Most American youngsters learned their Fairy Tales from Aesop and the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson. Me? I was a ‘T. V. Baby’ and that electronic device was my friend and baby sitter (and later boy sitter) so I got Rocket J. Squirrel, Bullwinkle The Moose, Boris, Natasha et al for breakfast, some times lunch and most weekday afternoons. (Saturdays was Sci Fi theatre with Major Mudd.

There was Fractured Fairy Tales where stories got mixed up with other stories; mermaids who granted wishes (later updated to I Dream of Genie), two dimensional poems with color and sound, Mister Peabody’s Time Travels with Peabody The Dog and Sherman the human boy companion. (How I envied Sherman).

There was Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog, the unforgettable Flintstones (beloved by religious literalists because it displayed humans and dinosaurs living together.)

Let me not forget to mention Cecil The Seasick Sea Serpent co-starring Beany (a young boy about my age who flew around courtesy of his propeller driven hat. I tried that form of levitation but it did not work for me.) There was also Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Bugs Bunny and Felix The Cat.

I was not until Junior High School and my intense interest in Ancient History, Roman and Hellenic studies, that I restarted my now lifetime in interest in reading.

It was my grandmother Mary (or was it Doris?) who said ‘As the twig is bent so the tree shall grow’ meaning that watching so much TV must have had some affect on me but at least succumbing to Reefer Madness was not one of them.

.

in spite of the King's precautions, the princess, who is described as a free spirit, stumbles into...someone working at a spindle. The spindle draws a few drops of her blood...
Read More

Here are two fairy tale endings to stories I wrote last month.
Read More

My favorite fairy tale? Hands down, it’s “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Why? The princesses would dress up every night and disappear though a secret tunnel to dance the night away with handsome princes. They would return the next morning, their shoes worn out from dancing.  I loved that story, partly because of the new shoes they got every day, but I also liked the part about getting dolled up like that every night, sneaking out, and not getting caught.

I have two beautifully illustrated versions of this story. It’s almost a TL;DR kind of tale. Lots of build-up that ends, predictably, with a wedding. But it’s a fairy tale, so it has to end happily ever after.

But for me, it was always about the shoes. And the dancing.