The Ugly Duckling and Me
The Ugly Duckling and Me is a 2006 Danish movie (made in English) that tells the story of a rat, Ratso, who gets saddled with a very ugly duckling who thinks Ratso is his 'mama'. Ratso plans to exhibit Ugly (as everyone starts calling the duckling) as a sideshow freak, thus a portion of the movie deals with their journey to the carnival where Ratso's cousin Ernie works, with all sorts of bumps along the way.
Much Better Than It Sounds.
Tropes used in The Ugly Duckling and Me include:
- Amazingly Embarrassing Dad: Bemoaned by Ugly when Ratso starts provoking him to conclude that he's become a teenager.
- Beautiful All Along: Of course.
- Cats Are Mean: Subverted with Ernie.
- Calling the Old Man Out
- Children Raise You
- Completely Different Title: The Brazillian dub of this movie is known as "Putz! A Coisa Tá Feia" (translating to something like "Damn! Things Just Got Ugly").
- Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Tons, at the end.
- Everything's Better with Chickens
- "Falling in Love" Montage: Jessie and Ugly
- Feather Fingers: Gets a bit silly after a while...
- Four-Fingered Hands
- Funny Animal
- Great Escape: Ratso's escape from the duckyard.
- Hand Puppet: "William".
- Happily Adopted
- Heel Realization
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Swan-Ugly and Jessie.
- Informed Ugliness: Just about everything and everyone reacts this way to Ugly.
- Love Redeems
- Mouse World
- My God, You Are Serious: Jessie's reaction to Ugly's amazing 'dancing'.
- My Name Is Not Durwood: "Jeff".
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer made it appear that Ugly was being exhibited as the world's ugliest duckling right from the start (and as more of a routine thing than in the film). Not the case in the movie.
- No Cartoon Fish
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Done to Ugly (twice)
- Rule of Funny: Probably the only reason why a cat can be a rat's cousin.
- Shout-Out: To both Alien and Titanic. Someone on-staff must've been a James Cameron fan.
- Showdown At High Noon: Ratso prepares for one of these when he goes to rescue Ugly.
- Runaway Fiance: Ratso.
- Stage Dad
- Shotgun Wedding: Between Ratso and Phyllis
- Inner Dialogue: Ernie and William.
- Ugly Cute: Ugly to a T.
- Ratso does so too.