely designed and the songs make for a surprisingly good musical.

Sleeping Beauty is probably my personal favorite fairy tale and Cannon's version comes in a close second after Snow White. This also has good songs and is pretty to look at but suffers from padding, with too much emphasis on Kenny Baker's character who is not in the original story. Also I would have liked someone colder and cooler than Sylvia Miles as the Red Fairy; perhaps Morgan Fairchild, then TV's premiere bitch-goddess, who is wasted here, could have done something classy with the part. (My fantasy casting for the good Queen would have been Raquel Welch, Tahnee Welch's real-life mother.) Despite not living up to my dreamy preferences, this is a good version of the story.

I only saw Beauty and the Beast with Rebecca DeMornay and John Savage once, and liked it.

I'm afraid I couldn't stand either The Frog Prince or Red Riding Hood. I don't think they were anywhere near the same league as the three mentioned above.

I never saw the others. My guess is that Cannon put a little more money and effort (if not imagination) into about half the series and really skimped on the rest.

Doctor_Mabuse

[–] WeAintFoundShin 8 years ago

Snow White