Long Live Servatius (original title: Éljen Szervác!) is a relatively obscure Hungarian Stop Motion film produced by Pannonia Film Studio, directed by Ottó Foky. The film's visual style is very similar to Foky's earlier movie Misi Mókus kalandjai, but the humor is notably darker, often verging into Black Comedy.
The film tells the story of an elderly hunter named Servatius (or Szervác), whose birthday party guests include all sorts of animals he met in the past. Over the course of the party, the hunter reminisces about his past adventures around the world.
Tropes
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The leopard is unusually dapper compared to the other animals in the movie. During his initial encounter with Servatius, he wears a safari hat. When he comes to visit Servatius at his birthday, he wears a collar with a necktie, as well as a boater hat and a cane. The monkey and his grandson wear red scarves for the birthday party, and the penguins wear hats, bows or bonnets.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Though most animals have realistic colors, the lion has a blue mane.
- Animal Disguise: Servatius dons animal disguises at least twice: first in Antarctica to disguise himself as a seal to bait a Wily Walrus, then in India as a tiger to intimidate the real tiger he's hunting.
- Ass in a Lion Skin: The walrus disguises himself as a large penguin during his ploy to kidnap seals.
- Berserk Button: Running out of candies for the gorilla. It makes him grab everyone by their ankles and shaking them hoping that they drop some candies.
- Black Comedy: The condor showing up everywhere in the world and wishing for Servatius's death is a Running Gag over the movie. The segment taking place in India is especially dark, with two goats getting eaten by the tiger, and ultimately the tiger is run over by a tank (though he survives it).
- Circling Vultures: While he seldom does any actual circling (other than their first encounter when he flies around Servatius to make him dizzy), the condor showing up usually indicates Servatius is in a life-threatening situation.
- Cool Old Guy: Servatius, retired from hunting, becomes a friendly old man full of exciting stories about his past adventures. The animals he encountered seem to like him enough to visit him on his birthday even if they were enemies in the past.
- Defeat Means Friendship: The leopard, the tiger and several other animals Servatius hunted become chummy with him after they are outsmarted by the hunter.
- Feathered Fiend: The condor is the main antagonist of the film, showing up at various places and trying to eat Servatius.
- Feather Fingers: The condor can use his wings to manipulate objects, including such complex tasks as baking an entire sponge cake.
- Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, goats and seals walk on all fours, whereas monkeys and gorillas can switch between walking on two legs and knuckle-walking. Big cats, however, can walk on their hind legs (though the tiger can switch between walking on two legs and all fours, and the jaguar stays on all fours all the way), and so do zebras and walruses, for some reason. Birds like the ostrich, the condor and the penguins, of course, walk on two legs and can use their wings as hands.
- Friendly Enemy: This is the relationship between Servatius and most of the animals he hunts. The animals respect him enough to visit him on his birthday.
- Furry Baldness: Some of the elderly animals have white hair on their head resembling a receding hairline, including the gorilla, the leopard and the lion. Their younger selves have a patch of hair on the top of their head instead.
- Gentle Giant: The boa constrictor is massive, but he's very kind and friendly with Servatius.
- Great White Hunter: Servatius is an adventurous, honorable hunter. While he's out for the big trophy, he has a surprisingly kind heart and has the tendency to help animals in need.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The walrus wears green striped pants with suspenders, but no shirt.
- Honorable Elephant: The African Elephant first seems aggressive, but that's because one of his tusks has a large cavity, giving him a toothache. When Servatius helps him remove the sore tusk, the elephant gratefully gives the tusk to him. The Asian Elephant, meanwhile, has a strong sense of justice, which, unfortunately, makes him side with the tiger against Servatius.
- Humanlike Animal Aging: Most animals that Servatius encountered in his youth are still alive and show up to his birthday, even though they mostly belong to species that don't live that long.
- Identical Stranger: The African and the Asian elephant are clearly meant to be two different characters, but they look identical apart from the Asian elephant wearing some red barding.
- Inconsistent Coloring: The condor's colors, though always a grey base, seem to change between segments - it seems a different puppet was used for each segment. Notably, his tuft of Non-Mammalian Hair is sometimes black, sometimes white and sometimes blue.
- Killer Gorilla: The gorilla loses his temper when he runs out of candies. The condor hopes the gorilla would kill Servatius when they get face to face, but he just tosses the hunter away after finding some extra candy in his pockets.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Servatius encounters a walrus in Antarctica. Also, while Servatius first encounters the condor in the geographically correct South America, it follows him to Africa, India, Antarctica and the Pacific.
- Non-Mammalian Hair: The condor, the ostrich, the cobra and the boa constrictor all have patches of human-like hair on top of their head.
- Overly Long Name: The boa constrictor's full name is as long as he is: Don Alvarez José Miguel Santos y Gomez Marilouise Fernándos Carlo del Boa Constrictor.
- Panthera Awesome: A leopard, a tiger and a lion are all focus characters in a segment, and they are all badass on their own right. The leopard runs a prison where he keeps zebras incarcerated, the tiger is extremely cunning and engages with Servatius in a battle of wits, whereas the lion, while most animals are terrified of him, only wants his music talents to be appreciated.
- Predator Turned Protector: More often than not, Servatius ends up helping the animal that he initially intended to hunt.
- Reused Character Design: Servatius looks very similar to Ottmár the paleontologist from Misi Mókus kalandjai, and the monkeys also show a strong resemblance to Bumba from the same movie.
- Rhino Rampage: Servatius encounters a rhinoceros and a cape buffalo in Africa. The two beasts charge into his car and squash it flat.
- Running Gag: Whenever Servatius ends up in a life-threatening situation, the condor shows up preparing for a meal.
- Sapient Eat Sapient: All animals are sapient in the movie. Thus, the leopard and the tiger can hold a conversation with the zebras and goats they eat as well as the hunter who is after them.
- Scavengers Are Scum: The condor is the most unpleasant character in the movie, always on the trail of Servatius, expecting him to be killed by one of the larger animals and feast on his remains.* Sore Loser: The lion doesn't handle losing in a card game very well, throwing a tantrum and sending other animals to run.
- Squashed Flat: Happens to the tiger after Servatius runs him over with a tank. However, the tiger survives it and remains alive for several decades as a pelt.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The condor, after encountering Servatius in South America and failing to eat him, follows him to Africa, India, the Pacific and even Antarctica, hoping that one of the larger animals kills the hunter and he can eat the remains.
- Super-Strength: The gorilla can bend the bars of a metal cage with relative ease.
- Sweet Tooth: The gorilla has such a massive appetite for candy that he even wrecks Servatius's birthday several decades later to look for sweets.
- Talking Animal: There's no language barrier between species. Humans, gorillas, lions, tigers, goats, condors, snakes, sharks, octopuses and even clams can freely talk with each other.
- Threatening Shark: A great white shark attempts to eat Servatius while he's searching for pearls in the Pacific. He tricks the predator by making fake wooden legs that get stuck in the shark's stomach and give him a stomach-ache.
- Token Human: Servatius is the only human character in the movie.
- Two Girls to a Team: Among Servatius's party guests, there are two female animals, the penguin and the cobra (though the monkey's grandkid is also voiced by a woman).
- Vegetarian Carnivore: The leopard is forced to become this after he breaks his carnivore dentures, which gets replaced by blunt herbivore dentures. He even eats the flowers that he brings to Servatius as a gift.
- Wily Walrus: The walrus is one of the most evil characters in the movie, kidnapping seals and forcing them to perform in his private circus.
