Famous Classic Tales

Famous Classic Tales is a series that airs cartoons from production companies such as Filmation, Rankin-Bass, Ruby-Spears, Air Programs International, Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera Australia, and Southern Star Group.

Famous Classic Tales was shown on CBS, and distributed by Kids Klassics Home Video and Storybook World. It had cartoons from API's Family Classic Tales. Featured cartoons included adaptions of classic literature such as Gulliver's Travels, Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Moby-Dick, and many others. The creation of a series of animated features based on classic children's stories was conceived by Jack Thinnes, Media Director at Sive Advertising in Cincinnati, Ohio. The series was created for a Sive client, Kenner Products, and each program was fully sponsored by Kenner on CBS Television Network on Sunday, late afternoon or early evening, during the prime toy selling season before Christmas. The idea to use classic children's books sprang from Thinnes' viewing of a two-minute demo of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which was produced by Walter Hucker's studio, API (Air Programs International), of Sydney, Australia. API was purchased later by Hanna-Barbera Studios after Thinnes introduced the owners of the studios to one another. After the series ran on CBS for nearly ten years, it was moved into local syndication by Sive's syndication department. However, their adaptation of A Christmas Carol was such a favorite that it continued to run on the network for fifteen years.

It is very similar to the ABC Afterschool Special, the ABC Weekend Special, and The Saturday Superstar Movie.

Partial episode list

• A Christmas Carol
• Gulliver's Travels (1979)
• Black Beauty
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
• A Journey to the Center of the Earth
• From The Earth To The Moon
• Daniel Boone
• Davy Crockett on the Mississippi
• Five Weeks in a Balloon
• Ivanhoe
• Kidnapped
• Marco Polo
• Master of the World
• Moby Dick
• Off on a Comet
• Robinson Crusoe
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• The Adventures of Sinbad
• The Amazing Bungee Venture
• The Black Arrow
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Gentlemen of Titipu
• The Last of the Mohicans
• The Legend of Robin Hood
• The Mysterious Island
• The Return of the Bungee
• The Swiss Family Robinson
• The Three Musketeers
• Tales of Washington Irving
• Treasure Island
• Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

Cartoons associated with this series are Aesop's Fables (Manga Aesop Monogatari), Charlotte's Web, Puss In Boots, Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Jack And The Beanstalk. Both these and the Famous Classic Tales were released on VHS by GoodTimes Entertainment, Fox/Lorber, and Kids Klassics. Several other stories made it to DVD afterwards, including a 2006 release from Southern Star by KOCH Vision. All of these are now out of print.