ONCE UPON A FOREST

US, 1992, 71 minutes, Colour.
Voices of Michael Crawford, Ben Vereen.
Directed by Charles Grosvenor.

Once Upon a Forest is an animated feature film from the Hanna Barbera company - although it had a multinational production, teams from Europe, Asia, America working on the film.

It is based on stories by Rae Lambert, set in Wales. It is very similar to the environmental themes of such films as the 1940s Hoppity Goes to Town as well as to the '70s with Watership Down: a group of animals find that the humans have come, destroying the environment, poisoning it, and they have to find new meadows.

Michael Crawford is the voice of Cornelius, the teacher who makes a flying machine and gives a map to his young students so that they can find herbs for his ailing niece. They have many adventures on the way, including encountering a gospel group with Ben Vereen playing Phineas. This particular interlude is very entertaining in its portrait of a gospel meeting and the song, "He's Gone/He's Back".

The film focuses on the adventures of the three young creatures, a mole, a hedgehog and a mouse. The film is designed especially for younger audiences.

1. Entertaining animation film? The characters and their adventures? The environmental message about humans poisoning the environment and animals and plants needing a safe atmosphere? The songs?

2. The animation style, the traditional drawings, characters, backgrounds, adventures? The musical score and the songs - and the contribution of Michael Crawford and Ben Vereen?

3. The title and the fairytale tone? The forest, its being destroyed, the need to find new meadows? A fairytale for a 20th century audience? What age group? The response of the youngest audiences?

4. The setting of the forest, the youngsters and their family life, the parents getting them ready for going to Cornelius and school? The hedgehogs and the crowded family? Abigail's father? Edgar's mother?

5. Cornelius the badger, the wise teacher, his inventions - and the demonstration? His taking the youngsters on a ramble, explaining the forest, the herbs and their medicinal values? The humans coming, the gas? Michelle and her illness? His sending the youngsters on their quest, the map, the plans for the flying machine? His happiness on their return? Leading them to safety in the meadow? Michelle's recovery? The wise badger?

6. The youngsters and their going to school, the mayhem in Cornelius's room as they tried to catch the flying machine? The ramble and their adventures? Michelle and her illness? Their going on the journey, the dangers, the difficulties, the map, coming across the gospel group and Bosworth stuck in the mud, their ingenuity in helping him? Avoiding the yellow dragons - the scoops, the bulldozers, the trucks? The dangers underground and the rats, the drain? Finding the meadow? The animals in the meadow and their fights? Establishing the flying machine, the flight, getting the flower? Their success? Their return home? The success for Michelle? Hurrying with Cornelius, longing for their parents, the happy reunion?

7. The characters themselves: Edgar and his shyness, his glasses? Becoming more adventurous, helping Bosworth? The helping of Abigail on the plane, getting the plant? Confronting the bullies? Abigail and her forwardness, taunting the others, in the adventures? The danger on the plane? Russell and his eating, too fat for the drain? Humour? Flying the plane? Michelle and her being part of the group, her illness?

8. The parents, their disappearing, the happy reunion?

9. The gospel group, the song, the humour, Bosworth being saved?

10. The humans, the poisoned gas and its effect? The machines and their changing the fields? Trying to get rid of the gas?

11. The songs - Cornelius singing to Michelle, the gospel group, the finale?

12. An entertaining children's film? The value of the message? The way in which it was communicated?