Once Upon a Time... Man
Once Upon a Time... Man
NR | 23 September 1978 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Reviews
    Hellen

    I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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    Spoonatects

    Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

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    Chirphymium

    It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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    AnhartLinkin

    This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

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    juha-riissanen

    I see many being enthusiastic about the series..Unfortunately I have another opinion..The idea is good and I have nice memories from the 80s when I saw some parts of it. Now when watching it with the kids I feel cheated by my own memories..The very first part is promising. There is a sense of getting the big picture in an entertaining way. Blend of details and jokes and overview is quite balanced.But the further one goes the stack of DVDs and episodes the more frustrated one starts to feel.The history part gets often obscured by Tom & Jerry (or perhaps Asterix) like fast action fights & jokes. Sometimes linked to the time and events described. But often not. This perhaps is the most frustrating aspect as quite often one is left with an uncertain feeling... Was there something to be learned - ow was that a simple joke.. Then when the story goes to describing real historic facts these are often fast paced listings of years, names of important people/fights, etc.. Perhaps that is the part for adults as the kids have no chance of learning from that level of details coming at that pace..Transitions from the life of individuals to the world events is often surprising and would benefit from better justification / preparation. Further confused by reusing the same characters in different roles in different episodes.. It is like one should have read the history books in advance to really understand what the events described are connected to.There are good points in the series, there is high level of ambition, but somehow one feels that the mix of plain cartoon amusement and real history teaching is not really working. Perhaps it is the 30 years that have passed from the production of the series.. But the end result is a bit questionable in teaching history to kids as it makes the boundary between real facts and plain fiction quite hard to see

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    Andres Salama

    A very entertaining animated series that shows the history of the world since the prehistory to the twentieth century. The same characters recur in different eras: for example, Pierre, one of the main characters, appears in one episode as a Persian warrior, then in another as a Roman slave, then as a Frankish peasant, and so on. I saw the series in around 1980, when I was about 12, and it definitely awakened in me an interest in history. Now, if one can criticize the series for something is for its Eurocentrism: the history of the world in this series is mostly the history of Europe (with a few exceptions, one of the most intriguing episodes was the one that dealt with the birth of Islam; in deference to the faith, Muhammad was always shown from behind). Now, an interesting fact: here, in Argentina, when it was initially shown in 1980, the military dictatorship was in power, and under pressure from the Catholic Church, the series was taken off the air halfway through. The church apparently didn't like that evolution was favored in the first episode, and neither they appreciated the portrayal of the church during the Middle Ages. I swear this is really true: I remember it quite vividly, because I really liked the series and I was angry when they put it off the air.

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    aizkomendi

    An unforgettable animated series from our childhood. The very cheerful introducing song and pictures, with a fish disturbingly evolving into a lizard and on into a chimp and finally becoming a man, made us stare at it in amazement. I find the series greatly encouraged the intellectual excitement and imagination of the children in Europe of the late 70s and early 80s for the extraordinary events and stories told in the cartoons.The plot of the stories with five-six recurring and distinctive characters quarreling with each other made the cartoons attractive to the eyes of the little ones. The weird storyteller with a long white beard and the clock that could speak rendered the pictures all the more enticing.To sum up, it struck a chord in our generation, with its colourful, cheerful and optimistic images and tunes.

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    dimadick

    I used to watch that show back in the 1980s along with its successor "Once Upon A Time in Space". I still love the show for its combining quality entertainment with an educated look in the history of life in planet Earth from the birth of the first cell organism to the 1970s environmental concerns.Instead of presenting a "black/evil vs white/good" depiction of human history, each featured group of cultures and states have their own motivation, ambitions, fears, prejudices and obvious similarities to both their allies and their enemies.Several historical figures are prominently presented as exemplars of their time. Including but not limited to Alexander the Great, Gaius Julius Caesar, Muhammad, Charlemagne, Peter I "the Great" of Russia. Others make significant cameos such as Cheops, Ramses II, Moses, Samson and many others. Its a good introduction to them and places them in their historical context.I still wonder why this show is mostly unseen in modern television schedules and unavailable in video or DVD. It is easily better than the rather formulaic "good vs evil" sagas of modern animation.

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