Long ago and far away - 1981 and Sunset Boulevard to be precise - I had a lunchtime interview with Shelley Duvall, ostensibly to discuss her part in the soon-to-be-released Terry Gilliam movie "Time Bandits."
Instead, Duvall, poking her fork into some sprouts in an overpriced, underlighted Hollywood eatery, started rattling on about fairy tales: how she loved them, how she collected rare editions of the Grimms and Andersen, how she hoped to get some of her actor friends involved in bringing these timeless children's fables to video and maybe get them on television. She was, she said, talking to the Disney Channel and some other cable bigwigs.After lunch, we walked across the street to Tower Records, where the ingratiatingly bug-eyed, dippy-voiced star of so many Robert Altman pics proceeded to buy the entire back catalog of Incredible String Band albums - a communal folk-hippie outfit from Scotland whose big song was called "Ducks on a Pond."
Sure, I thought to my old cynical self, this spaceball's going to produce a series for Disney? And I'm going to move to Philadelphia.
A scant nine years later, Playhouse Video is re-releasing all 26 titles of Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre" in newly packaged, bargain-priced ($14.98 list) editions. The actress is now the head of something called Think Entertainment, a production facility allied with four cable companies. And the library of winsome "Faerie Tale Theatre" episodes - starring the likes of Robin Williams, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeff Bridges, Billy Crystal and Susan Sarandon - has gone from its original Showtime cable berth to the lucrative syndicated television market. Go figure.
Actually, there's not much figuring to be done: With only a few exceptions, the "Faerie Tale Theatre" stories are some of the most innovative, intelligent and enjoyable children's programming around today.
Take "The Tale of the Frog Prince," a playful retelling of the old handsome-prince-in-amphibian's-skin story. Two-time Oscar nominee Robin Williams has the title role, cracking wise to the transcendently arch Teri Garr as the aloof, stuffy princess who tries to weasel out of the bargain she's struck with the green, toady thing. The dialogue - from a script by Monty Python's Eric Idle, who also directed - is spry, rife with double entendres, puns good and bad. And the production is perfectly suited to the video medium - downsizing Williams to the scale of a web-footed lily pond hopper is a much easier process on video than on film.
In "Little Red Riding Hood," then-husband and wife Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen bring an added dimension to their respective portrayals of the malevolent lycanthrope and the wee girl who's led astray.
"Hansel and Gretel" is another success, starring Joan Collins in the role she was born for: a crook-nosed, wart-faced witch.
Ditto, "Pinocchio." Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman, stars as the wooden kid with the proboscis that just won't quit. Carl Reiner is his father, the puppet maker Geppetto, Lainie Kazan the extra-zaftig fairy godmother who shows up in the nick of time. But even the smaller parts here are plum: James Coburn as a ne'er-do-well gypsy, Jim Belushi as a pug-faced punk on the isle of donkey boys.
And there is Carrie Fisher in "Thumbelina." And Peter ("Robocop") Weller as the wily peasant who wins Leslie Ann Warren's hand in marriage in "The Dancing Princesses." "Rumpelstiltskin" - the weird tale of a magic dwarf who facilitates the spinning of straw into gold in exchange for the soon-to-be-princess' first-born child - stars Duvall herself, with Herve ("Fantasy Island") Villechaize as the maniacal little guy with the odd moniker.
In an interview with Margy Rochlin in the Los Angeles Times a few years ago, Duvall explained how she managed to recruit screen stars accustomed to mega-buck salaries to work for scale in her less-than-an-hour videos.
"Actors are always interested in parts they may never get to play," Duvall explained. "That's why `King Lear' is so popular. For Joan Collins, to play an ugly witch was really fun. Also, it's a chance for stars to see how they like working together without making the commitment of six months to a year working on a film.
"There's also no star structure here; everyone is treated the same. I think there's a lot of relief in this for the stars. In Hollywood, the deal has become more important than the work. I think the success I've had in getting stars for my shows makes a statement - the stars still value their work more than the deal."
There's also the fact that many of these folks - McDowell and Steenburgen, Gregory Hines (he teams with Ben Vereen in "Puss 'n' Boots"), Mick Jagger (as an Asian aristocrat in "The Nightingale"), Susan Sarandon - are parents themselves and leapt at the chance to perform in something their own progeny could see and appreciate.
The behind-the-camera guys aren't bad either: veteran film and television pros Lamont Johnson and Peter Medak guide several installments. Nicholas Meyer, the filmmaker behind "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and the gripping "The Day After," directs Eric Idle in `The Pied Piper of Hamelin." And none other than movie Godfather Francis Coppola directs Harry Dean Stanton in the Catskill legend of "Rip Van Winkle."
To be sure, there are clunkers, but only a handful. There isn't enough story to sustain "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (Tatum O'Neal in the title role) for almost an hour; "The Nightingale," with the big-lipped Jagger and pre-big-lipped Barbara Hershey, is an ennui-laden affair; and Liza Minnelli in "The Princess and the Pea" . . . well, Liza Minnelli in "The Princess and the Pea" about says it all.
But then there's "Rapunzel," with Duvall again, letting her hair down so Jeff Bridges can clamber up the tower and rescue her from the clutches of a scowling Gena Rowlands. And "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," with a rosy-cheeked Elizabeth McGovern as Ms. White, Vanessa Redgrave as the evilly vain queen and Vincent Price as the mirror that talks back.
Another thing that's fascinating about these videos - for viewers whose age goes beyond the single digits, at least - is that Faerie Tale Theatre allow us to see these thespians in the least pretentious environments, working with scenarios that reveal some of the stars' true colors.
And some of the performances are just plain fun: Jeff Goldblum and Billy Crystal have a lark huffing and puffing their way through "The Three Little Pigs" (Goldblum's the wolf, Crystal the brainy pig), while Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Beals - as the prince and the if-the-shoe-fits wench in "Cinderella" - volley some swell ballroom banter.
It seems that Shelley Duvall knew what she was doing, after all. Which just goes to prove that beneath even the flakiest of personas there can be a mind of vision and determination. Or a mind that knows the ins and outs of the cable and video biz.
Or one that knows about talking frogs.