Wunschpunsch
Wunschpunsch is an animated series inspired by Michael Ende's novel Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch (known in English as The Night of Wishes).
Each episode, a bumbling wizard and witch cast a spell on the inhabitants of the city they live in, and Mauricio the cat and Jacob the raven work to undo it.
Tropes used in Wunschpunsch include:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In one episode, the wizards created a spell that granted one wish for every person in the city, but always in the way to backfire. The wizards used it later for themselves, sure they'd found a wish that would let them get rid of their boss and not backfire at them in any way. They were wrong.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: The wizards' boss uses a new one almost every time.
- Exact Words: The wizards wished their boss would never teach them a lesson ever again. Another person showed up to do the teaching.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: In an episode where the curse of the week turns everybody into animals, two lawyers get turned into sharks.
- Failure Is the Only Option: The wizards never managed to make a spell last long enough to become permanent.
- Get Back to the Future: The wizards went back in time to prevent their supervisor's parents from ever meeting each other and ended up stranded in the past. They didn't mind but their pets had a different opinion and soon learned that, in order to return to their own time, they had to make Maledictus Maggot's parents meet since it was to prevent that the wizards started the time travel in the first place.
- Quote Mine: In one episode the spell of the week made everyone hate everyone. The only way to break it was to make someone say "I love you". To achieve that, the two main characters found the love interest of one of them. The Raven asked her "What do you think of me?" while the Cat hid somewhere with a tape recorder. She answered with a rain of insults, Cat quickly paused and unpaused the recording so that it, when played back, finally said the needed words.
- Reset Button: In the episode where the wizards created a spell that granted one wish for everyone in the city, the Raven wished the day would restart.
- Unmoving Pattern: All the fuzzy animal fur and fabric were textured that way.