ANI-MOVIES, *A Wizard's Tale

If anyone remembers the old Bugs Bunny short where Yosemite Sam played a knight on a stupid dragon, then they might be familiar with an unrelated 1970's Saturday Morning cartoon inspired by it. Former Looney Tunes animator Friz Freling with partner David DePatie formed DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, an independent studio that ended up taking a majority of work from Warner Bros. after they closed their own animation department. DePatie–Freleng Enterprises went on to do the original Pink Panther toons, as well as some of the early Marvel animated series like Fantastic Four and Spider-Woman. Friz took the idea of a mustached menacing dragonrider and created what could be viewed as a modern day fairy tale in the series titled Here Comes The Grump which only lasted a single season. The cartoon never recieved much circulation in reruns, but it did gain a slight cult following with Spanish-language audiences, similarly to Hanna-Barbera's Top Cat to which a full-length feature was made along with a prequel film by Anima Estudios in Mexico. Anima went on to co-produce a new CGI animated movie with Handmade Films, a British company founded by George Harrisson of The Beatles, and the film was released in most English-speaking markets as A Wizard's Tale.

First opening up in the parallel universe land of Groovingham, a newly appointed wizard labeled The Grin sets about his first day of royal duties by using his sorcery to make the population uncontrollably happy, causing much chaos in the city. The Grin becomes a wanted man as he and his ladyfriend Mary escape in his motorcycle/blimp and adopting a baby dragon. Mary gets banished by the King along with her flying machine and ends up in our world where she would spend the following decades writing a popular book about her earlier adventures which leads to a successful career operating her own amusement park modeled after her writings. She passed away but left the park under the supervision of her grandson Terry who is struggling to keep the business afloat. Terry finds a missing piece to his grandmother's zeppelin which opens up a roller coaster back to the magical world. Once there, the bewildered youth finds that an evil wizard known as The Grump has broken out of jail thanks to his doofus dragon and gang of trumpet-nosed minions. The Grump puts a spell on the entire kingdom making everyone gloomy leaving only the perky Princess Dawn unaffected who teams up with Terry to find a way to free her people. The young heroes along with Dawn's bizarre canine take off in Terry's blimp to consult a mountainous oracle who tells them to break the gloom curse they need to find a magic key. The rest of the movie steps into the setting of the original TV series with two kids constantly being chased by a cranky wizard on his flying dragon flunky in a realm right out of Wonderland with its own unique areas made up of balloon people, living Christmas trees, and sentient whispers.

A Wizard's Tale possesses the potential to be an entertaining sit for cartoon historians, even though the main thing holding it back is the repurposed English dub which has most of the same cast from the original Spanish one, including its only celebrity voice over from Ian McShane as The Grump first played by prop comic Rip Taylor back in the 70's The animation is charming even though not up to Pixar's level, specifically in the stock character designs appearing like they are out of a Mario game. The English translation is filled with topical jokes that you would normally see in a stock Dreamworks film like internet memes and pop culture references. The source material does contain some schlocky goodness, but it might be worth your while to give A Wizard's Tale a shot as well as introducing your kids to idea of comedic isekai.