Once Upon A Tree (found children's puppet TV series; 1997-early 2000s)
The logo used for the show.
Status: Found
Date found: 14 Sep 2018
Found by: Various people
Once Upon A Tree was a puppet TV series that aired on Animal Planet and two public television stations (KTCA, a PBS station in Minneapolis and WYBE, an independent public station in Philadelphia.). The show was created by Tremendous Productions Inc., a company made to produce the show. Very little is known about the show. 27 episodes are known to exist, possibly divided into two 13-episode seasons and a pilot episode. Part of the reason why info about the show is so hard to find online is that the name of the show is similar to the more popular show Once Upon A Time.
Broadcast
It is unknown exactly when the show started and stopped airing. However, the show probably aired from 1997 until 2001. The show probably started in 1997 as the show's website mentions the show winning a Parent's Choice Gold Award in 1997.[1] The show's website got taken down in 2001, likely because the show ended. It's possible that Once Upon a Tree stopped airing new episodes after 1999 as the website took off all of its other pages after that.[2]
Home Video Release
Navarre Corporation released 26 episodes across 13 volumes of VHS tapes, handling all episodes except for "Scaredy Cat", which is believed to be the pilot. Individual episodes, including the pilot, were released by other companies. Some of the VHS release episodes have alternate titles. The VHS releases were possibly mail order only as evidenced by the ending of an episode. Many of the original episode air dates are unknown. However, it's possible that the archival date for the full episode description was near or was on the same day as when each episode aired. A company called Childbook released VHS episodes of Once Upon a Tree in Mandarin for Discovery Kids. This possibly suggests that sometime during the airing of Once Upon a Tree in the United States, Discovery Kids aired the show in Mandarin-speaking countries. It also aired on Discovery Kids in Latin America and Brazil.
Three of the episodes ("Carrot Caper", "Can't Wait to Paint", and "What if the Dinosaurs Came Back") were released on an edutainment console that was released in 1999 called the Video Buddy. The Video Buddy would use VHS tapes and were the full episodes of various children's shows at the time of its release. The console had "breaks" in the middle of the show, where the Video Buddy character would ask questions related to the part of the episode that was shown. The official website of the Video Buddy says that these three episodes were the only episodes released on the console.[3]
Search Efforts
In 2009, A YouTube video titled Death of Analog had the episode "Scaredy Cat" featured in it. Although the video itself got deleted from YouTube and only mirrored onto Veoh, it was later extracted and re-uploaded to YouTube.
On April 4th/6th of 2018, YouTube user The Fabulatory uploaded two versions of the intro, with one having 5 seconds of footage from the episode "Night Owl". On May 15th and 16th, 2018, LMW user TropesAreDangerous (YouTube username The Boss) uploaded three episodes from the series, those being "Carrot Caper", "Can't Wait to Paint", and "What if the Dinosaurs Came Back", from the Video Buddy to YouTube and later the Internet Archive. On May 22nd, 2018, LMW user Nanis149 uploaded two episodes (with permission from another LMW user, Bisou5) named "Growing Pains" and "There's No Business Like Show Business" on Archive.org.
On August 23rd, 2018, LMW user TropesAreDangerous uploaded the Volume 1, and Volume 2 Navarre VHS releases to YouTube and later the Internet Archive, containing the episodes "Teamwork Rules", "The Secret Club", "Winning the Race", and "Big Ears". Two days later, they uploaded the Volume 3 and Volume 13 Navarre VHS releases, containing the episodes "Night Owl", "Its Amazing", "Track It Down", and "Count On Me". The same user uploaded Volume 7, and Volume 8 Navarre VHS released on September 13th, 2018. While "Can't Wait to Paint" and "Carrot Caper" was already found, these were the first known uploads of "Duck Tales", and "Family Tree". Also, on the 13th, Discord user npc uploaded "One Egg or Two" and "Going Places" to YouTube.
On September 14th, 2018, TropesAreDangerous uploaded VHSrips of Volume 4,5,10,11, and 12, which contained the episodes "Bionic Beaver", "Hide and Seek", "The Big Plunge", "Sounds of the Forest", "Heat Wave", "No Place Like Home", "Lost and Found", "A Rude Dude", and "Happy Birthday Oakley". All episodes are now found, though the video and audio quality varies based on tape condition and ripping equipment.
Episode List
| VHS Release | # | Episode Title | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 1 | 7 | Teamwork Rules | Found |
| Volume 1 | 8 | The Secret Club | Found |
| Volume 2 | 23 | Winning the Race | Found |
| Volume 2 | 24 | Big Ears | Found |
| Volume 3 | 21 | Night Owl | Found |
| Volume 3 | 22 | It's Amazing | Found |
| Volume 4 | 19 | Bionic Beaver | Found |
| Volume 4 | 20 | Hide and Seek | Found |
| Volume 5 | 9 | Taking the Plunge | Found |
| Volume 5 | 10 | Sounds of the Forest | Found |
| Volume 6 | 3 | There's No Business Like Show Business | Found |
| Volume 6 | 4 | Growing Pains | Found |
| Volume 7 | 17 | Can't Wait to Paint | Found |
| Volume 7 | 18 | Duck Tales | Found |
| Volume 8 | 5 | The Carrot Caper | Found |
| Volume 8 | 6 | Family Tree | Found |
| Volume 9 | 26 | One Egg or Two | Found |
| Volume 9 | 29 | Going Places | Found |
| Volume 10 | 28 | Heatwave | Found |
| Volume 10 | 13 | What if the Dinosaurs Came Back? | Found |
| Volume 11 | 1 | No Place Like Home | Found |
| Volume 11 | 2 | Lost & Found | Found |
| Volume 12 | 15 | A Rude Dude | Found |
| Volume 12 | 16 | Happy Birthday Oakley | Found |
| Volume 13 | 12 | Count on Me | Found |
| Volume 13 | 14 | Track it Down | Found |
| None | 11 | Scaredy Cat (Pilot Episode?) | Found |
Gallery
References
- ↑ Archived website of Once Upon A Tree. Retrieved 13 May '18
- ↑ WYBE schedule from May 30th, 2000, listing the show. Retrieved 13 May '18
- ↑ An archived page of the website stating that these three episodes were the only ones released on the console. Retrieved 16 May '18