Storybook Episode
A branch off the Something Completely Different tree, in which in the characters are cast into a "storybook land" in which there are chivalrous knights, beautiful maidens and, of course, dragons.
Such archetypes will be applied to each of the lead characters, their current situations and relationships in order to draw on familiar archetypes, but also to suggest a Happily Ever After Ending.
Note that these "Storybook" settings are incredibly generic. They are not adaptations of any previous material, just The Theme Park Version of fables and chivalry. If it is a straight adaptation of a specific fairy tale, then it falls under Fable Remake.
May or may not be a dream, as one character is often narrating. See also Trapped in TV Land.
Examples of Storybook Episode include:
Comic Books
- The Elseworld Story Superman: Kal
Film
- The first fantasy segment in Bedtime Stories was along these lines.
Light Novel
- One Short Story Within A Short Story in the Haruhi Suzumiya novels takes this form after Haruhi asks Mikuru to write a fairy tale complete with illustrations for the Literature Club's magazine. The illustrations are all Super-Deformed depictions of the SOS Brigade members (and Tsuruya-san) as storybook characters such as Snow White (Haruhi) and the seven dwarfs (all Yuki), a mermaid (Mikuru), and a prince (Kyon).
Live Action Television
- Wizards of Waverly Place has an episode which takes place largely in Alex's magical Secret Diary. Shedding her typical "tough-girl" image, the diary is filled with knights and, whenever she transports herself into it, she turns into a princess.
- Scrubs: "My Princess"
- MacGyver: "Good Knight MacGyver".
- Farscape: "John Quixote".
- The Cosby Show had an episode where it was Rudy's fairy tale story, with all the actors as characters (in costumes that looked as if they were drawn with crayon).
- The Monkees: "Fairy Tale"
- Andy Richter Controls the Universe: "Final Fantasy"
- Fringe: Excellently done in "Brown Betty" where Walter tells young Ella a story. Instead of a generic fantasy tale, he casts her aunt Olivia as the heroine of a film Noir mystery full of Schizo-Tech, in which characters (and corpses) break out in song.
- Married... with Children did a "pirates" episode, complete with David Garrison making a return as the bad guy.
- I Love Lucy did it first.
Video Games
- The Sonic Storybook Series is a video game take on this, transporting Sonic to the Arabian Nights and Camelot.
Western Animation
- X-Men: "Jubilee's Fairytale Theater"
- The story itself was based on Kitty in Uncanny X-Men #153.
- Again with the New Mutants graphic novels "Rahne of Terra" and "Knight of Terra"
- Fairly Oddparents: "Timmy the Barbarian".
- Samurai Jack: Aku reads some fairy tales to children with Jack as the villain of each one.
- Futurama: Bender's Game.
- The Backyardigans: "Knights are Brave and Strong", "A Giant Problem", "Tale of the Mighty Knights" and "Escape from Fairy Tale Village".
- Tom Goes to the Mayor: "Rat's Off to Ya!" (incidentally doubles as the Christmas Episode)
- There's a fantasy Fairy Tale-ish land in the Ghost Zone of Danny Phantom, complete with knights (what Danny is anyways), princesses, and dragons—not to mention a Damsel in Distress plot (though subverted). The only problem is that it isn't happy, thanks to a certain Evil Prince.
- Dexter's Laboratory: Dexter tries to read his sick sister a story, but she quickly got bored when he's just reading a science textbook. Deedee takes it and reads it for herself, changing the story to Deedee Locks and the Ness Monster, making all sorts of plot holes from various other fairy tales (such as the three pigs made entirely of straw, sticks, and bricks, and a Napoleon-esque wolf that is small in stature but big in ego)
- Rocko's Modern Life: "Yarn Benders"