Line #25 WesternAnimation/TheMagicPudding


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_magic_pudding_film_adapt.jpg]]
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3	''The Magic Pudding'' is a 2000 animated film produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and directed by Karl Zwicky. It is based on [[Literature/TheMagicPudding the children's story of the same name]] written by Norman Lindsay. The movie tells of the journey taken by a young koala, Bunyip Bluegum, to find his missing parents and how along the way he is joined by three interesting individuals: Bill Barnacle, a wise but rough and hot-tempered seaman; Sam Sawnoff, a calm, compassionate talking penguin; and of course the titular character himself, Albert the Magic Pudding.
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6	!!Tropes seen in ''The Magic Pudding'' include:
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8	* AdaptationalNiceGuy:
9	** In the book, Albert is a straight-up JerkAss. Here, he's more of a JerkWithAHeartOfGold. He does some really nasty things, including taunting Bunyip over his failure to find his parents at one point, but also showcases a genuine heroic side and a concern for his adoptive family -- though buried under his gruffness.
10	** The Pudding Thieves, in this movie, are ForcedIntoEvil under Buncle.
11	* AdaptationExpansion: Bunyip Bluegum's quest to find his parents was invented for the movie to provide the story with some structure; in the book he just sets out to see the world with no particular aim in mind.
12	* AdaptedOut: Curry-and-Rice does not appear in the movie, having been replaced by Buncle.
13	* AlliterativeName: Bunyip Bluegum, Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff.
14	* AscendedToCarnivorism: Invoked and played for horror when Buncle decides that, as he's eaten all the other food and his Pudding Thieves can't bring him Albert, he'll start eating his slaves. Zigzagged in that he's not exactly enthused about this -- in fact, what saves his first intended meal is that he's so fussy about still being able to smell that it's meat that it delays them being served up until Albert interrupts -- and he makes it quite clear he'd rather have vegetables. But he's just so insatiably hungry that he's stopped caring ''what'' he eats, so long as it's '''food'''.
15	* BeenThereShapedHistory: Played for laughs in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xitN_sMcsc "The Pudding Owner's Song"]], in which Bill & Sam sing about Albert the Magic Pudding's origins and how they came to own him. They claim Albert dropped off the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, helped fuel the Egyptians so that they could build the pyramids, was used by Moses to part the Red Sea, was given as a gift from the 3 Wise Men to Baby Jesus, belonged to Napoleon (which was why he always had a hand in his shirt), was the reason behind the Mutiny on the Bounty (Captain Bligh was stingy with the second course), was the reason behind Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake" (because she thought she had Albert, so she could feed them all), and was on the Titanic when it sank, which is how it wound up trapped up in an iceberg and ultimately came to be in Bill & Sam's possession.
16	* BewareTheNiceOnes: When Albert decides to be a ''real'' JerkAss and mock Bunyip over his failure to find his parents, the normally nice koala loses his temper and kicks Albert in the arse so hard he flies into the branches of a gum tree.
17	* BigBad: Buncle, the gluttonous wombat.
18	* BigEater:
19	** Played With in that Albert, being an everlasting supply of food, expects everyone to eat him in extremely large amounts. He gets annoyed when it turns out they don't.
20	** Buncle, [[NoPartyLikeaDonnerParty in a very horrifying way]].
21	* CanonForeigner: Buncle did not appear in the original story. While there was a character named Buncle in the original story, it's nothing like Movie Buncle. Novel Buncle was not the main villain (really was mostly an upper class snob), appears very briefly in one of the poems, and was a human instead of an anthropomorphic wombat. Here, he replaces Curry-and-Rice as the VillainousGlutton.
22	* ComingOfAgeStory: Bunyip's adventure begins literally on the day he comes of age.
23	* DisneyDeath: Albert appears to have died after going OneWingedAngel, but he's quickly revealed to still be alive.
24	* DisneyVillainDeath: Subverted for Buncle in the prologue. Hanging on for dear life from an icy precipice after trying to take the magic pudding for himself, the cliff starts sliding off of the mainland and crashing into the ocean, taking Buncle with it. He survives, swearing to get the pudding back.
25	--> '''Buncle''': I want...that...'''PUDDING!'''
26	* DomesticAbuse: When the Pudding Thieves return in failure, Buncle threatens to send them to labor in the mines with his other slaves. The terrified Wombat pleads with Buncle for mercy by reminding him that he's Buncle's nephew, the son of Buncle's sister, and asking if he'd really send his own family into the ranks of the slaves. Buncle laughs in his nephew's face and mockingly asks where his nephew thinks his mother has ''been'' for the last few years, making it clear that family means '''nothing''' to Buncle in comparison to his hunger.
27	* FaceHeelTurn: Buncle was a fellow shipmate, and possibly friend, of Bill and Sam in the prologue. Due to his SanitySlippage in the time they are stranded on the Antarctic ice, being accidentally left for dead after he fell into the icy waters of the ocean, and his mania to possess the titular pudding, he becomes the movie's central villain after the TimeSkip.
28	* FatIdiot: Buncle, at least originally. He used to be the stokesman and cook on a small steamer with Bill and Sam, but he caused the ship to flounder because ''he was using the coal engine to bake a cake''.
29	* ForcedIntoEvil: The Pudding Thieves. The wombat is Buncle's nephew, the possum is that wombat's friend, and they are forced by him to search for Albert or else join his other slaves.
30	* {{Foreshadowing}}: When they are stranded in the Antarctic without food in the opening prologue, Buncle goes crazy and starts considering Sam as a potential dinner. Later on in the film, when his food supply runs dry...
31	--> '''Buncle''': I must have food. ''[smells the air]'' Those slaves are smelling good enough to eat.
32	* FromNobodyToNightmare: Buncle started out as a sailor whose worst failings were being a FatIdiot. When he discovered Albert, he attempted to murder his shipmates Bill and Sam to keep the magic pudding all to himself. When that failed, he set himself up as a slaver and warlord in the Outback -- and then almost graduates to ''cannibalism''.
33	* HartmanHips: Ginger, Buncle's female rat assistant, has childbearing hips and a large backside.
34	* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: The film ends with the disclaimer "No animated animals were harmed in the making of this film".
35	* NonIndicativeName: The incredibly friendly, polite and all around genial Penguin is known as Sam [[SawedOffShotgun Sawnoff]], needless to say there are no firearms featured in this children's film.
36	* OneWingedAngel: When Buncle demands that Albert give him "a ''million'' serves of veggie pie!", Albert responds by horrifically swelling up into a giant, monstrous pudding and then throwing Buncle all the way back to Antarctica before exploding.
37	* PragmaticAdaptation: There isn't a chance in ''hell'' that Albert's original backstory from the books -- where he was the invention of the [[YellowPeril shockingly racist]] VillainousGlutton FatBastard Chinese chef and mystic, Curry-and-Rice, whom Bill and Sam threw into the sea to drown when they learned he would rather watch them both starve to death than share his Magic Pudding with them -- would make it past modern day censors. So, instead, Albert was made an ancient magical invention of uncertain origin (though Bill asserts he "dropped off the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden"), whom Bill and Sam just happened to stumble across when they crashed in an iceberg. Curry-and-Rice's role as a VillainousGlutton antagonist was taken by the far less racist -- and much more evil -- Buncle.
38	* StupidEvil: Albert is an infinite source of food that will regenerate his mass, but only so long as you eat him normally (i.e one spoonful at a time). What does Buncle do? Tries to swallow him whole all at once. Which judging from how Albert was scrambling around to avoid it would have killed him. Buncle then demands he give him "A million servings of veggie pie" and then "All of the puddings in the world". Once again forgetting that Albert was ''already'' an infinite food source, but causing the already swelling Albert to explode...while Buncle was standing on top of him.
39	* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: A regular habit of Bill and Sam's is to burst into song at the slightest excuse.
40	* TokenHuman: In a cast full of anthropomorphic animals, Bill is the only human, although other historical figures are mentioned in song.
41	* ThoseTwoGuys: The Pudding Thieves, of course. They weren't exactly big-league criminals in the book, but here, they're downright harmless -- ''and'' [[ForcedIntoEvil reluctant villains]] to boot.
42	* VillainousGlutton: Buncle is this in spades. You don't get much more glutinous than refusing to share a food source that's endless anyway, as seen when he attempts to murder Sam and Bill for ownership of Albert. Somehow making his way to Australia, he sets himself up as a tyrannical ruler in the Outback, keeping numerous people -- including Bunyip's parents -- as slaves to provide himself with an endless supply of food. He literally eats the landscape into a famine, and then decides that, if he can't find the Magic Pudding, he'll start ''eating his slaves'' instead.
43	** In a throw-away line, he also reveals that he has made ''his own sister'' into one of his slaves.
44	* WorfEffect: A mild example, Bill Barnacle is of the three main characters the most gung-ho about fighting, that being his go to solution for most pudding thief related problems. It's shown that he's quite good at it too with a wind up ''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'' punch. However when it comes time to confront Buncle, Bill goes in to fight directly and is easily swatted aside.

Context WesternAnimation / TheMagicPudding