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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nogginthenog_001.jpg]]
2In the lands of the North, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the Men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale... they tell a tale of Noggin the Nog, the king of a land that strongly echoes popular culture's depiction of viking culture.
3
4''The Saga of Noggin the Nog'' is a British children's television series that originally aired in 1959.
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6!!This work provides examples of:
7* AdultsAreUseless: This happens in the very last film "Noggin and the Pie" -- no-one will take Knut's concerns about the gigantic and suspicious pie seriously. It is thus left to him and the other children to save the day.
8* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: In "The Omruds", Nogbad the Bad and his crows capture Noggin's castle.
9* AntiMagic: Olaf has a jewel that apparently grants him immunity to the effects of magic.
10* BunglingInventor: Olaf the Lofty, court inventor, whose inventions have mixed results; some work, some partly work and some do the opposite of what he wanted.
11* ChainOfDeals: In one of the spin-off books, Olaf the Lofty invents money and uses it to buy something off Thor Nogson, who then spends a frustrating day in the (barter-based) marketplace trying to find somebody else who'll take the coins as payment. Eventually he meets a fisherman who sees the coins as weights for fishing lines and gives him a fish for them, allowing him to set up a chain of deals running back through all the people he's talked to and ending with him getting the thing he'd come to the market to buy in the first place.
12%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Olaf.
13* CoolChair: King Knut's chair of stone. Placed at the top of a very tall, steep hill, King Knut would walk up to it every dawn and sit there to watch the sunrise, and watch over his Kingdom.
14* CoolSword: The closest Nogbad ever got to ruling the Northlands (not to mention the world) was when he obtained the Sorcerer's Sword in "Firecake". It was a longsword that gave the wielder control over all living beings in the world, except for the stone giants. It was useless as a melee weapon, as Prince Knut was able to shatter it into pieces on a rock like glass, making it more like a magic wand than a sword.
15%%* CreepyCrows: Nogbad the Bad's minions.
16%%* CuttingTheKnot: Thor Nogson almost literally does this when the fire machine's brake handle is, well, broken.%%"Literally does" what?
17%%* DeadpanSnarker: Graculus the Great Green Bird, right from his first line.
18%%* DirtyCoward: Nogbad the Bad and his crows.
19* DitzyGenius: While clearly a competent inventor, Olaf has a knack for making poor decisions and getting things wrong.
20* EnchantedForest: The Great Black Forest of Troldeskow is a brief obstacle in "The Ice Dragon". The trees move around, allowing no paths and confounding any who enter.
21* EthnicMagician: The politically-incorrect (by modern standards) Arab in "The Flying Machine".
22%%* EvilLaugh: Nogbad the Bad.
23%%* EvilUncle:
24%%** Nogbad.
25%%** The Emperor from "The Flying Machine"
26* EvilWeapon: The Sorcerer's Sword is explicitly said to be full of evil magic.
27%%* TheGoodKing: Noggin, and his deceased father, King Knut.
28* HarmlessFreezing: The Ice Dragon's breath encases an object or person in ice, but if they are thawed out soon enough, they suffer no ill effects.
29%%* LittlePeople: The Omruds and the people of the Hot Water Valley.
30* LoopholeAbuse: Nogbad can never steal again, lest he face the wrath of the dragons, so he instead trains a murder of crows to steal for him.
31* MagicallyBindingContract: Nogbad is forced to sign a promise written on Dragon Paper, which lets the dragons know if he ever steals again.
32* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Olaf has this reaction after Nogbad's crows steal his firecake recipe. This disaster could have been avoided if Olaf had followed Noggin's repeated orders to destroy it.
33* NiceGuy: Noggin himself.
34* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Olaf's inventions have a habit of leading to this; both his failed shrinking potion and his recipe for firecake land in the hands of Nogbad the Bad, who uses them to create an army of huge crows and uncover the Sorcerer's Sword respectively.
35* NonActionBigBad: Nogbad the Bad never fights (even when Thor Nogson challenges him) and usually has his crows do his dirty work; the latter is at least partly justified after he is forced to sign a contract with the dragons never to steal again.
36* NonFatalExplosions: Olaf's discovery of gunpowder (called "firecake") blows him through the castle wall, completely unharmed. Olaf apparently has a habit of doing this; he quite happily blows himself through a wall whilst working on his fire machine, and later his explosive called "firecake".
37%%* NorseByNorsewest
38* OhCrap:
39** Noggin and Thor Nogson, while searching for the ice dragon, realise that the "hill" they have climbed is in fact the dragon's back.
40** Nogbad has this reaction when he sees that the Sorcerer's Sword is ineffective against the Stone Giants
41** Graculus follows a crow that has stolen one of Olaf's formulas into a cave, and [[spoiler: runs straight into Nogbad the Bad]]
42* OldSoldier: Thor Nogson, Captain of the King's Guard and Noggin's constant companion. He gets bored in times of peace and is eager to challenge Nogbad to a duel when the opportunity presents himself. He is less than eager when it comes to new experiences though, such as flying or fighting a dragon.
43* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Fire-breathing dragons are only mentioned, but a dragon that breathes ice and can only be in hot areas for a limited amount of time becomes an ally of Noggin.
44* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Played with. No actual dwarves appear, but Ronf (the only really characterised one of the LittlePeople of Hot Water Valley) is a belligerent, heavily bearded warrior with a Scottish accent; while his people don't normally live underground (except when hiding from the dragon), they do use tunnels to get through the Glass Mountains. Meanwhile, the other little people - the Omruds - DO live underground and are ingenious engineers and craftsmen. So basically dwarf tropes are divided between the two.
45* PlotTriggeringDeath: The first episode involved the death of King Knut, which set off Prince Noggin's first quest; to find his bride and Queen.
46* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Noggin undertakes the various quests himself, usually with Thor Nogson and Graculus. In his spare time, he helps with the gardening.
47%%* SmugSnake: Nogbad.
48* SummonBiggerFish: Faced with the pretender Emperor, Noggin summons the benevolent genie that he borrowed from Haroun. The Emperor summons his own genie, a much larger genie that can actually fight. Noggin uses his talisman to summon Groliffe, who happens to be the one type of dragon that can kill the black genie.
49* TearsFromAStone: In the episode "Firecake", the statues (revealed to be hibernating guardians of the Sorcerer's sword) can cry when faced with death/rejection.
50* ThrowingDownTheGauntlet: In "The Omruds" Thor Nogson challenges Nogbad the Bad to single combat. Nogbad accepts but, being the DirtyCoward that he is, immediately uses a magic potion to triple his size. Thor Nogson tries again in "Firecake"; this time Nogbad refuses until he has unearthed the Sorcerer's Sword.
51%%* TheUsurper:
52%%* VillainExitStageLeft: Nogbad's usual response to events turning against him.%%Is?

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