First written in 1959 as a poem by filmmaker Leonard Lipton and set to music in 1963 by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary (who recorded it for their Moving album and scored a #2 hit single), "Puff, the Magic Dragon" tells the story of a boy who outgrows his childhood fantasies. The song also inspired a series of animated TV specials that recast the eponymous dragon as a sort of fantastical child psychologist coming to the aid of some deeply troubled children.
The song provides examples of:
- Belated Happy Ending: The book adaptation in 2007, with
the authors' input, gives Puff another companion after Jackie Paper grows up (Jackie's child). - Delightful Dragon: Puff spends his time playing with Jackie, and never hurts anyone.
- Downer Ending: The original song ends with Jackie Paper growing up and forgetting about Puff, leaving him alone.
- Gloomy Gray: Jackie Paper stops visiting on "one gray night".
- Growing Up Sucks: We're told about all the fun that Jackie Paper has with his friend Puff, but nothing about his life after leaving Puff behind. Thus the focus is on loss rather than growing as a person.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: As the final verse states, a dragon lives forever, but little boys, not so much.
- Mood Whiplash: The final stanza of the poem, which would have established that Puff then goes on to play with some other child and (one assumes) repeats the cycle forever, has been lost for good. So the story about frolicking and kings and boats and sealing wax and stuff ends with Jackie Paper abandoning Puff, who slinks off to his cave to be sad for all perpetuity... at least until the Belated Happy Ending described above.
- Tragic Abandoned Toy: A possible interpretation of the song, which tells of "little Jackie Paper" going on adventures with his friend, the eponymous "magic dragon". But, unlike Puff, Jackie grows older ("a dragon lives forever, but not so little boys") and eventually abandons Puff ("Jackie Paper came no more"). Puff falls into depression and loses his "fearless roar"; his scales fall out, and he "sadly slip[s] into his cave". Rationally Puff could be interpreted as a creation of Jackie's own childlike fantasy, but it is also possible that Puff is a toy which Jackie puts away as he grows up.
