Fabricated fables: Origin of tales in danger of being lost

I used to love it when my mom or my dad would read to my brother and me, picking stories like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” the “Three Bears,” “Cinderella” and on and on.

Today the trend seems to be one of turning fairy tales and such into dark fantasies and thrillers, packed to the max with blood and guts and gore.

We've gone from the cartoon classics of “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid,” all of which my kids loved, to whacked out characters and monsters and what have you in live action films like “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” “Red Riding Hood,” “Snow White and the Huntsman,” and so forth.

The latest I see advertised is titled “OZ the Great and Powerful,” in which Dorothy definitely isn't in Kansas anymore. In fact Dorothy isn't even in the film.

It makes me wonder if future generations will ever know where these Hollywood productions originated.