Once Upon a Time... Life (French: Il était une fois... La vie)[a] is an educational animated television series created and directed by Albert Barillé.

[citation needed] In addition to its countries of origin, the series was also aired in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Gabon, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Soviet Union, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe.

[citation needed] The opening theme song of the serie is "L'hymne à la vie" (French for "hymn for life") composed by Michel Legrand.

Every character in the series appeared as a real person (the old intelligent doctor, the dedicated blonde mother, the boy and the girl, their obese friend, and the pair of bullies) and anthropomorphic representations of cells and cellular functions within the human body.

[6] The DVD series was produced in French, English, Polish, Finnish, German, Italian, Hebrew, Norwegian, Hungarian, Dutch and Swedish, but was not released in the United Kingdom.