Despite being a huge ratings behemoth when it aired on ABC, Once Upon a Time is a pretty forgotten show. Although the series starred Disney regulars like Snow White, Cruella de Vil, Prince Charming, and, uh, Grumpy the Dwarf, the Mouse House seems to have very little interest in promoting it as streaming content on Disney+ and Hulu.

Some of the actors from the show seem to have some interest in a potential revival, and really, there could not be an easier series to reboot than Once Upon a Time. The main conceit of the show is that various fairytale characters exist in the real world, basically because “magic happened,” which allows Disney to use pretty much any public-domain character it feels like. Disney has already been doing that since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in 1937, so why not just keep things going?
Regardless of whether or not the Walt Disney Company has any plans to bring back Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle), and all the rest, it probably should at least take a moment to think back on the show and some of its weirdest moments.
Over the course of seven seasons, plus a Wonderland spinoff, Once Upon a Time told some pretty bizarre stories, and not all of them need to be ported over if a revival happens. At the very least, if co-creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz want to return to the town of Storybrooke, they should remember these cautionary tales.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ONCE UPON A TIME TO FOLLOW
Why Was Peter Pan Rumplestiltskin’s Dad?

If Once Upon a Time has a Big Bad, it was Mr. Gold, AKA Rumplestiltskin. The character tended to veer back and forth between being a classic evil wizard who likes to curse people, blackmail, manipulate, and generally be a bad guy, and a more human, tortured soul who has found himself corrupted by his desire to help his family.
But, while Robert Carlyle brought a lot of emotion and depth to a character who might otherwise have been a paper villain, he also had to deal with one of the more insane plot twists of the entire series: that Rumplestiltskin is the son of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
So, how does that work, you ask? After all, the defining aspect of Peter Pan (Robbie Kay and Stephen Lord) is that he’s a kid and not exactly the kind of person who is fathering children left and right. Well, Once Upon a Time decided that the simplest backstory for Peter was that he was once a grown man with a kid, he started dreaming of Neverland, decided to kick his son Rumplestiltskin to the curb, transformed into a child, started talking to his Shadow, also became the Pied Piper, ends up in the Underworld, and a whole bunch more. Was anyone’s entertainment level raised by the truly bizarre idea that Rumplestiltskin’s father was an even worse guy and also a weird semi-child?
Related: New ‘Peter Pan’ Adaptation Safe Not for Children
Gideon: The Long-Lost Son Nobody Was Interested In

If you think that Rumplestiltskin’s dad is the only weird family relationship, Once Upon a Time has another thing coming for you. According to the ABC show, Peter Pan has a grandson (a couple, actually), and he ages at twice the normal rate as regular people. His name is Gideon (Giles Matthey and Anton Starkman).
Wait, what? Why would that be the case? Once Upon a Time doesn’t really get into it all that much, so you pretty much have to buy into it from the beginning. To be fair, this show features multiple magical worlds and public-domain fairytale characters, so having someone who lives life twice as fast isn’t all that fantastical.
What might be more fantastical is that Gideon’s plotline involves his mother, Belle (Emilie de Ravin), putting herself into what is basically a magical coma to avoid having to give him up to Hades, the Greek God of the Underworld. Plus, while Gideon is in utero, he communicates with his mother and pretends to be Morpheus, the God of Sleep and Dreams. Then, he decides that he needs to kill Emma Swan.
But the real question is: why? Why did Once Upon a Time invent a wholly new character when the entire premise is predicated on having its audience recognize iconic fairytale figures? Your guess is as good as ours.
Did We Need Backstory on Grumpy the Dwarf?

In the real-world town of Storybrooke, Grumpy the Dwarf (Lee Arenberg) is named Leroy, and he’s the surly drunken janitor at the local high school. So far, so good: the show begins with all the classic fairytale characters we know under a curse that has wiped their memories and given them new personas that still have an echo of their old selves.
As such, Grumpy the Dwarf being a crabby janitor who winds up in the Storybrooke drunk tank actually makes quite a bit of sense. However, the creators of the show decided that was not nearly weird enough and threw in some very, very odd details about Grumpy.
Related: Disney Brings Back the Seven Dwarfs After Abandoning Them in ‘Snow White’ Scandal
For one thing, in this version of fairytales, there are no female dwarves, which J.R.R. Tolkien would strongly disapprove of. So, if there are only male dwarves, how exactly did Grumpy and his fellow miners come to exist? Well, the most logical way you can think: they hatch from eggs.

That’s right, the writers of Once Upon a Time made the very odd decision that dwarves reproduce asexually and emerge from giant eggs as adults (not to mention fully clothed). In a season 1 episode of the show, we see that the future Grumpy had his egg contaminated with magic dust by a clumsy fairy (Amy Acker), causing him to be born early and with a vibe that causes him to be dubbed “Dreamy.” By a magic axe, no less.
From there, we find out that Dreamy and the fairy start dating, even though dwarves have no need for love, just endless work in dark mines. Later, a different fairy gets Dreamy to break up with his girlfriend for her own, very vague reasons, then the dwarf smashes his axe in an act of magical toxic masculinity. And that’s how you get a Grumpy.
King Arthur Becomes the God of the Underworld

Okay, we’ll give this to Once Upon a Time: portraying King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) as a megalomaniacal, manipulative jerk who disguises his sociopathy under a facade of nobility is a pretty good revisionist take on the most famous monarch in mythology. The casting call description for the role puts it best: “a good and just ruler who, beneath the surface, is a master manipulator who can carry a grudge to the grave, and maybe beyond. He harbors an eternal burning love for Guinevere that can lean toward being a bit… controlling.”
But what that short bio also hints at is one of the most bizarre storylines that Once Upon a Time ever hit upon, if only for the fever dream mash-up of characters that it eventually pits against each other.
First of all, Arthur only manages to get part of Excalibur out of the stone (with his brother Kay being killed in the process), which should technically make him only part king. It also means that he has to go search for the missing tip of the sword (which belongs to Rumplestiltskin, naturally), kicking off a love triangle between himself, Guinevere (Joana Metrass,) and Lancelot (Sinqua Walls). Also, Camelot only looks like a decent place to live because of some magical illusion dust.
But things start to get really out of hand when Arthur and Lancelot end up in Storybrooke, which the king intends to make into his new Camelot. Things haven’t been going well for him in general, but they definitely get worse when he gets locked up in jail and the Hades (Greg Germann), Greek God of the Underworld, kills him.
Of course, that’s not where things end. Once he winds up in the Underworld, he overthrows Cruella De Vil (Victoria Smurfit), who has become the ruler of the land of the dead, after Hades is killed by his lover, Zelena (Rebecca Mader), because it turns out that the guy who has been bad this whole time actually was bad. Incidentally, Zelena is also known as the Wicked Witch of the West.
Got that? It goes Arthurian mythology to Rumplestiltskin to Greek gods to 101 Dalmatians to the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes, it feels like Once Upon a Time was just trying too much with all the characters that Disney and public domain let it get a handle on.
We’re not even going to get into the plotline where Emma becomes evil. It’s just too exhausting.
What was your favorite storyline in Once Upon a Time? Let’s hear it in the comments below!