In The Storyteller, John Hurt plays the title character, a royal court grotesque in heavy makeup, accompanied by a mangy but articulate dog (voiced by Brian Henson, Jim's son). In each episode, the Storyteller regales his unseen audience with European folk tales, mostly German in origin. The tales are admirably much less familiar than those greatly toned down and shaped into homogenized public consciousness by Disney and others: "Hans My Hedgehog," "Fearnot," "A Story Short," "The Luck Child," "The Soldier and Death," "The True Bride," "The Three Ravens," "Sapsorrow," and "The Heartless Giant."

The same basic set-up is used on Greek Myths, this time starring Michael Gambon (The Singing Detective, Maigret), sans special makeup prosthetics, as a storyteller in Ancient Greece. The myths are: "Daedalus and Icarus," "Orpheus and Eurydice," "Perseus and the Gorgon," and "Theseus and the Minotaur." The talking dog is back, its function two-fold: to give children in the audience a character to latch onto, and in both series to function as a kind of Greek Chorus. Thankfully, the Dog avoids modern, anachronistic slang, isn't particularly cute nor does he steal the show away. The dog is brought to life via an advanced variation of Henson's familiar Muppetry, though most of the series' other fantasy elements are realized via other means.

The series most notable asset is its intelligence. It doesn't shy away from the tales' more gruesome and downbeat aspects, nor does it talk down to its young target audience. The stories are easy to follow, yet so smartly done and relatively faithful to their source that adults need not be ashamed to watch the series all by themselves. To this end much of the credit goes to series writer Anthony Minghella (later the screenwriter director of The English Patient, Cold Mountain, etc.)

The first series especially bombards the viewer (sometimes too much so) with a variety of visual styles and myriad effects techniques, from cell animation and complex matte work to elaborate costumes and make-ups. Stylistically, the first series looks almost Eastern European, somewhat suggesting television versions of the kind of films Karel Zeman and Jan Svankmajer (and later by Americans Timothy and Stephen Quay) were making back in the 1960s. The Storyteller appears to have been shot on a mix of film and video and finished on video, where many complex composites of images were finalized. These effects don't hold up to modern CGI standards, but serve their function well enough.

Greek Myths, by contrast, was shot almost entirely on film, and though slightly less ambitious visually, holds up better today. (In both cases the episodes are not presented in airdate order, though they do appear sensibly arranged.)

Filmed at Elstree Studios in London, both series benefit from an extraordinarily high pedigree of British and Irish actors gamely performing opposite various puppets and blue screens: Brenda Blethyn, Richard Vernon, Jonathan Pryce, Miranda Richardson, Geoffrey Bayldon, Jennifer Saunders, Gemma Jones, Sean Bean, and Jane Horrocks are among those appearing in The Storyteller, while Greek Myths include such fine talent as Derek Jacobi, Robert Stephens, and John Wood.

Both series won the BAFTA prize for Best Children's Program (fiction), and deservedly so.

Video & Audio

Presented full-frame on two discs, the roughly 220 minutes worth of the first Storyteller is crammed onto a single-sided DVD, with apparently not enough bit space leftover for any subtitles, alternate audio tracks, or even much in the way of chapter stops. The image appear to suffer, however, as the show's now dated technology would likely not look all that hot even in HD format.

Greek Myths, shot entirely on (35mm?) film, holds up better on Disc 2, plus there are just four shows with which to contend. There are no Extra Features

Parting Thoughts

As very economically combined into a single package, around $14 after standard discounts, Jim Henson's Storyteller - The Definitive Collection is a must-have for anyone with young children, and adults will enjoy it, too.

Stuart Galbraith IV talks about Invasion of Astro-Monster in an audio commentary track that's just one part of Classic Media's upcoming Godzilla Classic Collector's Edition. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.