Sunday 23 August 2009

Little Red - The Prequel

Wandering through the woods alone? Never mind worrying about wolves, just make sure you don't go and pick the wrong kind of mushroom. This sound enough advice is dramatised in this animation by WelshGed.

Burger King commercial

Sticking with the advertising theme, here's a Burger King commercial in which the product is apparently even more tempting than a (bizarrely sexualised) Red Riding Hood.

Bensons for Beds commercial

Once again, the product trumps true love in this advert for Bensons for Beds.

Hansel Sandwiches commercials

In this series of adverts for Hansel biscuit/cookie sandwiches, the message seems to be that the product is tasty enough to tempt these familiar fairytale characters away from the established narratives and help them avoid their traditional trials (the exception being the Sleeping Beauty commercial, where the product instead enables the expected ending; true love is overrated compared to chocolate snacks, it seems).

Saturday 22 August 2009

Run Baby Run


There's certainly a LRRH vibe to Run Baby Run, what with it's focus on wolves chasing red-clad girls through the woods. Enjoy this sweet Pacman-esque game from redflash121.

Chibi Fairy Tale Spot 5


Here's another fairytale-themed spot-the-difference game: Chibi Fairy Tale Spot 5, starring ultra-cutesy versions of various classic fairy tale characters and with art by the fabulous Kinkei.

Thursday 20 August 2009

The Lineup by Smartkat


Red picks the Wolf from a line-up in this t-shirt design from Smartkat aka Katrina Greenslade.

I found this via Super Punch, a blog that actually has quite a lot of LRRH-related stuff which I urge readers to check out.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Bluefley's First Snow


Here we have some more cyberpunk/steampunk LRRH, courtesy of Bluefley.

Prettyism's Red Riding Hood


Prettyism presents a very sweet Red Riding Hood doll.

Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault - France


I can't seem to track down much information on this one, but I just wanted to present this short animated version of Little Red Riding Hood, apparently originating from Japan. In this adaptation, the wolf is a distinctly comedic figure and comes to a rather unusual ending.

Ray Harryhausen's "The Story of Little Red Riding Hood"


Although much more famous for his work on monster and fantasy movies, Ray Harryhausen also produced a series of shorts based upon fairytales during the 1940s and '50s. These films included stop-motion animation versions of Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel and of course, the above Little Red Riding Hood.

I have to admit to finding Harryhausen's version of LRRH a little odd, though. The narration seems to add little that isn't communicated by the animation itself and the whole story is strangely bowdlerised, with no-one getting harmed, eaten or killed (which raises the question of why the wolf doesn't just come back and get Red Riding Hood the next day, I think).

This video comes courtesy of Cometin-Jetson who has also posted the other Harryhausen works mentioned above.

Akazukin Chacha


One of my favourite LRRH-themed TV shows is the Japanese children's animated series Akazukin Chacha (Red hood chacha) which tells the story of a young trainee witch and her misadventures.

This particular iteration of the opening credits sequence (of which there are several) makes a great deal out of the potential for romance between Chacha and her friend Liiya (alternately spelled as Riiya), a werewolf character no doubt inspired by the Big Bad Wolf (despite his cute and cuddly appearance here). The third side of this love triangle comes in the form of Shiine, a boy also training to become a witch.

Somewhat weirdly, Akazukin Chacha is a magical girl anime and features Chacha transforming, Sailor Moon-style, into an adult superhero who fights monsters. This seems to jar somewhat with the big-eyed cuteness of the rest of the show and is a feature that was ultimately cut from the series.

Theatre in the Forest: The Winter's Tale


At first I couldn't work out the connection between Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and the fairytale image presented above, other than the simple fact that this particular production takes place in a forest, which is a rather dubious link. Then I remembered that The Winter's Tale is the source of Shakespeare's most famously odd stage direction: "Exit, pursued by a bear," which I suppose explains the LRRH-meets-Goldilocks poster to some degree.

A larger picture, from a photograph taken by yours truly, is presented below.


This production of The Winter's Tale is by the Red Rose Chain Film & Theatre Company.

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Little Rachel Riding Hood


Rachel Nabors has a cute little Red Riding Hood-themed comic up at gURL comix. Personally, it reminds me very much of the Halloween scenes from Mean Girls ("I'm a mouse, d'uh!").

Monday 17 August 2009

Steampunk Fairytales


Click here for a whole bunch of super-impressive steampunk fairytale images, courtesy of a DA contest (above image by NgJas).

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf Bento by Sheree


Little Red Riding Hood finally appears on this blog in bento form. Thanks, Sheree!

Sunday 16 August 2009

Banksy - "Stop and Search"


I know it's Dorothy Gale, but I can't help but see Red Riding Hood every time I look at this particular Banksy work.

David Kaplan's Little Red Riding Hood


It's somewhat hard to track down, but if you can, I recommend finding a copy of David Kaplan's 1997 short film version of Little Red Riding Hood featuring Christina Ricci and dancer Timour Bourtasenkov. This adaptation has a wide range of influences including classical ballet, German Expressionist film and the sensual cult classic The Company of Wolves. The whole thing is based upon this version of the classic tale and even features Quentin 'Naked Civil Servant' Crisp as narrator.

It's certainly not for everyone, though, and frankly does feature one of the worst cat puppets I've ever seen. Still, I'd recommend checking it out, and am now eager to see some of Kaplan's other fairy tale shorts.

The Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty


Embedding is disabled on this one, but click here to see a very neat version of the Little Red Riding Hood segment from the ballet Sleeping Beauty (from the 2006 Royal Ballet version).

WereSonAmy - Little Red Riding Hood by Loor101

This fan-made video by Loor101 features a whole host of images and video clips that present Sonic the Hedgehog (in werewolf form) and his occasional love interest Amy Rose as the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. (There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast in there too). I must say that this is some pretty niche 'shipping.

The Little Red Riding Hood

World War imagery goes hand in hand with Looney Tunes logic in this short cartoon from Belarus.

The Phisherman and Little Red Riding Hood

A video from eBay Canada uses Little Red Riding Hood/Big Bad Wold imagery to help teach people about "phishing".

Overlord: Dark Legend

One of the levels of the Overlord: Dark Legend is based on none other than the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I have to be honest though, she doesn't come across particularly well in this version.

Sister Unity's Fierce Bitch

Sister Unity of the inimitable Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence presents this take on Little Red Riding Hood that just tickles me in so many ways:

P.S. Be sure to check out the so-called "credits" for this video on its Youtube page.

7Up commercial

This 2000 commercial for 7Up seems to sexualise the product to the point of parody...
...And then you realise that that's the whole point.

SpectalFairy's Crimson Fables


SpectralFairy is apparently working on a novel entitled Lacrime Nere. In the midst of writing it, though, they've also taken the time to illustrate some of the characters from the novel using archetypes from fairytale fiction such as Bluebeard, Peter Pan, or indeed Little Red Riding Hood/The Company of Wolves as in the above picture (entitled "I never knew a wolf could cry" after a quotation from said film). These images are all done in a simply gorgeous gothic lineart style using only black & white and shades of red, which all works incredibly well to summon a certain sinister but also sensual mood.

SpectralFairy has also done a Snow White piece which is technically unrelated but still shares many of the elements of the above works.

Saturday 15 August 2009

Little Red Riding Hood: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure


Little Red Riding Hood: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure is a fab spot-the-difference game from differencegames.com, featuring a new setting for the familiar tale and some neat manga-style artwork from Griffinfly.

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Gregory Weir's Silent Conversation

The fairytale connection here is rather dubious, although Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the featured texts, but I just simply had to link to Gregory Weir's Silent Conversation: a gaming/reading experience that, as the people at Jayisgames point out, neatly plays with the idea of a piece of writing as something where "the author provides the words as your footing, and you respond by touching each of them." Silent Conversation is essentially a classic platform game, where the story naturally progresses as you pass from left to right, except here the levels are literally (as it were) made up of the words of the story that you are experiencing. In the H. P. Lovecraft tale the words "the moon" hang in the middle of the sky of twilight-coloured letters and in Alice the rabbit hole the heroine crawls through is two narrowing lines of text that ultimately come to a tumbling hole of long, thin paragraphs. The words are both the literal text of the story and also the virtual building blocks of the story environment: a kind of concrete poetry mixed with experimental gaming.

Sunday 9 August 2009

The Snow White Project

This mash-up/parody by BlackoutDOTcom nicely plays upon some of the common imagery between many fairytales and modern horror films, in particular the common trope of being lost in the woods.

[Warning: strong language]

Tomas Nilsson's "SlagsmÄlsklubben - Sponsored by destiny"


Tomas Nilsson's version of Little Red Riding Hood is distinctly reminiscent of H5's music video for Röyksopp's "Remind Me", with a neat infographics aesthetic. (Video discovered via Suvudu)

Friday 7 August 2009

Fairytale Fights

Fairytale Fights is an odd-looking upcoming video game for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that features a bizarre mix of cartoony visuals and heapings of bloody violence. I'm not quite what sure to make of this one, although my initial reaction is skepticism, I'll be honest.

Fairytales in Dominoes: Snow White

Dominodayfreak's "Fairytales in Dominoes" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like and it really is fairly spectacular.

Felixxkatt's Snow White Queen


Felix Eddy (aka
Felixxkatt) is the artist behind some frankly wonderful fairytale-esque works, including the wonderful picture above which incorporates elements of "a winter goddess, a white witch, a snow queen and a version of snow white and a little bit of the Swan Princess."

P.S.

Jeftoon01's Twisted Princesses


Jeffrey Thomas (aka Jeftoon01) has a whole series of images based upon "twisted" variants of the classic Disney Princesses, from Aurora and Ariel to Mulan and Nala (of The Lion King). My personal favourites are his Cinderella and Snow White (which appears to co-star a cast of Critters).

Ophelias Overdose's Freaky Little Red Riding Hood


Ophelias Overdose is a goth/fetish model who appears in a number of great fairytale-themed photographs, including ones of Sleeping Beauty, the Frog Prince, Alice and of course, Red Riding Hood (who appears to have developed something of a drinking problem, possibly inspired by real world paranoia about the tale).

Emilysaurusrex's Red Riding Hood I-IV


Emilysaurusrex's series of Red Riding Hood photographs really is quite sinister, especially by it's conclusion.

Krawuzi's Red Riding Hood


There's quite a bit of fairytale-themed photography that incorporates elements of fetish and glamour, but still, Krawuzi's set of Little Red Riding Hood images really are quite well composed.

P.S.
Kawuzi also has a fab set of photos based on Disney's Ariel, the Little Mermaid. If you're headed over to her site, I'd recommend checking out those too.

Imagewall's Weird Little Red Riding Hood


This image by Fabio Caserini (aka imagewall) features a nice mix of the macabre and the comic which makes it really stand out to me.

MoonYen's Red Riding Hood and the Wolf


MoonYen's deviantart page features dozens and dozens of fabulous little knitted bunny characters, including Bunny Darth Maul, Bunny Watchmen and Bunny Freddy Kreuger. There are also fairytale-themed bunnies including Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast and of course, the above Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

Areejak's Little Red Riding Hood


Areejak has a neat little abstract/minimalist animation about Red Riding Hood over at her deviantart page.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Vertiklychalingd's "The REAL New Princess"


This cartoon by vertiklychalingd raises a good point. I recently got around to seeing Disney's Enchanted and yet, it never once occured to me whilst watching it that, despite being referred to as such multiple times even within the text of the film itself, "Princess" Giselle is at no point technically a princess at all. It is Nancy (played by the wonderful Idina Menzel from Wicked) who ends up marrying the film's prince. Ultimately, it all comes down to the fact that the notion of "princessness" has transcended any actual reality attached to the term. Instead, "princess", and in particular the "Disney princess" brand, has become a sort of hyper-real notion that describes a set of behaviours, attitudes and appearances, regardless of whether one is actually a legitimate princess or not.