Shelley Duvall’s ‘Faerie Tale Theatre’ Was an ‘80s Pop-Culture Fever Dream

Legendary actress Shelley Duvall has sadly passed away at the age of 75. Movie fans know her best for her stellar work as Wendy Torrance in The Shining, and for playing Olive Oyl in the big-screen version of Popeye — although her work in the Harland Williams vehicle RocketMan has yet to be fully-appreciated.

Anyone who grew up in the ‘80s or ‘90s likely also remembers Duvall as the host and creator of Faerie Tale Theatre, one of the most bizarre, charming and idiosyncratic children’s shows in the history of TV. Each episode presented an hour-long, live-action adaptation of a familiar (or occasionally not-so-familiar) fairy tale, featuring a double-take-inducing cast of Hollywood legends and upstart comic stars.

Where else could you find Elliott Gould playing a giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, or Joan Collins as a witch trying to capture Hansel and Gretel? Or Howie Mandel as a character named “Wienerhead Waldo”?

The very first episode from 1982 was written, directed and narrated by Monty Python’s Eric Idle, and was an adaptation of “The Tale of the Frog Prince,” starring Duvall’s former Popeye co-star Robin Williams, Teri Garr, and oddly-enough, a pre-Seinfeld, post-Fridays Michael Richards.

In many ways, Duvall’s approach to children’s entertainment was very ahead of its time. Casting adult comedians as fairy tale characters, then adding a dash of kid-friendly subversion into the mix is essentially what made the Shrek franchise so popular. And Williams’ exuberant frog character is not so different from his take on the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, which was incredibly successful just a decade later. 

Many of these episodes feel like a hazy fever dream in retrospect. If there was no video evidence of this show, describing certain episodes to people would probably lead to an immediate cognitive evaluation and a CAT scan. I mean, this is a show that gave us a version of The Three Little Pigs starring Billy Crystal as “Larry Pig” and Jeff Goldblum as the Big Bad Wolf. How does this even exist?

Comedy fans may get a kick out of the Pinocchio episode that features Carl Reiner as Gepetto, and Paul Reubens as the titular puppet. Did we mention that Pinocchio gets kidnapped by Michael Richards and Jim Belushi? Still not the meanest thing Jim Belushi has done, by the way.

There’s also Beauty and the Beast starring Susan Sarandon and legendary maniac Klaus Kinski, Rapunzel with Duvall and Jeff Bridges, and, more regrettably, “The Nightingale” starring Mick Jagger as a Chinese Emperor. 

Duvall deserves credit as well for hiring some impressive talent behind the camera. Francis Ford Coppola directed Rip Van Winkle with Harry Dean Stanton, and a young Tim Burton directed Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp starring James Earl Jones and, Mr. Spock himself,  Leonard Nimoy.

Seemingly, Duvall is the only reason why a show like this could have existed, due to her earnest love of the source material, and her Hollywood connections. The A-list cast agreeing to wear goofy costumes and bizarro makeup, for essentially no money, is a testament to how beloved she was within the industry

As Duvall told Arsenio Hall in 1989, casting the show required her to “grovel and beg a lot,” but stars agreed to show up, partly to please their own kids, and partly because Duvall always endeavored to make a great show. “I tried to put a lot of quality on the screen,” she told the late-night host.

So why not honor Duvall tonight, not with The Shining, but by watching Jeff Goldlum desperately try to devour Billy Crystal for an hour. 

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