El Mago de los sueños (English: "The Dream Wizard") is a 1966 Spanish animated film directed and produced by Francisco Macián. It is based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen and features La Familia Telerín (the Telerin Family), a group of children who were famous in Spain for telling kids in TV to go to sleep, as protagonists.
The film is about the dream wizard, who in his routine of making nice dreams to well-behaved children is distracted and awakes by accident the Telerín family, getting exposed and discovered by them in the process. He introduces himself to them and gave each one of the children a nice dream.
In 2018, the Telerín kids return as the protagonists of the animated television series Cleo & Cuquin.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Anthropomorphic Typography: Cuquin meets several of these in his dream inside a dream, those explaining to the baby how to read, write and calculate in a musical song.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The king in Tete's dream, who likes to tax his poor oppressed people and antagonizes Tete when he goes to his castle to get his money.
- Art Shift: Cleo's dream stands out from the rest of the dreams in the movie as its art style is done exclusively with crayons, imitating children's doodles.
- Bad Boss: In Pelusin's nightmare, Don Coco, acting as a mean librarian, gives harsh tasks to Pelusin, refusing to let him play like other children. Later in the dream, he gives the boy a fake coin to crush the kid's hopes of owning a peg-top and send the poor boy to rot in prison.
- Berserk Button: Any despective comment towards his short stature is this to the titular magician. He is more lenient with the kids, but doesn't have the same mercy when Don Coco quitasueños decide to insult him as he was about to leave.
- Circus Episode: One of the dreams of the movie involves a story set in a circus.
- Child Eater: The giant kidnaps the Telerin family in Cuquin's dream with the intention of eating them. He doesn't succeed.
- Crash-Into Hello: This is how the titular "mago" ("wizard") meets "La Familia Telerin"
- Defeat Means Friendship: The giant in Cuquin's dream becomes more friendly to them after Cuquin convinces him that he's his conscience.
- Double Take: The dream wizard after Don Coco finally enters the window and one of the kids mistakes him for a Martian.The dream Wizard: No es un marciano, es Don Coco quitasueños[[...Beat]] Don Coco?
* The Dragon: The greedy king from Tete's dreams has a literal one that serves the king. - Dream Sequence: Most of the film involves the dreams the family had plus one nightmare.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The movie takes place during one whole night at the Telerin's house, and the movie ends with the wizard leaving at early dawn when it's ensured that all the children are asleep.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: The movie ends with the dream wizard leaving the house as every member of the Telerin family falls asleep.
- Heroic Dog: Maripi becomes one in the dream where she is the protagonist, as she protects her owner's house from a Thief
- Innocent Aliens: The alien that Cleo befriends in her dream while traveling the galaxy.
- Nightmare Sequence: Pelusin has one grated by Don Coco Quitasueños because of his bad behavior during the day. Fortunately for him, the nightmare has a good ending when the dream decides to intervene after being insulted by Don Coco upon leaving.
- "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: Cuquin's dream of him learning how to read and write, and later using his gained reading and writing skills to save his family from an evil giant.
- Riches to Rags
- The king in Tete's dream ends with all his treasure stolen and his castle swept by the river.
- Don Coco enforces this on Pelusin, changing his plebeian clothes and reducing his status to a mere slave who ends up in jail.
- In Pelusin's nightmare, Don Coco as a librarian steals Pelusin's magic coin to use it to increase his riches, only for the coin to take away all his fortune.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Don Coco decides to leave the house when his wrecking wakes up the pissed mother of the Telerin family.
- Sleep Walking: Cleo informs the dream wizard that Tete sleepwalks in the night to explain why the kid is suddenly attacking him with an umbrella.
- Tasty Gold: The toy shopkeeper does this to Pelusin's coin when he attempts to buy a peg-top. The coin turns out to be fake, and immediately he takes away the toy and calls the police to throw the poor boy into prison.
- Third Time's The Charm: Don Coco tries to enter the house to punish Pelusin two times but a distraction causes him to fall from the window. For the third time, he succeeds in entering the house.
- Villain Has a Point: While Don Coco is quite sadistic, he points out to the wizard that Pelusin has misbehaved for stealing, thus being undeserving to have a nice dream by their rules, which the titular dream wizard reluctantly agrees and leaves. He only defies Don Coco when he insults him behind his back.
- Villainous Breakdown: Don Coco has this when his nightmare is modified by the Dream wizard to have a good ending and loses all his treasury inside his nightmare.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: El Mago and Don Coco can shapeshift themselves into what they want with the power of their magic
