Pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in 1939. Traditionally performed at Christmas and afterwards, with family audiences, British pantomime continues as a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, topical references, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. Pantomime story lines and scripts usually make no direct reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, particularly the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers. Some of the most popular pantomime stories include "Cinderella", "Aladdin", "Dick Whittington and His Cat" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", as well
American pantomime audience participation, and mild adult innuendo. Although pantomime was not frequently produced in the US during the 20th century and is not well known in America, productions of pantomime, both professional and amateur, have been seen nearly every year somewhere in the US over the past couple of decades. The earliest known pantomime in the U.S. was "Robinson Crusoe" produced at St. John's Theatre, New York in 1786. A production at Olympic Theatre in New York of "Humpty Dumpty" ran for over 1,200 performances in 1868, becoming one of the most successful American pantomimes. American pantomime, like the British pantomime,