Here Comes the Grump


Here Comes the Grump is an American animated television series produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and aired Saturday mornings on NBC from 1969 to 1970. It was later shown in reruns on Sci-Fi Channel's Cartoon Quest.
Structured as a battle between good and evil, the show was played for comedy. The Grump, the purportedly-threatening villain of the piece, was voiced by extravagant prop comic Rip Taylor.

History

The main character was a small, grumpy wizard who put a spell of gloom on the kingdom of the Princess Dawn. The Princess and her friend Terry Dexter searched for the Cave of the Whispering Orchids to find a magic crystal key to break the spell, while the Grump tried to stop them. In each episode the Grump flew a dragon named Dingo, chasing Terry and Princess Dawn. This led them to bizarre places with strange characters, such as the Blabbermouth of Echo Island, where the mountains were made of living Swiss cheese.
The Princess had a pet named Bip — a vaguely doglike creature with tentacular legs, that sniffed clues like a hound dog, turned around by pulling in its tail and head and popping them back out at opposite ends, and communicated in the sounds of a soprano bugle. In most episodes, the Princess and her friends traveled in a flying car supported by a big balloon.
A recurring gag was that at the last minute when the Grump was about to catch up with Princess Dawn, the Dragon would sneeze and burn the little wizard.
The character of the Grump was based upon Yosemite Sam, also created by Friz Freleng. The Grump's Dragon was similar to Sam's in Knighty Knight Bugs, including the fiery nasal explosions upon its master.
Because there was no series finale, Terry and Princess Dawn never made it to the Cave of the Whispering Orchids, and therefore the crystal key was never found.

Broadcast

The series was broadcast by NBC from September 6, 1969, to April 25, 1970. NBC continued to air reruns until January 23, 1972.
The series lasted one season and was rerun, the most recent airing was on the Sci-Fi Channel in the mid 1990s. The complete series was released on DVD on January 31, 2006.
The series was called Ahi viene Cascarrabias in Spanish and was retransmitted into the 1970s and well into the 1980s by Televisa, in Mexico, with another rerun in 2006 after the DVD set was launched. It was "Grump, o feiticeiro trapalhão" in Brazilian Portuguese and was rerun in Brazil until 1993 by Rede Globo.
The only known merchandise for the show was a "Here Comes the Grump" Halloween mask, produced by the Ben Cooper Costume Company, for the 1969 holiday season.

Episode guide

There were 17 episodes, each containing two ten-minute shorts, giving a total of 34 separate cartoons.
  1. The Bloonywoonie Battle
  2. The Great Grump Crunch
  3. The Great Thorn Forest
  4. The Eenie Meenie Miners
  5. The Good Ghost Ship
  6. Grump Meets Peter Paintbrush
  7. The Lemonade Sea
  8. Beware of Giants
  9. Joltin' Jack-In Boxia
  10. Visit to a Ghost Town
  11. A Mess for King Midix
  12. The Shoes of Shoe-Cago
  13. Witch Is Witch?
  14. The Yuks of Gagville
  15. Toilin' Toolie Birds
  16. The Grand Slam of Door City
  17. Under the Pea Green Sea
  18. Sugar and Spite
  19. The Great Shampoo of Snow White City
  20. The Grump Meets the Grouch Grooch
  21. The Wily Wheelies
  22. The Blabbermouth of Echo Island
  23. With Malice in Blunderland
  24. Apachoo Choo-Choo
  25. A Hitch in Time
  26. The Shaky Shutter-Bugs
  27. S'No Land Like Snow Land
  28. Good Grief, Mother Goose
  29. The Balled-Up Bloonywoonies
  30. Cherub Land
  31. Meet the Blockheads
  32. Hoppy-Go-Lucky Hippetty Hoppies
  33. The Blunderful Flying Machine
  34. The Absent-Minded Wizard

Voices

Staff

Film

A feature film adaptation based on the series was produced by Ánima Estudios in Mexico and the newly launched GFM Animation, with the animation being done at Prime Focus World in London.
The film was released in Mexico on July 26, 2018, followed by the US release on September 14, under the name A Wizard's Tale.