The Missing Link (French: Le Chaînon manquant), known in America as B.C. Rock, is a 1980 French–Belgian animated film written and directed by Picha.
Set in the year 196,303 BC, it follows the life and escapades of the caveman Oh. Rejected by his own kind, he travels the world with his two companions — Igua the sauropod and the Croak the pterodactyl. Determined to find his place in life, Oh meets strange new friends and enemies, and learns and develops the skills needed to survive this harsh world. The film is set to a rock soundtrack.
Note that, for some reason, in the English translation every single moment is filled with background music and a first-person narration even where the original was silent.note This is not necessarily a bad thing, since the additional dialogue sometimes adds to the story,note but the original and the translation make for very different viewing experiences.
Not to be confused with The Missing Lynx or the former pro wrestler known as the Missing Link, nor with the 2019 animated film Missing Link.
This film provides examples of:
- All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: Somewhat justified, as the film shows the transition between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens.
- Anachronism Stew: Aside from Man and dinosaurs existing at the same time, there are ants that inexplicably buy and sell (human-sized) Marlboro cigarettes. Also, the No-Lobes have agriculture millennia ahead of time, though it may be justified in that they are not human.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Not only are there dinosaurs and humans in the same time period, but they don't even look like real dinosaurs. Hell, some of them don't even look like they are from Earth.
- Bittersweet Ending: Man develops into a more civilized society, at the cost of wiping out various other species in the process. Also, Oh spends the remainder of his days on Easter Island with Igua and Croak.
- Ass Shove: Oh does this with a cork to a dragon."He stuck a cork up my ass!"
- Later, humans shove burning torches up triceratops rears to make them charge into no-lobes as bowling-ball-like weapons.
- Beast Folk: The "No-Man"s are a race of all-female red feline creatures.
- Been There, Shaped History: Oh unwittingly caused Adam and Eve to be cast off the Garden of Eden. The war between humans and every other creature is what caused continental drift.
- Cast of Snowflakes: The men in Oh's tribe are barely recognizable as belonging to the same species as each other. Averted with the tribe's women, who look remarkably alike, and with non-human species such as the No-Lobes.
- Cluster F-Bomb: The chicken who keeps saying "Fuck off!"
- Crapsack World: It is the dawn of man, after all.
- Dumb Dinos: Inverted. The dinosaurs are smart while humans are dumb.
- Dumb Is Good: Oh. [[Averted]] with his twin Ah, who is dumb and evil.
- Evil Twin: Ah is this to Oh.
- Filling the Silence: The English translation, as mentioned above.
- Humans Are Bastards: Near the end of the film, Man goes around wiping out all other creatures for no other reason than "Man no like no-man!"
- Hive Mind: The No-Lobes seem to be this.
- Hulk Speak: The cavemen speak like this. Oh and Igua too, in the French version (though the US dub makes them speak regularly). Oddly enough, most of the animals have perfect grammar.
- Humanoid Female Animal: Again, the "No-Man" race.
- Intellectual Animal: Many animals throughout the movie. Heck, humans are considered among the dumbest things around.
- Interspecies Romance: Oh and "No-Man".
- Inventing the Wheel: The No-Lobes invented them... And they lay them flat on the ground to use as sleighs. Oh has the idea to set them vertically, but the No-Lobes don't appreciate and throw him out.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Croak.
- Naked People Are Funny: All of Man are naked.
- One-Gender Race: The No-Lobes (all male) and the "No-Man"s (all female). Yet, the No-Lobes lay eggs.
- Only One Female Mold: While human men in Oh's tribe are considerably diverse in appearance, human women look very similar to each other. In a change of pace from typical examples of this trope, the women look more like the Venus of Willendorf than Nubile Savages.
- Our Dragons Are Different: There's a dragon in one scene that farts fire and is voiced by Bill Murray.
- Perverse Sexual Lust: The "No-Man" race uses this to their advantage while hunting.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: The dinosaurs go extinct via mass suicide due to the humans going around wiping out other species.
- Pun-Based Title: The German title "Das fehlende Glied" is a perfectly literal translation...but with the bonus (if one can term it bonus, but after all, Picha is reknowned for his adult animations) that "Glied" also means "penis".
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Rats are as big as dinosaurs in this age. They shrink to their current size when humans declare war on everybody else, presumably out of fear.
- Shout-Out: In a scene where Croak flies carrying Oh, music from Star Wars plays.
- At one point Oh throws a bone in the air a la 2001: A Space Odyssey, only to be hit on the head when a "No-Man" distracts him.
- Swallowed Whole: Oh gets eaten by a giant shark at a point. He not only survives, he lights a fire in its belly Pinocchio-style — which causes the shark to blow up and fly like a hot air balloon — and he later get out from the *ahem* other end, completely unharmed.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Oh teaches his tribe how to make fire, giving them the technology they need to declare war on every non-human.
- Workaholic: The No-Lobes are an entire race of these.
