History Franchise / Tintin

* SeenitAllSuicide: Calculus mentions that after seeing Earth from more than 10,000 kilometers, you can die happy. Tintin counters with it being fine, but he himself would rather wait a few years.

* NotSoCrazyAnymore: In "Destination Moon", Captain Haddock spends a lot of time mocking Professor Calculus for saying that travel to the moon is possible. When the book was published, in 1953, this was understandable, but after 1969, HADDOCK seems like the crazy one...

** In "The Seven Crystal Balls" Tintin and his companions all have the same nightmare: that they are visited by the Inca mummy Rascar Capac who enters their bedroom by night and then throws a crystal boll on the floor.

** Haddock's drunken shenanigans

* {{Eagleland}}: The America portrayed in the books is a combination of this and {{Gangsterland}} and InjunCountry.

* EarTrumpet: Professor Calculus uses one in ''Destination Moon'' (which gets switched out at one point for the Captain's pipe). For the actual trip, he uses an earpiece that allows him to hear perfectly. Needless to say, [[StatusQuoIsGod later volumes return him to his hard-of-hearing state]].

* VillainBall: In "Flight 714", the villainous Spalding makes a call while Tintin, in a rare subversion of what he normally does, is tying his shoes. Believing that Tintin was spying on him, he makes up a lie about calling his grandmother, which gets Tintin suspicious. If he hadn't of lied, Tintin would've never suspected anything.

* MisterDanger: The villains of several stories, specially the ones set in Africa, Middle East and China.

* TheGhost:
** Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch, the dictator of Borduria. Being the ultimate higher-up of such villains as Colonel Sponsz and Musstler, he could be considered the [[TheManBehindTheMan real]] BigBad of ''King Ottokar's Sceptre'', ''The Calculus Affair'' and ''Tintin and the Picaros'', but never throws in a personal appearance -- all we ever see of him is the occasional statue.
** General Tapioca barely manages to avert this status. Despite being an apparently brutal dictator and the enemy of General Alcazar, he wasn't actually seen in ''The Broken Ear'' or ''The Red Sea Sharks''. He finally appeared in person in the last completed book, ''Tintin and the Picaros''.

* TheNamesake: The titular sharks only show up at the end of ''The Red Sea Sharks'', which may explain why the English title translation is an outlier for an adventure everyone else knows roughly as "Coke on Board". The signficance of the title in ''The Broken Ear'' also takes a while to come into focus.

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfTintin'' (2011-present), a motion capture animation trilogy by Creator/PeterJackson's {{Weta}} Digital and directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg.

** ''Flight 714'' has Tintin and Haddock involucred by a ContrivedCoincidence into a plot to blackmail a millionaire, recurring villains Rastapopoulus and Allan suffer intentional VillainDecay by being depicted ridiculous and stupid, all of them would have died in an eruption but are saved by [[DeusExMachina aliens]], and only Snowy remembers how they were rescued, for everyone else, was a ShaggyDogStory.
** ''Tintin and the Picaros:'' Tintin, the GentlemanAdventurer, no longer enjoys adventure and [[RefusalOfTheCall refuses the call]] for some days, almost all the supporting cast is in [[BananaRepublic San Theodoros]] when the protagonist go there, Haddock cannot drink alcohol, [[SeriousBusiness and the worst Is that Tintin]], [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks instead of his plus fours, now wears bell bottoms! ]] the second to last panel shows that San Theodoros has had a FullCircleRevolution and all it was a ShaggyDogStory.

* Lazlo Carreidas the millionaire (four aces in your hand)

* UpdatedRerelease: Hergé redid ''Tintin in the Congo'' later, [[CanonDiscontinuity excising]] as many UnfortunateImplications as he could.

** Ranko the [[EverythingIsBetterWithMonkeys Gorilla]] in ''The Black Island'' is a nonhuman example.
* HenpeckedHusband: [[BadassSpaniard General Alcazar]] of all people.

* BadassSpaniard: General Alcazar
** Debatable, as he's never actually seen doing anything badass. In fact, in the only occasion he gets some time under the spotlight, he's portrayed [[HenpeckedHusband in a very different light.]]

* BadassBookworm: Although he is a short, wiry reporter with no muscles, Tintin is rarely (if ever) bested in a fair fight, even when his enemy is twice his size. He is also an excellent shot. During his visit to America he single-handedly laid waste to crowds. During his visit to India he subdued an attacking tiger and restrained it in a straitjacket despite being caught by surprise. During his visit to Russia he killed a bear with his bare hands. It has been stated that he has at least a working knowledge of judo and western boxing.

* InsaneEqualsViolent: Zig-zagged - An important plot point is that the enemies of the drug-smuggling gang from the Cigars of the Phraoah&Blue Lotus arc are disposed of by poisoning by the Rajijah Juice. Victims of the Rajijah juice aren't violent, rather, total CloudCuckooLander-types, although only two are violent. Sarcophagus, who is influenced by a hypnotist, and Didi.

[[RippedFromTheHeadlines The real world frequently impinges upon the stories]], with many identifiable events from real life being presented with only a few slight changes of name, for example the [[ChacoWar Grand Chapo (real life, Gran Chaco)]] war in ''The Broken Ear'', and the [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Sino-Japanese war]] in ''The Blue Lotus''. World War II was hinted at less as Belgium was occupied by the Nazis. In this period, Hergé's stories in this period are fanciful high-adventure yarns with no reference to war at all.

Briefly, Tintin was invented by Georges Remi (AKA Hergé, from his initials backwards, R.G., spelt phonetically in French) as a cartoon character for ''Le Petit Vingtième'', the children's supplement to ''Le Vingtième Siècle'' (The Twentieth Century), a conservative, Catholic newspaper in Belgium. The character was developed from Totor, a boy scout character Hergé had previously drawn for ''Le Boy-Scout Belge''. The series ran from 1929 to 1976, ending on the incomplete ''Tintin and the Alph-Art''.

[[RippedFromTheHeadlines The real world frequently impinges upon the stories]], with many identifiable events from real life being presented with only a few slight changes of name, for example the [[ChacoWar Grand Chapo (real life, Gran Chaco)]] war in ''The Broken Ear'', and the [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Sino-Japanese war]] in ''The Blue Lotus''. World War II was hinted at less as Belgium was occupied by the Nazis. In this period, Herge's stories in this period are fanciful high-adventure yarns with no reference to war at all

Briefly, Tintin was invented by Georges Remi (AKA Hergé, from his initials backwards, R.G., spelt phonetically in French) as a cartoon character for ''Le Petit Vingtième'', the children's supplement to ''Le Vingtième Siècle'' (The Twentieth Century), a conservative, Catholic newspaper in Belgium. The character was developed from Totor, a boy scout character Hergé had previously drawn for ''Le Boy-Scout Belge''. The first adventure was published in 1929 and concerned the young hero, supposedly a reporter for Le Vingtième, accompanied by his dog, Snowy (Milou in French), visiting Soviet Russia and revealing the various iniquities of the Communists, as seen by conservative, Catholic, Belgian eyes.

The second adventure took the hero to the Belgian Congo, and was in a large part a defense of colonialism, despite the fact that the Belgian administration in the Congo was so brutal that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even other European imperial powers denounced it.]] In 2007, the UK Commission for Racial Equality called for it to be [[BannedInChina banned in the UK]] for racism (it is sold with a band warning the reader of its content within). It should also be noted that [[OldShame Hergé himself labeled it as "bourgeois and paternalistic."]]

As the first two stories were basically clumsy propaganda pieces, they have never been much admired by fans, [[OldShame and even the creator admitted their flaws.]] However, from the third adventure, ''Tintin in America'', onwards, the blatancy of the propaganda was reduced and the inventiveness of the adventures increased so that the series has been enjoyed by readers young and old the world over.

[[RippedFromTheHeadlines The real world frequently impinges upon the stories]], with many identifiable events from real life being presented with only a few slight changes of name, for example the [[ChacoWar Grand Chapo (real life, Gran Chaco)]] war in ''The Broken Ear'', and the [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Sino-Japanese war]] in ''The Blue Lotus''.

Eventually the real world was to catch up with the series in a more serious manner. Two stories from the late '30s, ''King Ottokar's Sceptre'' and the original version of ''The Black Island'', as well the opening chapters of ''The Land of Black Gold'' (later revised and republished), show a possible buildup to war with villains who look suspiciously like Nazis. War, of course, came, and Belgium was occupied. Hergé made the decision to continue his work under the occupation to provide entertainment for his countrymen. To escape the Nazi censor, his stories in this period are fanciful high-adventure yarns with no reference to war at all. (''The Crab with Golden Claws'', ''The Shooting Star'' and the treasure hunt stories, ''Secret of the Unicorn'' and ''Red Rackham's Treasure''.) These stories' fantastic quests and pulp adventures would influence later stories who would include such high-adventure elements even as the stories themselves would return to real-world inspired elements. However, after liberation, Hergé was accused of being a collaborator for publishing in a [[LesCollaborateurs collaborationist newspaper.]] Worse, ''The Shooting Star'' had a very obvious Jewish-financier stereotype villain. His work was interrupted for a time.

After his name had been cleared, Hergé continued his stories in a magazine titled ''Tintin''. The stories were now much more tightly scripted than the earlier examples, and included some new characters, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus (Tournesol in French, meaning Sunflower), who had been introduced in the wartime adventures, as well as two clownish policemen, Thompson (with a 'p', as in 'Philadelphia') and Thomson (without a 'p', [[DisSimile as in 'Venezuela']]) who had appeared earlier. (The original French version used [[SpellMyNameWithAnS "Dupond" and "Dupont" - pronounced the same]] in French.)

The stories continued, with returns to various settings previously visited, and sudden appearances by a large supporting cast, and included a very well-researched mission to the moon, tending toward the 'Hard' end of MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness. The last completed adventure was published in 1976. Hergé was working on a twenty-fourth adventure, ''Tintin and Alph-Art'', [[AuthorExistenceFailure until his death in 1983]].

* In the 1960s, a Télé-Hachette and Belvision production that is considered of poor quality by fans.
* In the early 1990s, there was a much better received French-Canadian series (coproduced by Ellipse and {{Nelvana}}), which was much more faithful to the original works ''and'' had an [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u30Jb9L9G0g awesome theme]].

* A lively and faithful stop motion-animated feature film based on ''The Crab With The Golden Claws'' made in 1947, whose only copy is kept at the Tintin museum in Brussels and shown to paying visitors. In 2008 this was ported to DVD and released in France and Europe by Fox-Pathé.
* ''Tintin and the Sun Temple'' (1969), by Belvision and made from the combined storyline of ''The Seven Crystal Balls'' and ''Prisoners of the Sun''. Usually agreed to be the best of Belvision's ''Tintin'' productions, and the only one that Hergé himself had any significant involvement with.

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfTintin'' (2011), a 3D animation based on ''The Secret of the Unicorn''. More details on its respective page.

[[Film/{{Tintin}} A feature film]] has now been released, the first of three directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg and produced by Creator/PeterJackson.

[[Film/{{Tintin}} A feature film]] has now been released, the first of three directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg and Creator/PeterJackson and written by StevenMoffat[[note]]He was supposed to write the second too, but to quote him: " As we all know, it is the proper duty of every British subject to come to the aid of [[Series/DoctorWho the TARDIS.]]"[[/note]] and EdgarWright, entitled ''[[LongTitle The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn]]''. It features [[BillyElliot Jamie Bell]] as Tintin, [[SerkisFolk Andy Serkis]] as Captain Haddock, and SimonPegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thompson, and was made through the use of Motion Capture by WETA. It was released in 2011 and is a combination of the plots of ''The Secret of the Unicorn, The Crab with the Golden Claws'' and ''Red Rackham's Treasure''. A sequel is due in 2014 and is rumoured to be based on ''The Calculus Affair'' and written by AnthonyHorowitz.