The Magic Voyage



The Magic Voyage (originally Die Abenteuer von Pico und Columbus or "The Adventures of Pico and Columbus") is an animated feature from Germany that is... loosely based off the voyages of Christopher Columbus. You know, the sailor who wanted to prove the world was round -- not find an easier trade route from Europe to Asia, which is surely a far harder concept for children to grasp (for the record, the ancient Babylonians already knew that the Earth was round).

Columbus also wished to help his best friend, a wood-boring "worm" (he looks more like a generic cartoony bug thing) who never stops talking, rescue his girlfriend. His girlfriend is a Fairy Princess from a Magical Land on the moon, and she was stolen away by an evil swarm of bugs. The Swarm brought her to the new world, where Columbus and the worm finally find her held captive in an Aztec-looking pyramid full of honey. Columbus destroys the evil Swarm, and the native people celebrate his ridding their home of the terrible evil. Columbus and his annoying bug friend sail back home with visions of big cities and shopping malls dancing in their heads.

Surely, you remember all of this from your grade-school history lessons?

Basically, this is the movie that makes Titanic: The Legend Goes On look perfectly reasonable in comparison.


 * Abhorrent Admirer: Subverted Trope with Queen Isabella. Characters in typical animation would be frightened to have that woman pursuing them. Christopher Columbus, however, even when he ISN'T drunk, seems to enjoy it quite a bit.
 * Anachronism Stew: Particularly when Columbus is in the jungle - "I need to start going to the gym!". Or (hearing a tribal beat) "That's going to hit over big someday.".
 * Another example is when Pico fights the rats he says "I learned this move from watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons.".
 * How about Columbus predicting cities full of skyscrapers?
 * Nah, that's just Predicting The Future With Unrealistic Precision.
 * Animation Bump: Up and down all over the shop.
 * Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: "You stole our idol! Destroyed our sacred temple! And... made squishy with the Swarm Lord... How can we ever thank you?"
 * Artistic License- Biology: Pico looks nothing like a worm
 * A shark growls at one point
 * Artistic License - Geography: Possibly in many ways, but lampshaded in the case of Bob the Beaver: "What's a beaver like you doing on a tropical island?".
 * Artistic License - History: Many examples
 * Award Bait Song: Heaven Is by Al Jarreau
 * Captain Obvious: After exclaiming within his dream that, "This must be... a dream!" Columbus then lands on the floor below his bed and says "Oh... It was a dream."
 * Clothing Damage: And not the cool kind, either.
 * Death Is Cheap: At least for moon faries
 * Deranged Animation: And how.
 * Did Not Do the Research: The idea of Christopher Columbus "proving" that the Earth is round. This probably is in effect for most children's adaptations of the Columbus story.
 * Disney Acid Sequence: The dreams
 * Disney Death: Marilyn supposedly drowns in a river and the worm finds her lifeless body, but she's revived as soon as the sun rises... but isn't she a Moon Fairy?
 * Damsel in Distress: Marilyn
 * Evil Chancellor: Subverted, see What Happened to the Mouse? below
 * Fairy Sexy: Marilyn.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: It starts with the dinner scene when Queen Isabella and Columbus get drunk and start flirting with one another ("There's a lot of exploring to do right here!"), moves on to some sailors asking why Columbus is talking to "his little worm", and goes further and further downhill from there.
 * Pico seems to quietly utter God's name in a few instances, which is questionable for a children's film.
 * Don't forget the scene in the dream sequence where Columbus pulls a spy glass out of his gonads.
 * Columbus also gets hanged in a later scene.
 * Don't forget Marilyn's "death" scene.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Tiger is Christopher Columbus!
 * And Mickey Rooney is the narrator!
 * Hive Mind: The Swarm Lord
 * Hong Kong Dub: The English voice-actors (the leads are voiced by Dom Deluise and Corey Feldman, which gets awkward) don't even try to match the Mouth Flaps, so most of the time the characters will say a bunch of lines without moving their mouths.
 * Inferred Holocaust: There might have been innocent bugs inside that temple.
 * Kavorka Man: Queen Isabella is a Kavorka Woman
 * Lull Destruction: Take a shot when the worm says "Wow, this is cool!" It may be the only way to survive.
 * In fact, the whole movie never shuts up, though maybe the German original was a little more quiet.
 * At one point Pico the woodworm and Oh My God Who Gives A Shit the fairy are having a "romantic" scene and the voice actors are just muttering completely random nonsense, completely independently of the lip-syncing (or lack thereof).
 * Mayincatec: The Aztec temple with a gold idol on what turns out to be Manhattan Island.
 * Mind Screw: Barring the whole movie, Columbus running around the jungle in his underwear is a little bit mind-boggling.
 * His dream sequence is both a Mind Screw and deeply uncomfortable to watch.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: There is a beaver on a tropical island
 * No Accounting for Taste: Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. The king will try to open his mouth, and his wife's response is "Shut up.".
 * Noisy Nature: The shark who sounds just like a Mountain Lion is just icing on this giant WTF Cake.
 * Non Sequitur Thud: Columbus, after a rough landing on the Americas: "I, whoever I am, claim this land in the name of... What's-her-name.".
 * Off-Model: It's often quite clear where the animators got lazy.
 * Random Events Plot: The Fairy is only the most obvious among the many plot points that come totally out of left field.
 * Small Annoying Creature: Pico
 * Smug Snake: The Swarm Lord
 * Also, the chancellor comes off as this, even though he only makes one appearance
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Columbus seems to be the only human who can hear the animals talk. This is only apparent when other humans think he's nuts.
 * The Worm That Walks: The Swarm Lord.
 * Those Two Guys: It seems as though the three rats were originally intended to be a sort of Terrible Trio. Instead they just wander in and out of the movie looking for food.
 * Throw It In: No one can know for sure, but this would efficiently explain some of the painfully senseless dialogue and Lull Destruction.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Columbus can be this sometimes.
 * Allowing a woodworm aboard a ship made of wood.
 * Sticking his hand into fire.
 * Or thinking that singing about sailors being eating by a sea serpent would boost the moral of his sailor crew.
 * Trouser Space: During his Dream Sequence, Columbus pulls a spyglass out of his nuts.
 * Very Loosely Based on a True Story
 * Visual Innuendo: The telescope in Columbus' Dream Sequence.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to the third rat?
 * Also, halfway through the movie a strange-looking fourth crew member suddenly appears, then disappears just as quickly.
 * Then at the end of the movie, he appears again, and then disappears again. Meaning it was subverted twice.
 * Lampshaded in the case of the third rat. One of the rats says something to the effect of "The swarm lord knocked Rizzo out cold!".
 * Wait, RIZZO?
 * The Obviously Evil-looking advisor to the King looks like will be a villain, but after the dinner scene we never see him again.
 * Wingding Eyes: Columbus in the last act of the movie. What the animators were going for, there is no way of knowing, but suddenly his obsession with gold seems to be correlated with deranged swirling eyeballs.