Is ABC's "Once Upon A Time" Going To Run Out Of Fairy Tales?

Oof! I just realized all the content up today was rather dark and serious so I'm throwing this one post in as a bonus. :)

 This might seem like an absurd title for a blog entry here but this is what many fans of ABC's Once Upon A Time appear to be worrying about.

Considering Once Upon A Time is planning to stick around for a long time (think multiple seasons - the producers have ideas for at least three right now) are there enough fairy tales and fairy tale creatures to keep the series going?

We know Red Riding Hood will need to tell her story soon and there's been a lot of leaks about Beauty and her Beast/Gaston appearing soon (note: slight spoiler at the link). In Mr. Gold's pawn shop on Sunday night's airing we saw Aladdin's lamp and a tea set that looked rather Alice-like. There are calls on fan boards for appearances by Aladdin and Mulan but after that, what??! (Not my punctuation. :D )

E! Online grilled Jane Espenson (a producer and writer on the show) for details:

There will be fairy tales that branch out of the central European folklore: "I wouldn't be surprised to see fairy tales from other traditions coming in as well," consulting producer Jane Espenson teases. "So keep your eye out for some stuff that's maybe not quite so Swiss looking." 

 In addition to Hansel and Gretel, this certainly opens the doors for Greek mythology, Middle Eastern folktales, perhaps enough material for 50 seasons and two movies? We can only hope.

Regulars of this fairy tale blog and others are already very aware that this is one aspect fans should not worry about. For starters there are over 200 tales in the Grimm collections alone. That doesn't even exhaust the European options. This is one aspect of NBCs Grimm that is really solid - Grimm's producers are well educated in worldwide fairy tales (as are the actors, as it's mentioned in a lot of their interviews) and have planned to explore different tales and various folkloric creatures from all over the world since the beginning.

 

 

 To Once's credit they have already gone beyond the Disney vault and included Rumpelstiltskin, Red Riding Hood and King Midas so there are plenty of indications that they're already looking around.

Of course there are still quite a few of the Disney canon characters yet to appear (don't forget Disney's live action films too!) and there's a good chance they throw in some characters Disney has had gathering dust in their ideas box too (Snow Queen anyone?). It still makes me want to anonymously gift the Once producers with all the Andrew Lang color fairy books though.

Source for graphics HERE. It's a fantastic almost-daily Tumblr blog dedicated to all things Once Upon A Time but I can't quite bring myself to type the blogs title. :/ I DO recommend you visit though. Some truly gorgeous stuff here.