Once Upon a Time... Man

Once Upon a Time... Man (Il était une fois... l'homme) is a French animated TV series from 1978 directed by Albert Barillé. It is the first in the Once Upon a Time... franchise. The series explains world history in a format designed for children. The action focuses around one group. The same familiar characters appear in all episodes as they deal with the problems of their time. Once Upon a Time... Man was purchased by most public broadcasting channels in Europe (and in many other countries) and is well-known by a significant percentage of the population. The program is known for explaining events to children from different viewpoints as the main characters come from many civilizations. The animation was done by a Japanese anime studio, Tatsunoko Productions. The series' opening and ending title sequences famously used Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor as the main title theme music. Shortening the piece to only 2 minutes in length, the introduction uses the very beginning, which jumps into the start of the middle section and finally the dramatic ending to coincide with the destruction of Earth at the end of the intro. The show aired in the United States on the History Channel starting in January 1996. A DVD boxed set of all the episodes of the series was produced by the French production company Procidis, and distributed locally by various distributors. The DVD series was produced in French, English (not sold in the UK or US), Finnish, German, Dutch, Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish and Polish. In 2011, an English-language, Region 1 DVD box set was made available in Canada and the United States. The set was produced and distributed by Imavision. The episodes of Once Upon a Time... Man typically would follow one family, which most typically used the same set of archetypes that would be reused for the scenario. These same characters would later be used in the later additions to the Once Upon a Time... series, with some changes. Maestro (Roger Carel) – The wise old man.