Once Upon a Time… is a French educational animation franchise, created by Procidis. There are seven distinct series, each focusing on different aspects of knowledge. These are mostly historical, with Once Upon a Time… Man being focused on the overall history of mankind, and most of the others are more focused on specified historical fields, such as the lives and exploits of the explorers or inventors. Life, however, featured an explanation on the workings of the body. All feature the same stock characters, in similar archetypal roles. "Life" is the only one to not feature the children as grown-up or adolescent archetypes of said characters, but as parts of the human organism.
Chronology
; Once Upon a Time… Man ; Once Upon a Time… Space ; Once Upon a Time… Life ; Once Upon a Time… The Americas ; Once Upon a Time… The Discoverers ; Once Upon a Time… The Explorers ; Once Upon a Time… Planet Earth
Characters
The series Once Upon a Time… illustrated the various subjects from the point of view of a group that is always composed of similar recurring figures that represent different archetypal roles.:
Maestro - The wise old man. He usually serves as the head of the tribe, as a religious priest, as an adviser to the king and as an inventor. Maestro has long white hair, a pair of antennal growths and a beard that covers his entire body. He is seen to stash things away in this beard, sometimes fumbling quite a bit to find the object he wishes to present. He serves as the mentor to the children, telling them about the various subjects.
Peter / Pierre - The courageous and handsome young man. He represents the image of the good person.
Jumbo / Le Gros - The strong young man. Jumbo is Peter's best friend. A quite large person, with red hair and great physical powers. At times he tends to be a little clumsy but he is very strong. He often defends Peter, Pierrette from the bullies.
*Jumbo and Peter have also young counterparts and their development is usually followed from childhood to adolescence, Peter has a daughter too named Little Pierrette).
Psi - The good young girl. A dark-haired woman who serves mostly as Peter's girlfriend, or as Peter's wife.
Pierrette - The good young woman. Blond-haired, serves mostly as Pierrot's mother, or as Jumbo's wife..
Little Pierrette - She is Peter and Pierrette's daughter. She's Pierrot's little sister. She's not very important in the series, and never has been a core character. Her style changed in all the series..
The Pest / Le Teigneux - The big bully, friend of 'The Dwarf', a large and strong bully that enjoys picking on others or attacking them. He is strong, but Jumbo is stronger.
The Dwarf / Le Nabot - The little bully, friend of 'The Pest', weak but shrewd and an intriguer. He has a malicious giggle. Both he and his friend display downright negative characters, or at least skeptics or hypocrites. They are the ones to generally start up a conflict between the circle of children.
The Clock - Displays the year when the events occur. Sometimes it has a character and reacts to what the screen shows. For example, it complains when narration proceeds many years forwards or glares at the scenery when something interesting is shown.
Some of them had historical roles. For example, Pest as Goliath and Pierrot as David. Maestro had the role of Leonardo da Vinci and generally of benevolent or enlightened rulers.
