TELEVISION MEMORIES

 

1. A 1980’s Cartoon show: “Once upon a time… life”

 

Hello everybody,

 

I wonder if anyone here remembers a cartoon show that used to get played in the very early 1980s during the school holidays called, I think, “Once upon a time… life”. I think the show was scheduled for about 9.25am on a weekday morning on Granada TV (ITV1) and might even pre-date the ‘Children’s ITV / CITV’ brand (in the early days when ‘Travelling Matt’ or Tommy Boyd would do a month’s presenting stint between the programmes).

 

I think the show could have been French or Italian and was dubbed into English from the original transmission format as it was very much like those other ‘European’ cartoon shows of the time such as ‘Willy Fogg’ and ‘Dogtanian’ (which was Spanish even though I think the animation was mostly done by Japanese anime firms), though whereas these shows were pure entertainment, “Once upon a time… life” was educational as well.

 

If you cannot remember the show then the best way to think of it is as a kind of ‘Blackadder’ for children as it centred around two characters, that reappeared at various important periods of time throughout history. Starting off in pre-historic times at many years B.C. the duo were joined by in the show by many regular ‘faces’ including a wise old sage who must have taken the ‘Socrates’ role whilst the show was in the period of the Ancient Greeks. Whereas other minor character designs may have been used throughout history in different roles, this philosopher character I think was the only other constant character along with the main duo, this being due to the fact that he was nothing more than one big bushy white beard with arms and legs (think of a cross between ‘Cousin Itt’ and ‘Santa Claus’).

 

welcome to the site :)

 

sorry i dont remember it.

Thank you.

do you intend doing a seriese of threads on 'tv memories'?... its been on my back burner for a while now so if you are going to run one, all well and good! :) , be sure though to go baaaaack to the 60's as there was some great tv shows from then.

do you intend doing a seriese of threads on 'tv memories'?... its been on my back burner for a while now so if you are going to run one, all well and good! :) , be sure though to go baaaaack to the 60's as there was some great tv shows from then.

 

I would love to but it will be only the 1960s and 1970s shows that were shown again in the 1980s and 1990s (Irwin Allen, 'Get Smart', 'Batman' - have you noticed the show is back on the BBC this week).

ok... well go ahead anyway if you want then (time permitting... time is at a premium for me) i might mention others from time to time.

 

i think theres scope for a 'grange hill' thread as it was so long running and most of us know something about it.

Yay Grange Hill! Mushy ya gotta start that one.

oh go on then! :lol:

Back on topic here, yes I do remember it.

 

I think it was French as the only existing DVD of it is a French release.

 

It was never my favourite but I used to watch it weekly on Sunday mornings I think circa 84-85.

Yes, that will be the show then as 84 – 85 sounds about right. However did I get the title right? I didn’t know if it was ‘Once Upon A Time…Life’ or ‘Once Upon A Time…Man’.