Here Comes the Grump
Huh. No idea. Lets take a look.
This one… this one kind of floored me. Not because its “so great” but it does come barrelling through the door with a surplus of energy. I wasn’t really expecting a wacky fantasy epic. I was thinking “OK, this is about a grumpy animal or something.” But instead we have some sort of wizard inventor king or something and a boy from another world and weird, magic animals. So this show, regardless of actual content, is going for it, at least.
We start with some drumming as a purple-mustachioed villains face comes toward the screen.
DePatie-Freling Presents literally flashes across the screen (with some images in the background). DePatie Freling was one of the few non-Hanna Barbera companies around at the time and they… well, they sure existed. They always felt like they were trying to make you think they were Hanna Barbera, such is their knock off tone.
“Here comes the grump here comes the grump,” whisper some voices as the white titles flash on a blue screen.
A lot of little images flash across the screen, including the title character on a dragon, kids running with a weird animal, then everyone’s faces popping up on holes in the screen. We then see the title on purple, instead of blue, which it feels like it should have been to begin with because it’s the dude’s colour.
“In a magic place,
lives a princess caught in a chase.”
We get some extremely Alice in Wonderland imagery off the bat. First there are bouncing, legless guards. Then two hideous neckless citizens laughing around houses that look like laughing faces. Its horrifying. We then see two kids playing ping pong in a giant pink lemonade glass while a dog chases a cat and they are both in straight jackets.
Its funny, but aside from the unsettling laughing dudes, I feel like the animators are trying to sell me on the idea “isn’t this world wild” and I guess it is but… somehow its also leaving me feeling hallow. Objectively, its weird stuff but my reaction is nothing more than indifference. I assume its going for not only an “Alice” element but also Yellow Submarine but the weirdness of that movie was calculated. Sure, it could be argued that its nothing more than affectation and style but it left and impact. Somehow this did not.
It reminds me of a minor character from Doom Patrol named Agent “!”.
His whole deal as he literally comes as no surprise. Like, he is incapable of surprising people. He wants to, he tries to. He has a birdcage body and has a little airplane with bird feet living in it. And no one cares. For all his affected weirdness, he cannot make people look twice. That’s what this show feels like to me. Its “weirdness” without style or personality. Even some things striving for weirdness that suck at least hit it in the wrong way, whether it be style with no meaning or even something like a bad movie, where its weirdness isn’t in the intended content but in its missteps. This has none of that. This has no charm and is somehow easy to ignore despite its desperate cries for attention. Like, I’m not even annoyed, just completely detached from this.
We see some flowers laughing and a man fishing in the lemonade, being dragged down into the pulpy deep, presumably to his death.
“And no matter how fast she goes,
Here on her heels and toes.
Here comes the Grump
Here comes the Grump.
HERE COMES THE GRUMP!”
We see a princess in a box (not a literal one, but like a framing box) and we also see from outside the image the Grump swooping with her dragon, before seeing the title on a purple screen.
“There’s Herbip, he pet.”
I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s called by I can’t make out the name and I’m not in a position at the moment to put the volume much louder. Anyway, it’s like some sort of beetle dog, who skedaddles way.
“And there’s Terry
The boy she just met.”
We see Terry running with her as they are first in separate boxes which disappear to reveal them in the same scene.
We then see a purple zeppelin and then the Grump stopping his dragon and bouncing off its ridges as one might do in an assuredly better Yosemite Sam cartoon.
“And although he’s from far away,
He’s got to save the day.”
As I assume Comic Book Resources would suggest:
unreverse isekai at its finest.
“Here comes the Grump
Here comes the Grump
HERE COMES THE GRUMP!”
We see the titles but behind them is the Grump in a submarine.
“Grump’s always naggin’
His jolly green dragon
But the dragon
Keep flaggin’
Behind.”
We see the grump fall to Earth on his butt while the dragon lands and waits for orders. Cut to a similarly composed shot in the desert where the dragon sneezes fire on the Grump.
“Our friends agree,
When you search for the magical key.”
Somewhere, this kid’s ears perk up.
We see the heroes on various modes of overly and overtly whimsical transportation.
“You must always be at your best,
You can’t afford to rest.
Here comes the Grump
Here comes the Grump
HERE COMES THE GRUMP!”
We see the kids running to and fro and the Grump swooping on his dragon and the title.
Did It Make You Want To Watch It?
I don’t think it will be good but I see potential in the formula, I suppose.
What Did You Find on Wikipedia?
Turns out my Yosemite Sam comparison was apt: he was made to look as such and Fritz Freling created Sam AND there are a lot of parallels between the Grump and his dragon and Sam and his dragon from "Knighty Knight Bugs". One key difference: this time, the character is voiced by Rip Taylor, which I feel creates a world of difference.
Oh, also Mexico made a film version.
No thank you.
Fan Art
Hey, I was able to find some
Like, objectively decent but I can only imagine this as a toothless Canadian thing. Yuck.
Someone took out a bit of the whimsy and made it look more like traditional high fantasy and… its not bad.
I like the patchiness in his hat.