Funky Fables

Funky Fables (ポンキッキめいさくわーるど Ponkikki Meisaku World) was a segment of the ''Hirake! Ponkikki'' which adapted various classic stories. In the early 1990s, the show was dubbed into English by Saban Entertainment.

History
The original version of the show was as a five-minute segment on ''Hirake! Ponkikki''. The show ran Monday to Friday, so each story was serialized over a whole week. The VHS releases in Japan featured introductions by Gachapin and Mukku, the stars of the show. While 41 episodes were made in Japan, only 26 were dubbed to English. The undubbed episodes were either based on Japanese folk tales or stories that were not well-known in the West.

The Saban dub of the show also went under the name Bill and Billy's Funky Fables - Bill and Billy being the names given to Gachapin and Mukku, whose introductions to the VHS tapes were kept in the English version. Some releases, like the American VHS tapes, do not include their intros, however.

When released on VHS, the series was also given the names Sugar and Spice (for the ones with female protagonists) and Puppy Dog Tales.

The VHS releases of the Christmas episodes were not released under the Funky Fables label despite being part of the series.

It is interesting to note that this is one of the few Saban dubs to include full credits for each episode.

The music in the English dub was later recycled in Samurai Pizza Cats.

Trivia

 * The English dub of The Secret Garden features a young Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Colic Crayfish. He also voiced Tom Sawyer in the English dub of the story.