Structured as a battle between good and evil, the show was played for comedy. The Grump, the purportedly-threatening villain of the piece, was voiced by extravagant prop comicRip Taylor.[2]
The main character was a small, grumpy wizard who put a spell of gloom on the kingdom of the Princess Dawn.[3] The Princess and her friend Terry Dexter (a boy from the "real" world) searched for the Cave of the Whispering Orchids to find a magic crystal key to break the spell, while the Grump tried to stop them. In each episode the Grump flew a dragon named Dingo, chasing Terry and Princess Dawn. This led them to bizarre places with strange characters, such as the Blabbermouth of Echo Island, where the mountains were made of living Swiss cheese.
The Princess had a pet named Bip — a vaguely doglike creature with tentacular legs, that sniffed clues like a hound dog, turned around by pulling in its tail and head and popping them back out at opposite ends, and communicated in the sounds of a soprano bugle. In most episodes, the Princess and her friends traveled in a flying car supported by a big balloon.
A recurring gag was that at the last minute when the Grump was about to catch up with Princess Dawn, the Dragon would sneeze and burn the little wizard.
The character of the Grump was based uponYosemite Sam, also created byFriz Freleng. The Grump's Dragon was similar to Sam's inKnighty Knight Bugs, including the fiery nasal explosions upon its master.
Because there was no series finale, Terry and Princess Dawn never made it to the Cave of the Whispering Orchids, and therefore the crystal key was never found.
The series was broadcast byNBC from September 6, 1969, to April 25, 1970. NBC continued to air reruns until January 23, 1972.[4]
The series lasted one season and was rerun, the most recent airing was on theSci-Fi Channel in the mid 1990s. The complete series was released on DVD on January 31, 2006.
The series was calledAhi viene Cascarrabias in Spanish and was retransmitted into the 1970s and well into the 1980s byTelevisa, in Mexico, with another rerun in 2006 after the DVD set was launched. It was "Grump, o feiticeiro trapalhão" in Brazilian Portuguese and was rerun in Brazil until 1993 byRede Globo.
The only known merchandise for the show was a "Here Comes the Grump" Halloween mask, produced by the Ben Cooper Costume Company, for the 1969 holiday season.
A feature film adaptation based on the series was produced byÁnima Estudios inMexico and the newly launchedGFM Animation, with the animation being done at Prime Focus World inLondon.[5][6]
The film was released inMexico on July 26, 2018,[7] followed by the US release on September 14, under the nameA Wizard's Tale.
^Perlmutter, David (2018).The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 279.ISBN978-1538103739.
^Erickson, Hal (2005).Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 408–409.ISBN978-1476665993.
