Have you recently searched avidly, sourced gleefully and purchased expensively a Tell-A-Tale cassette ; a treasured childhood story which you had fondly listened to at least 100 times in the past, only to discover upon listening that the story sounded....not quite the way you had remembered it?
If your particular story falls under the umbrella of the 'Well Loved Tales' series, you may well have purchased a 'different' recording.
The Tell-A-Tale collection was recorded and released c.1982-1992 and in the intervening years there had been a number of visual redesigns to the overall packaging of the series.
I will draft a post at a later date which outlines all of the various series redesigns and cassette releases known to the project. For the most part (and until 1993), the original recordings remained the same; unchanged unedited and unabridged.
One exception, however, pertains to a small handful of stories from the 'Well Loved Tales' series which were re-recorded and released in the late 1980's. The Ladybird Pickwick Project is aware of two such recordings; 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' and 'The Three Little Pigs'.
Both re-recordings were produced by Elaine Saffer who had, by that time, taken over production of the Tell-A-Tale series from Graham Goodwin.
Although the official reasons behind the re-recordings are unknown, it is most likely that the updates took place to accompany the revised text of the 'Well Loved Tales' book series. The revision of the 'Well Loved Tales' series of books is a somewhat complex matter and is beyond the scope of this post. In short, by the close of the 1980's some books in the 'Well Loved Tales' series had two variant formats/editions, others three.
Much like the myriad of Ladybird/Pickwick cassette redesigns (1982-1992), I intend to cover the matter of the variant book formats in a follow-on post and at a later date.
Back to the matter at hand.
Produced by Saffred Music Ltd. (on behalf of Pickwick), both the re-recordings of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' and 'The Three Little Pigs' were narrated to electronic background music composed by Saffer. If you are in pursuit of the original 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' with 'Leopold Mozart: Toy Symphony' or 'The Three Little Pigs' with 'Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night’s Dream – Scherzo', you will find charmingly composed original music in place.
It should also be noted that the latter recordings use different voice actors, artists chosen by Saffer herself. The original recordings (produced by Graham Goodwin) had used licensed classical musical pieces from The Moss Music Group New York and Pickwick had employed voice actors from the BBC Repertory Company.
The easiest way to spot the re-recorded versions is actually in the packaging. These particular recordings first emerged as part of a Tell-A-Tale series release c.1990. Uniquely, all of the cassettes in this particular release were distributed in outer jewel protective cases complete with inlay cards (yellow for the 'Well Loved Tales' series). The cassettes themselves, unlike the multicoloured paper labels common amongst earlier releases, were stone-grey in colour with black print lettering and included an updated 'Tell-A-Tale' logo.
It is impossible, however, to distinguish the originals from the updated recordings by reading the text printed on the outer cassette. Both versions include the original 'PLB code' and both include the original year of copyright (1982).
Although not an outright 're-record', you will also find a variant 're-edit' to the ending of the original 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' cassette.
But that's another story!
Jay