Mother Goose Stories - 1949 - Ray Harryhausen

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Returning from the war, Ray Harryhausen began creating a series of short fairy tales based on Mother Goose stories that would run about 3 minutes a piece. The stories were in public domain so he wouldn't have any legal problems. He approached several schools for suggestions and quickly learned that he was not going to please everyone and decided to do the films the way he wanted to see them. His parents became very supportive of Ray at this time with his father, a machinist, helping to create the armatures needed for the models and his mother helping him with the costumes and set decorations, as well as the papier-mache heads for the dolls. His parents names are listed in the credits as Frad Blasauf and Martha Reske. He used is father's mother's surname to credit is father and his mother's maiden name. Eventually these short subjects were placed together and an opening and closing segment with Mother Goose was added. Ray continued creating these animated shildren's stories, adapting LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD in 1949, HANSEL AND GRETEL and THE STORY OF RAPUNZEL in 1951 and THE STORY OF KING MIDAS in 1953. He had begun work on THE TORTOISE AND THE HAIR but Ray was realizing that this shorts were taking up much of his life and he was aspiring for bigger and better things.Also instrumental in these latter films was Rays drama teacher at the LACC, Charlotte Knight. Ms. Knight was and actress as well as a playright and she helped contribute to the Fairy Tales beginning with LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. These short subjects are still in non-theatrical circulation today and are used by many schools. Follow this link for more on the MOTHER GOOSE/FAIRY TALES including pictures from the series.

Channel: Film & Animation
Uploaded: May 13, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Author: CaptainCartoon

Length: 0:10:21
Rating: 5.00
Views: 789

Tags: mother goose fairy tale Ray Harryhausen stop-motion

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Video Comments:
fromthesidelines (Wednesday 15th of October 2008 01:33:10 PM)
This was originally produced as a 16mm "mute" film (intended for the "home movie market"), which is why this has "intertitles"- a stock music track was added for the "sound editions" by Bailey Films...
skullface90 (Monday 29th of September 2008 10:30:34 PM)
i have these mother goose cartoons in a vhs all together with a bunch of other classics called "50 greatest cartoons"