History Anime / GrimmsFairyTaleClassics

* AdaptationalBadass: The WickedStepmother from ''Literature/TheSixSwans'' has some spells at her disposal that the original did ''not'' have, like the capacity of [[SummonMagic summoning large animals]] and [[BlowYouAway create huge wind currents]]. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard The last one backfires on her, however]].

* AffablyEvil: Most notably the Devil in "Bearskin". His first meeting with the soldier has him state that he feels flattered that he is recognized for being Satan, only to correct him saying that he's only a demon working for him.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: The Imp in "The Iron Stove" has PointyEars and bat-like wings, making her seem like some sort of [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demon]] or [[OurFairiesAreDifferent fairy]]. On the other hand, she's never stated to not be human, and she flies without moving her wings, so it's possible that there are other explanations, especially considering she's a magic user, and referred as the Imp-Fairy. Maybe they're just illusions, traits she gave herself via shapeshifting, the result of her magic use causing a physical transformation, or something else.

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Played straight for the protagonists in most of the stories, though there are some exceptions. ie, Hans from "The Golden Goose" is a borderline {{gonk}}.

* BreakTheHaughty: This leads to CharacterDevelopment in the cases of both the main character of "King Grizzle Beard" and "The Man of Iron", respectively a spoiled and shallow princess and a RoyalBrat. They are forced to leave their castle and kingdom and learn about hard work, hunger and humility. Elena as part of her humiliation marries a commoner who turns out to be a KingIncognito whom she had previously scorned and restores her status when she comes to realize the value of what she lost. William travels to a distant land and offers his services to its King as gardener; later, he defends his new homeland without asking for anything in exchange and marries the princess of the kingdom that falls in love with him.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The King in "The Water of Life" after learning that falling for Franz's treachery presumably got Joseph killed.

* PublicExecution: In "The Six Who Went Far," men from the village are forced to compete against the Princess in a race and are publicly beheaded if they lose (although the English dub specifically [[NeverSayDie avoids mentioning the word "killed" or "executed"]], even though the shot of the executioner raising his sword was not cut).

** The bird in "Hansel and Gretel" is revealed to be a familiar to the witch. At first it appears as the white bird from the original story, but later reveals its [[JustForPun true colors]] as a black imp that lured the children to the witch's house.

** The father in "Beauty and the Beast" is implied to start the story terminally ill, and dies before the end.

* UnreliableNarrator: Not in the stories, but the dub theme song itself, which claims that "...every story ends so happily!" Again, this is first-edition Grimm material here: though many characters get their happy endings not ''everything'' ends well even for the protagonists.

** Sister Anne, Bluebeard’s wife’s older sister from the original story of ''Literature/{{Bluebeard}}'', is not present in the adaptation. This is justified, as the adaptation changes parts of the story, including the addition of the mansion setting on fire, which made Josephine’s brothers go to attack Bluebeard and save Josephine, instead of the brothers arriving on a day the wife had planned like in the original story. The changes would’ve made Sister Anne’s role pointless, and so, she was removed.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: While nothing is said about the specific looks of the soldier from [[Literature/TheTwelveDancingPrincesses "The worn-out Dancing Shoes"]], it ''is'' mentioned that he's ''not'' young. Peter from the episode featuring the tale is a young man who's a bit of an UnkemptBeauty and even has a nice hat.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Cinderella’s stepfamily all have three different hair colors. Phoebe is a dark blonde (blonde), Grizelda has brunette hair (brunette), and Cinderella’s stepmother has deep red hair (redhead). This is also played straight when Cinderella is compared to the stepsisters, as Cinderella is a strawberry blonde leaning towards orange (redhead).

** The [[WickedWitch witch]] from the "Hansel and Gretel" episode. In the [[Literature/HanselandGretel original tale]], while she was still a vile monster and a serious threat to the titular protagonists' lives, she was also tricked and ultimately dispatched by Gretel with little effort. In this adaptation, she has control of much more powerful and dangerous magic spells, including the ability to [[OneWingedAngel turn into a twisted winged creature]]. She also puts up more of a fight against the heroes than her original counterpart did.

** Actually ''subverted'' in "Briar Rose": what wakes up Briar Rose is ''not'' a kiss, but the appearance of a Prince that is ''specifically'' [[BecauseDestinySaysSo destined to wake her up]]... plus him prickling his finger ''and'' lightly bleeding from it when he leans in to kiss her. They do get TheBigDamnKiss very soon, however.

* ContraltoOfDanger: The witch from "Hansel and Gretel" has one in her OneWingedAngel form.

* One of the Spanish dubs (and the Portuguese dub, which seemed to be based on it) occasionally rewrote dialogue to downplay certain dark elements. For example, in "The Coat of Many Colors," the king was rewritten to be the princess's uncle instead of her father, with the dead queen explicitly being the princess' aunt. This also implies the king isn't a blood relative.

* BreakTheHaughty: This leads to CharacterDevelopment in the cases of both the main character of "King Grizzle Beard" and "The Man of Iron", respectively a spoiled and shallow princess and a RoyalBrat. They are forced to leave their castle and kingdom and learn about the hard work, the hunger and the humilty. Elena as part of her humiliation marries a commoner who turns out to be a KingIncognito whom she had previously scorned and restores her status when she comes to realize the value of what she lost. William travels to a distant land and offers his services to its King as gardener; later, he defends his new homeland without asking for anything in exchange and marries the princess of the kingdom that falls in love with him.

* DarkIsNotEvil: 12 of the 13 witch sisters in "Briar Rose" wear dark shades of blue, purple, and gray, and live in a haunted house. They also have a habit of transforming themselves into many large frightening creatures and animals to scare off others. However, they were gracious when they were invited to the feast celebrating the birth of Briar Rose, and in turn offered Briar Rose many gifts of goodness. When the 13th witch sister cursed Briar Rose with eternal sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle, the 12th witch sister, who had not given Briar Rose an offer, modified the curse to make her sleep until a prince came and rescued her.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: "The Coat of Many Colors" implies that Aleia has PTSD from [[ParentalIncest her insane father's attempts to force her to marry him]].

* AbusiveParent: After Anton spies what their WickedWitch mother is doing to the princess in "The Crystal Ball", she attempts to punishes all of her sons by turning them into animals, yet Anton escapes before she can curse him as well.

* DaddysLittleVillain: Lisbeth from "The Magic Heart" is a very pretty girl who helps her WickedWitch mother to mistreat a huntsman. [[spoiler: Subverted, it looks like she's an enchanted princess in this version.]]

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** The mad king in "The Coat of Many Colors," the show's version of "Allerleirauh," is heavily implied to die in a fire he set by accident. In the original it's never mentioned what happened to him [[note]](Perrault's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkeyskin own version of the tale]] has the King surviving, recovering his sanity, marrying a WidowWoman and apologizing to his daughter.)[[/note]]

* HotWitch: Three of them - the one in "The Iron Stove" (who more closely resembles a [[HornyDevils succubus]] than a typical witch and is referred to as an Evil Imp-Fairy), the one in "The Six Swans" (whose beauty briefly manages to charm the heroine's father), and the one in "The Water Nixie" (who wears a pink see-through dress). All three witches are the villains of their respective episodes.

* DubNameChange: Some characters are renamed in the English dub. For example, Kasha in "Jorinde and Joringel" was renamed Clarissa in English.

* BalefulPolymorph:
** The witch from "The Six Swans" turns her royal husband's six sons into swans with cursed white capes. Their sister must make six other capes to break the curse, [[spoiler: which the swans manage to put on when they come to rescue her and bring her kidnapped son back.]]
** The prince in "Snow White and Rose Red" caught the wicked gnome stealing the castle's treasures and got turned into a bear for his trouble. He didn't recover his human form until he managed to kill the gnome.
** Rudolf in "Brother and Sister" was turned into a Deer when he drank water from a pond that was enchanted by his and Rose's evil Step-Mother.
** Prince William's subjects in "The Iron Stove" were turned into rats by the Evil Fairy. [[spoiler: After the Fairy is given a DisneyVillainDeath, they're released.]]
** "The Old Woman in the Woods" turned a prince and his subjects into animals, with the Prince himself stuck in an owl's form, and those that trespass in the witch's neck of the forest are turned into trees. The only one who escapes this is the maid Lisbeth, and the Owl Prince first protects her and then recruits her to kill the witch.
** In "The Magic Heart", a huntsman finds a cabbage garden of two different types. One kind of cabbage turns those who eat them into donkeys, the other kind returns the donkeys to their human forms. He used these cabbages to [[TheDogBitesBack get revenge on an old witch and her daughter Lisbeth for treating him like crap]], [[spoiler: though later he uses another to return Lisbeth to her human form]].
** In "Jorinde and Joringel", a WickedWitch who ''hates'' happy couples in love turns the titular Jorinde into a bird. Her boyfriend Joringel has to rescue her. Turns out the witch had turned many other maidens into birds as well.

* ShapeshiftingExcludesClothing: Mostly averted since the {{baleful polymorph}}s of the stories tend to be dressed when they return to human forms, but played straight with Rudolf from "Brother and Sister". Probably because Rudolf is a pre-teen when he's released, while the others tend to be older teens or adults.

* SuperpowerLottery: The HotWitch and WickedStepmother of "The Six Swans" has many, MANY skills: SummonMagic (the snake she summons against her stepfamily), some RealityWarper skills (when the King has a GutFeeling after meeting her and almost refuses her mom's marriage proposal, his surroundings begin to change inexplicably), MasterOfDisguise (she disguises herself as the King before cursing the princes), BalefulPolymorph (which she applies to her stepsons), [[BlowYouAway Wind Magic]] (which leads to her KarmicDeath, ironically), etc.

''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'' (グリム名作劇場, Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō, Grimm Masterpiece Theater) was an anime series produced by Creator/NipponAnimation with Asahi Broadcasting (ABC) in Osaka and aired from 1987 to 1989 on Creator/TVAsahi affiliated stations. It actually consists of two separate series, the original Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō (October 1987-March 1988) and Shin (New) Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō (October 1988-March 1989). In the United States, the series aired on Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} beginning in 1989, originally as part of the network's weekend "Special Delivery" block and later daily on Nick Jr.

* WhenTreesAttack: A group of evil trees appear in the episode "Jorinde and Joringel" — brought to life by the witch who holds Jorinde hostage. The trees chase Joringel through the woods. When he loses sight of them and thinks they are gone, one of them sneaks up behind him and eats him. Luckily, it's revealed to be AllJustADream as Joringel wakes up in a bed right after the tree eats him.

*** The OP sequence itself wasn't immune to this, as scenes of demons dancing around a cauldron in the forest were cut. It was done so seamlessly that the average viewer watching on Nickelodeon wouldn't have even suspected. (Actually, that Saban kept the original OP animation at all is remarkable considering they typically replaced it in their anime dubs with montages of scenes from the series.) Also cut (though presumably not for potentially offensive content) in the English version is the episode introduction featuring the series mascot (the cute little pixie from the OP animation), replaced by a generic title card pasted over the introduction of the episode.

** In comparison to the [[Literature/{{Bluebeard}} original story]], which had a HappyEnding, "Bluebeard" ends this way. While Josephine makes it out alive, and the murderer Bluebeard is killed, the castle where she was to stay in as a princess is set aflame, and is burned to the ground, with all her treasures burned too.