Es war einmal... der Mensch

Even though the show played a bit fast and loose with actual historical facts and events, it did it, I believe, only in as much as to make it interesting for a child to start caring about the history of mankind and what makes our species so terribly magnificent.

In the series, we're generously shown man's greatest achievements, and also, a tad more discretely, our greatest horrors too. Still, it doesn't shy away from the less glamorous parts of our past or gloss over problematic issues. ONCE UPON A TIME... MAN is entertainment, first and foremost, but it is also a remarkable tool and a historic document in itself now, forty odd years later.

I used to watch that show back in the 1980s along with its successor "Once Upon A Time in Space". I still love the show for its combining quality entertainment with an educated look in the history of life in planet Earth from the birth of the first cell organism to the 1970s environmental concerns.

Instead of presenting a "black/evil vs white/good" depiction of human history, each featured group of cultures and states have their own motivation, ambitions, fears, prejudices and obvious similarities to both their allies and their enemies.

Several historical figures are prominently presented as exemplars of their time. Including but not limited to Alexander the Great, Gaius Julius Caesar, Muhammad, Charlemagne, Peter I "the Great" of Russia. Others make significant cameos such as Cheops, Ramses II, Moses, Samson and many others. Its a good introduction to them and places them in their historical context.

I still wonder why this show is mostly unseen in modern television schedules and unavailable in video or DVD. It is easily better than the rather formulaic "good vs evil" sagas of modern animation.

I used to watch this a lot as a kid. Today I use it when i teach.

I liked the way the female commentator mentioned dates and names and events and there was a small screen at the top with arms and stuff where the dates appeared. That was nice. And some times the screen creature disagreed with the commentator.

Anyways. I also liked that it was chronological. It started with the stone age, where we got to see people hunting mammoth, fishing and so on. It was in many ways my favorite episode. I am very into fishing, and found it interesting that they made line and hooks from animal parts and also that they used crickets for bait.

Another good episode I remember was the one about the Mongol hordes. I liked the way they depicted Djenghis Kahn. They drew him with skulls inside his eyes and fire inside his eyes, laughing and smiling.

The old, bearded inventor was also very nice.

I don't like the way the wannabe leader and his red haired crony always got beaten up by the kind muscle guy. It was too easy and violent and quite frankly not nice.

Other than that the series was very good.

An unforgettable animated series from our childhood. The very cheerful introducing song and pictures, with a fish disturbingly evolving into a lizard and on into a chimp and finally becoming a man, made us stare at it in amazement. I find the series greatly encouraged the intellectual excitement and imagination of the children in Europe of the late 70s and early 80s for the extraordinary events and stories told in the cartoons.

The plot of the stories with five-six recurring and distinctive characters quarreling with each other made the cartoons attractive to the eyes of the little ones. The weird storyteller with a long white beard and the clock that could speak rendered the pictures all the more enticing.

To sum up, it struck a chord in our generation, with its colourful, cheerful and optimistic images and tunes.

a great series, i loved it on television when i was a kid and now i bought it on DVD and enjoyed it also as an adult. it should be a standard school material and showed to all kids: a fine example that education can be entertaining. a pity that in spite of being really an epic work, some parts of the history were skipped or presented shortly - i could watch it for... well like forever 8). i can only recommend it to everyone from kids to parents, i think that its not only more informative but also funnier than modern robots-fight-monsters kind of cartoons. ps: my colleagues niece rejected to watch shrek 2, she wanted to watch this 8)))