Once Upon a Forest is far superior to the other abovementioned environmentally themed works being around the same time – far less preachy and far more unobtrusive in its message-making. Most of all it is a gentle nicely made animated film. The characters are drawn with a clean simplicity and beautifully soft and innocent emotions. One image of Edgar the hedgehog tripping and losing his glasses, terrifyingly being caught in a trap by giant, white-coated scientists and then freed with a “There you go little fella” in reversal of expectation has a tender beauty. There are times when the film manages to remind of the great Watership Down (1978) with its innocent’s view of the world through the eyes of animals – a road at the edge of the wood and passing cars seen as incredibly dangerous, earth-moving machines as yellow dragons and so on. It is very well directed – the attack of the owl and flight of the flying machine at the climax are dramatically exciting pieces. The tiny child-like quest across this fantasticized landscape has a wonderful classic heroic struggle. Notable is the film’s refusal to give in to a dramatically false happy ending. The families are brought back but, unlike a Disney film, the film makes the point of saying that some will not return (ie. are dead for good) – a far more adult resolution than most other animated films opt for.

Once Upon a Forest was a co-production between Hanna-Barbera and Harlech Television, the English broadcasting network that covers Wales. Director Charles Grosvenor has not made any other theatrical films subsequently, but has gone onto direct no less than nine Land Before Time sequels, as well as an animated direct-to-video version of Babes in Toyland (1997).