Hansel and Gretel (Britannica) - Phelous 

Drowning the monsters makes more sense than burning them, because it made them wet and therefore completely useless.

Fun fact: In some versions of the story, the witch and the stepmother were one and the same, or linked in some way, as the step mother dies as soon as the witch does.

The husband in the second story really deserved to be eaten. He was pretty abusive and seemed to be more like the story’s villain than the ogre.

Gretel: "Hansel are you crying? Stop it" Damn the girls are cut throat in this story.

It honestly kind of irritates me Britannica decided to have Hansel help Gretel help push the witch into the oven. One of the most interesting aspects of the original Grimm fairy tale was that Hansel was set up to be the main protagonist: He is Gretel's reassuring (probably older) brother who comes up with the initial plans which save them. But then he's suddenly taken out of the game by being caged. Gretel is the one who ultimately saves them both. She is the one who comes up with the plan to push the witch into the oven. Hansel had jack-shit to do with it.

Glad I'm not the only one who compared the father in Hansel and Gretel with the "Gentleman" of Cinderella for being more useless than a waterlogged crate of tea.

Old Man: "Oh. A Gingerbread House filled with candy. It looks like I've been expected."

Sorry about the mispronunciation of bruja. It just slipped my mind that it should have been said "bruHA".

The princess wasn't anyone's sister. She was a MONsister!

She literally just seconds ago suggested the children be abandoned to die, and dude thinks it's fine to leave them with her as he goes to a plot convenience seminar.

The Woodcutter and Daddy "Gentleman" from Cinderella really needed some couples counseling. Also, one should read the Walt Kelly depiction of this in the Fairy Tale Parade comic. It has the stepmother dying to a pack of wolves after she herself gets lost in the woods after leaving Hansel and Gretel out in the woods a second time. Good stuff.

I instantly got "Gentleman" vibes from the Hansel and Gretel dad.

"Load-bearing witch" is a new favorite phrase for me. Now to find a way to weave it into regular conversation.

Ah, if it isn't my two favourite children, Phelous.

That last story didn't really utilize the nature of its characters very well. Pedro is established as agoraphobic and afraid of monsters to the extent that he can't open the front door...and then immediately opens the door. Despite being afraid of monsters, he's...Not afraid of the monster. He's also easily able to overpower the witch and push her out of her nest, and is able to outrun a bunch of flying monsters despite seemingly having spent his entire life either indoors or trapped in the monster's nest. I don't think Pedro ever had too much to worry about, considering how powerful he is.

Do you believe in witches? No. Well, anyway, we're going to read stories on witches.

I couldn't help but laugh when the witch threw Gretal in the oven and started singing a cheery song about children's stew. Talk about mood whiplash.

More Britannica cartoons, Wabuu, AND Baltard?! Best day ever.

"I couldn't be in more pain. Ouuuh !" That's exactly what a person being burnt alive would say.

Phelous is two children in disguise? That explains how is able get some much video content completed.

6:58 Witch: I can't see very well. Phelous: I guess that explains that outfit. Phelous loves burning witches.

>"He's not coming, is he?" Dude...Pat's dead, the accident wasn't your fault, you gotta let him go.

When I grew up, most people just skipped the part of the parents getting rid of the children. They just kinda start being lost in the forest.

If Phelous and Allison have kids, they’ll grow up with a very “interesting” collection of DVDs to watch growing up.

Evil stepmother reminds me of Mrs Mavilda.

Who else agrees Phelan is the best!

Hansel & Gretel’s dad is almost as much of a GOOD and KIND GENTLEMAN as Cinderella’s dad.

Witch: These brats are literally eating me out of house and home.

The Ogre should have fought a donkey instead.

The last story was somewhat similar to the Japanese folktale "Urikohime, The Melon Girl/Princess." Which had the title character left alone in her house while her parents were gone & was promised to never answer the door from anyone who isn't them....until a demon tricked her into opening the door for it, ate her, and wears her skin & clothes to trick everyone.... It's messed up, yes, but had a good lesson for kids to never open the door for strangers.

Ah, the good old days when terrible people just abandoned their kids in the forest for fairies or beasts to come take. Nowadays stepmom'd be all over the headlines with how horribly she mangled their corpses.

It may not be the Wrong Turn reboot, but Phelous is still reviewing a production involving dumb cannibals.

okay, i love the story where the guy dies for not listening to his wife.

I read a version where the Dad was the villain and the kids didn't realize it wasn't the mother who made the suggestion and brought back riches to the father and he welcomed them back and kicked the mother out. He was such a douche and yet he got a happy ending in that version and I didn't understand why. I have read many different versions of the tale but that one was the most ridiculous.

I like the concept of this series teaching kids about fairy tales from all around the world, especially considering most of us grew up with Grimm's fairy tales but fairy tales from other cultures were completely unknown to us (unless we happened to be part of that culture, anyway). I just wish the execution were a lot better...

"I don't believe in witches." Yeah, that's how they're gonna getcha!

What I love most about this Britannica videos is you mentioning the original tale and the changes it had over the years

One of the few times in children media where the Step-mother isn’t evil I know of is from Rugrats of all places.

....So, by calling the second story "The Woodcutter's Wealthy Sister", doesn't that technically make Britannica guilty of clickbait?

It's kinda weird how Hansel and Gretel both looked like a badly drawn Tommy Pickles

What I love about fairy tales is how they reflect the realities of human lives over history, especially the difficult, scary, and taboo parts of it. Children being seen as another mouths to feed during famine, shown from that child's perspective, even the motif of an evil stepmother wanting to get rid of previous wife's offspring - I'm not saying it happened commonly, I'm saying it could be relatable to the listeners as a very dark scenario of a familiar situation. Definitely same with a stupid husband who refuses to listen to reason, and the wife living in growing suspense until she has to take care of herself and her children on her own... Like, you can see how that's a human emotion. Love that about storytelling in general.

I actually prefer Dingo animation, no facial expressions is better than whatever's going on with these guys faces.

With the ogress, ogre is probably a term for jinn, with evil jinn being demonic, hence the fake sister-ogress being a demonic being.

Hey! At least they didn't sell their kids for cabbage! So... that's a plus, I guess...

The Matrix Gives Everything a green tint. Pat Morita word makes everything purple.

Pat Morita: He's got 99 problems, and a witch ain't one!

So the moral in all of these stories is to never leave your house? Sounds like a good thing to watch during a pandemic.

Considering Pat Morita died in 2005, it's safe to assume that he's not coming. Anyway, I'll give these Britannica videos this, regardless of their interpretations, it's interesting to hear similar stories of well known tales from around the world.

The sudden cut straight to "I'm two children?" and directly back to the video cracked me up.

ALRIGHT MORE PAT MORITA

I will give the show this, adapting and learning about Fairytales a lot of people wouldn't know about is really cool.

The first cartoon’s twist on the oven part caught me off guard. The witch just throws her in the oven and slams the door so quickly, I was in disbelief. 😂

I always just assumed it was a bone from something she'd given Hansel to eat earlier, like a chicken leg or something.

"I'm two children?" I don't know why, but that is absolutely killing me right now. Bless you, sir.

sleeping beauty and Cinderella britannica's tales around the world are the only ones left for phelan to review

2:10 "Because step parents are always evil." You know, I know it depends on the step parent, but sadly enough my wife grew up with a step mother who literally told her not to call her mother and treated her as if she wasn't even a part of the family. She even told her younger half-brother that they were not even siblings and to not call her sister. He's grown up now and knows better of course, but I felt that was pretty cruel, especially since she would often take advantage of her too. My wife never got to grow up with a proper mother, and her father hasn't treated them all that great either. (I mean, he thinks I'm a scrub, for one, even though my parents treat her way better.)

I'm going to guess that the theme in this one is going to be "children abandonement" or something idk... Anyway, thank you for this, Phelan.

So then, my theory was true after all! Phelan really is just two children!

Man the stepmom in Hansell and Gretel could have told the dad to starve the kids in the house or something, she just tells him right in front of the kids so now they know their fate.

"Do you believe in witches" yes and they are called Karens, the spells they casts are speaking to the managers

beard is looking gorgeous btw! i mean, you know it's great content but *gestures*

What is with the animation?! Geez say what you want about golden films but at least their style has a charm to it in that cheap 90's style

I always figured Hansel got that bone from the meat he was given.

In a similar story I heard, the brother character has an animal with him (a horse in the version I know, but I guess a cow or a camel works too), that he tries to flee on, but before he has the chance, the monster sister eats one of its limbs off, asking him each time how many limbs it has on her return. "4? Oh that's weird, bc I'm just back from the stable and only saw 3" So he knows that he can't escape anymore and has to stay with the monster, while she slowly eats the animal, asking him how many limbs it has each time. So he has to wait, realizing she will eat him just as slowly and painfully once he is done. So my guess is that both the hero cow and the weird ending from Phelous' story originally went similar to this, but got the details mixed up somewhere along the way. Either that or Britannica decided to cut out the gruesome parts of the hero cow subplot. (And speaking of weird endings in the version I know the brother eventually turns into the moon w the sister eating him bit by bit each month and his wife then slowly bringing him back to life. So that's... some way to explain moon phases I guess)

I wonder if it was just up to each individual studio how they wanted to adapt the stories, which is why they seem utterly inconsistent on how straight the adaptation is

I love how fairy tales from all around the world contradict the normal expectations about male heroes we get from "modernized" western ones. Especially the wife in the tale about the fake sister that just says "Screw my abusive husband, I choose to live."

If the witch has enough food the force-feed Hansel, then why doesn't she simply eat that food? ...I asked the same question on another video with that topic half a year ago. I'm *still* getting notifications about it.

Couldn't help but notice the witch in the first story had 5 fingers while the rest of the cast had 4. Does that make her a polydactyl in this universe?

'' Hansel are you crying? Stop it! '' Wow Gretel is a terrible sister X) She didn't need to be rude with him. Also, insulting your brother won't calm him BUT since he's wet the boy is completely useless now.

After being eaten, Ash Shattar was thrown down to hell by Hero Cow himself.

To those who think you can't get traumatized by children's media as an adult, the cat demon is proof showing otherwise. I literally could not go to bed the following night without imagining her sneaking up on me in the dark.

17:59 it's pronounced Broo-Ha. J makes the H sound in Spanish.

Hansel and Gretel won’t talk to strangers but they’ll eat their house?

As a Wiccan, Pat’s intro to the VHS made me 😢

Do you believe in binge watching phelous reviews while waiting for a new one? Well, I don’t know about you, but I believe. After all, it happened to me ✨🧚‍♀️

“Do you believe in witches?” Yeah, I think there’s people out there who could be described as being a witch, although usually we say it with a “B” instead of a “W.”

I must have had this VHS as a kid. I don’t remember the other two stories, but The Woodcutter’s Wealthy Sister absolutely traumatized me. I couldn’t remember the title and I’ve been trying to track it down for years to figure out if it existed or if it was a nightmare I had. Somehow I figured you’d cover it sooner or later.

I'm watching this later. My cousin passed away last night and I have been really depressed. And your reviews always make me smile and laugh. I really do appreciate you for that, Phelan. I've been a fan for 2 years and thank you for making my life a little better...💙

RIP Hero Cow. Never forget.

I live for these animation reviews! It's always fun seeing Pat Morita, too. That step mother in the first one reminded me so much of the Britannica telling of that Biblical sory of King Solomon. I kept expecting her to squawk like he did!

Phelous, don't be stupid. The witch can't eat own candy because she'd end up homeless. To quote Futurama "it's either housing or food. Not both."

Do you believe in cannibals? I don’t. Anyway, our next story is called The Silence of the Lambs.

Gretel: Are you crying? Hansel: (Sobbing) No... Gretel: Well, stop it, it makes me feel funny. Did... Did Gretel just develop a fetish?

10:27 so we're just skipping over the fact that the boy in this picture isn't Arthur from Disney's The Sword in the Stone? ok~

DANG, that stepmother looks and sounds like a MAN cartoon character I can't remember at the moment! I actually PREFER the versions of the stories where the biological moms are evil, especially Snow White...Hansel and Gretel's being the witch is even better, though, because how many wandering kids has she trapped and eaten with nobody ever catching her anyway?! Every time I see any version of Hansel and Gretel makes me launch into the Whose Line Is It Anyway Daytime Talk Show game where Colin is the witch, Ryan is the guy who built the candy house, and Wayne is the several people in the audience:) "Look! LOOK! All I wanted was a nice edible house in case I had GUESTS over! I didn't expect chunky little German children to come up and start nibbling! Do I go to a house made of wood and start CHEWING on the side?! NO! Because I KNOW better!"

Phelan has watch to much Charmed so he hopes witches aren't real.

I feel very sad for Hero Cow and Hero horse! They were too good for these strange stories!

Sean Waltman in the back for some reason is making me laugh every time I see him.

The weird thing about Hansel and Gretel’s case of “the stepparent part was added later”: this is one such fairy tale where the evil birth parent version is the one I’m familiar with. Didn’t even know that was changed until watching this.

"I don't believe in witches" The coven store literally a few blocks away from me would like a word with you...

I kinda like how in _The Woodcutter's Wealthy Sister_ a _cow_ tries to save the family. In most stories, the heroic animal is a dog or a horse, but _never a cow._ Usually in media, cows are portrayed as being lazy, stupid gluttons who seem to _only exist_ because media dictates that _all_ rural life must have cattle around. Maybe it's a cultural difference that cows are held in high regard in Syria like how they are in Hindu culture.

we will avenge you, Hero Cow 😭

Didn't know Phelous was two children

Yes Phelan... you are in fact two children. Its time you knew the truth of it.

❤️Always excited for phelous and the movies ❤️

The art style and animation quality of Hansel & Gretel seriously makes me think this was made by former Dingo Pictures animators whose art improved slightly

There’s gotta be a way to teach children about multicultural stories without traumatizing them....or confusing them on how they somewhat relate to one another.

I must be old. I kept thinking of the Bugs Bunny version of Hansel and Gretel while Phelous kept showing The Simpson's version. "Hahn-sel?...Hahn-sel??...Hahn-sel."

"Take that, ya stupid witch!" --Haloweenie

Normal people have heartbeats, but Pedro has a torso-beat. Jesus, that's unsettling.