Monday, June 07, 2010

A Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales


Here's a variety of fairy tales, told by all the people listed on the front of this album cover (and likely taken from various and sundry sources). Unfortunately the record doesn't say who does which one, so I'll leave that up to you. I'm pretty sure that's Art Carney doing "The Ugly Duckling" though. Some of the stories are a bit short: "Jack and the Beanstalk" ends when Jack first finds the beanstalk outside his bedroom window. OK, technically they covered both Jack and the beanstalk in the story, but that's it? And I think it was a losing battle to try to tell the story of "Heidi" in the 5 1/2 minutes allotted to it!

And I just now figured out that that blob at the bottom of the cover is an out of focus close-up of a book. I thought it was a big fluffy cloud or something.

And I apologize for not having more stuff here last week. I thought I had a couple more scheduled. That's all right. That just means that there are two more albums set for this week! (I know because I just scheduled them for sure!)

Here's the track list:
  1. The Three Bears
  2. The Ugly Duckling - Art Carney?
  3. Hansel and Gretel
  4. Jack and the Beanstalk
  5. Little Red Riding Hood
  6. The Owl and the Pussycat
  7. Heidi
  8. The Tortoise and the Hare
Click here to download!

3 comments:

Mr. Mantia said...

I remember listening to this one a bunch as a child.

Brian said...

Okay, here's the info that I have:

"The Three Bears" (Narrated by Anne Lloyd)
"The Ugly Duckling" (Performed by Art Carney and the Sandpipers)
"Hansel and Gretel" (Narrated by Susan Douglas)
"Jack and the Beanstalk" (Performed by the Sandpipers) NOTE: The song was from the NBC Producers' Showcase TV Production, and the entire content on this record is on side 1 of the original 78. (Side 2 has the song "March of the Ill Assorted Guards", written by Helen Deutch and Jerry Livingston, who also wrote "Jack and the Beanstalk".)
"Little Red Riding Hood" (Narrated by Jack Lazare and Anne Lloyd)
"The Owl and the Pussycat" (Performed by Anne Lloyd)
"Heidi" (Narrated by Susan Douglas)
"The Tortoise and the Hare" (Performed by the Sandpipers, assisted by Gil(bert) Mack as both characters)

The stories "The Three Bears", "Hansel and Gretel", "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Heidi" were all read from the original Little Golden Books, when they were re-produced for the special book and record series.

And it took me a while as well to finally realize that the blurry object on the cover was an open book and not a big fluffy cloud.

The album, originally released in 1958, was re-issued in 1965 with a new number and cover.

Tony said...

Thanks for the information, Brian! (And for those of you reading this, yes, I still plan to revive this blog sometime. I'm just trying to figure out the best place to store my files!

Tony
Way Out Junk