The Storyteller (TV series)

"''When people told themselves their past with stories,

explained their present with stories,

and foretold their future with stories,

the best place by the fire was kept for. . . The Storyteller.''"

- Opening Narration

One of Jim Henson's hidden gems, The StoryTeller featured an enigmatic Trickster Mentor and his pet dog, sharing European folk tales with the audience. Wittily told with clever narration and artful animatronics, this short-lived series remains the best-kept secret of Henson's history.

The first set of nine episodes featured John Hurt as the storyteller and Brian Henson voicing the dog. A follow-up, The StoryTeller: Greek Myths, featured a new storyteller, played by Michael Gambon, but the same dog; it lasted only four episodes.

A graphic novel with nine stories announced will be coming out in September 2011 by Archaia Entertainment.

Tropes used in this series:

 * Affably Evil: The Cook in "The Luck Child". Despite being the self-confessed "nastiest" of a thieves band who he claims would happily slit a sleeping boy's throat, he takes pity on Lucky and helps him out several times with a sanguine attitude and loveable charm. Then again, when the Griffin ate his sisters and not him, he claims his cooking saved him...urgh.
 * Big Bad Ensemble: In "The Luck Child", the Storyteller describes the setting (implied to be Russia) as "ruled by two cold hearts". The first is the King, a cruel and greedy tyrant, and the second is the Griffon, a rampaging monster with a taste for human flesh.
 * Big Damn Heroes: In "The Three Ravens,"
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Wicked Stepmother in "The Three Ravens"
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Dog often interjects and interrupts stories that he finds disagreeable. In "Sapsorrow" he even argues with the stepsisters, appearing in the scene alongside them.
 * He does it again in "The Heartless Giant," appearing in the scene where Leo seemingly loses the egg down the well.
 * Character Witness: In "A Story Short", the hero is helped out of his predicament by a beggar he aided
 * Chekhov's Boomerang: The bottomless pit room in "The True Bride."
 * Cinderella Circumstances: Sapsorrow, and Anja from the True Bride.
 * Cursed with Awesome: The soldier in "The Soldier and Death", who will not be reaped by death, and thus cannot get into heaven or hell. However, he is given immortality
 * Darker and Edgier: The Greek Myths have a definitely darker tone than the fairy tales.
 * Then again, they are Greek Myths!
 * Death Takes a Holiday: "The Soldier and Death". Although it's not so much taking a holiday as it is being trapped in a sack.
 * Downer Ending: A couple of the fairy tales and all of the Greek Myths except that of Perseus.
 * Empty Shell: Daedelus is shown as one of these at the end of the story, spending all his time making toys based upon his son Icarus.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Or sympathy, at least. In "The Luck Child", the king promises Lucky a place in his court, but gives him a letter telling the queen to order his death instead (it was to avoid a prophecy that the boy would replace him). En route to the king's palace, the boy falls into the clutches of a poisoner and forger who finds the letter and is so affronted by the king's plot that he forges a new one telling the queen to marry Lucky to their daughter the princess.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: Lots. Fairy tales, you know.
 * The Farmer and the Viper: "The Heartless Giant". He lets the imprisoned Giant escape, and the latter goes right back to rampaging and even petrifies his brothers.
 * Friend to All Living Things: Sapsorrow, in the episode of the same name.
 * Grimmification: Kind of averted as the stories are about as dark as their un-bowdlerized originals, and neither add nor subtract grimness.
 * The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Twice in "Sapsorrow" - first a ring, which starts the trouble, and later the iconic slipper which resolves it.
 * Happily Ever After: In many stories
 * Hulk Speak: The Griffon in "The Luck Child". It also shrieks and uses onomatopoeia in an almost comical way. It's interesting to gauge the reaction small children have to it, given that its speech patterns resemble their own and are vaguely loveable, but the creature itself is still Nightmare Fuel.
 * Infant Immortality: Played with in "The Three Ravens". The Wicked Stepmother tries to have the heroine's infant children killed, but they are rescued by her brothers, who have been turned into ravens.
 * Insistent Terminology: The griffon in "The Luck Child" insists that it is a bird.
 * Karmic Protection: Whenever there's a good ending, it's because the character is kind to others. The exception is "The Soldier and Death", in which even though the soldier let Death go free and did a number of other kind turns over the course of the story, he is doomed to wander the earth forever, unable to die and denied entry into both heaven and hell. Even then, the Storyteller softens the Downer Ending by assuring his audience that the soldier will be all right.
 * Technically, karma is at play here; his good deeds notwithstanding, the soldier does keep a devil as a servant for a while and uses power received from it for personal gain, and upsets the natural order by trapping Death, which is why he is not allowed into heaven. On the other hand, his eternal life is probably still preferable to hell.
 * Not Staying for Breakfast: Theseus pulls this on Ariadne and tragedy results.
 * Offing the Offspring: The Heroine in "The Three Ravens" is accused of doing this
 * Parental Incest: Sapsorrow has to marry her father because the queen's ring fits her finger. She disguises herself as a creature with fur and feathers and leaves her kingdom to avoid this.
 * The Problem with Fighting Death: In "The Soldier and Death". It won't reap him, and neither Heaven nor Hell will take him.
 * Rags to Royalty: Several examples, including Anja in "The True Bride" and Lucky in "The Luck Child." Sapsorrow in the episode of the same name goes from royalty to rags to royalty again.
 * Rule of Three: Unsurprisingly, this one's all over the various fairy tales:
 * In "The Soldier and Death", the soldier meets three old men and gives each of them one of his three biscuits; each of them gives him something back, but it's the third man who gives him the magic deck of cards and magic sack that get him through most of the rest of the story.
 * In "Sapsorrow", the eponymous princess buys time to make her "Straggletag" disguise by requesting three fabulous dresses, then later wears the dresses to three balls to dance with the prince before accidentally leaving her slipper behind.
 * In "The True Bride", the lion accomplishes three of the troll's impossible tasks for Anja before killing him, and gives Anja three gifts with which she bargains with the trollop for three nights with her betrothed.
 * In "The Three Ravens", the princess is forbidden to speak for three years, three months, three weeks and three days to free her three brothers from a curse. This becomes a lot more difficult when she is accused of murdering her own children...
 * And she by three minutes, so.
 * Scheherazade Gambit: "A Story Short" has the Storyteller himself challenged to give the king a new story every day for a year and a day, with food, lodging and a gold piece for every day he succeeds, and death if he fails. By the last day, he's completely stumped, but a friendly beggar he had helped get fed in the opening act gives him a fantastic dream vision for a final story.
 * Small Reference Pools: This series uses this trope to its advantage by dramatizing only the obscure fairy tales.
 * Spin-Off: "The Storyteller: Greek Myths"
 * The Storyteller
 * Stone Soup
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Michael Gambon replacing John Hurt in the title role
 * Tin Man: The title character of "The Heartless Giant" claims to be "heartless", but shows plenty of emotion and even falls into Even Evil Has Standards.
 * Villainous BSOD: The "heartless" giant.
 * The Watson: The dog
 * Wicked Stepmother: Twice over in "The Three Ravens". The same sorceress becomes the evil stepmother the princess, and later to her husband
 * Wonder Child: "Hans My Hedgehog"
 * X Meets Y: Some of the stories are combined from others.
 * "Sapsorrow" is "Cinderella" (ugly sisters, lost slipper, animal friends) meets Donkeyskin (okay, really "Allerleirauh", most of the plot from both).
 * "The Three Ravens" is "The Six Swans" (most of the plot) and "The Seven Ravens" (the choice of birds).
 * What Could Have Been: Press release material mentions an episode based on an Italian folktale, Petrosinella (a Rapunzel variant), but it has never been released, or likely ever made.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Perseus is unable to stop himself from killing his Grandfather
 * You No Take Candle: The Griffon in "The Luck Child".
 * In "The True Bride", the Troll and the Trollop speak in a mix of this and Delusions of Eloquence.