History WesternAnimation / Thumbelina1994

* AdaptationalNationality: Well, maybe. The original tale explicitly took place in Denmark, but the movie begins with an extended flyover of Paris, complete with Jacquimo welcoming viewers to the city, before the proper story begins being told from a book.

* WinWinEnding: The closing credits' illustrations reveal that the antagonists get happy endings as well as the leads. Grundel Toad survives his [[DisneyDeath apparent]] DisneyVillainDeath with just a broken leg and finds new love with a female toad, while Mr. Mole and Miss Fieldmouse end up HappilyMarried.

* FullyClothedNudity: When Thumbelina loses her beetle costume, she's still clothed underneath, but she acts embarrassed and tries to cover herself when the beetles laugh at her.

[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hans_christian_andersens_thumbelina.jpg]]

It sticks to the basic story of the original fairly closely. A woman pines for a child and, magically, she is gifted with a daughter no bigger than her thumb. Thumbelina, as she is aptly named, is a [[ThePollyanna happy person]] but wishes she could find someone else her size. Her wish comes true when she meets the prince of the fairies, Cornelius, and they quickly fall in love. But that night, she's snatched away by a toad [[ItMakesSenseInContext who wants Thumbelina to join her performance troupe and marry her son.]]

** Jacquimo wears only a hat, gloves, and boots, though his breast feathers are designed to look like a harlequin's shirt.

* ActionizedAdaptation: Instead of Thumbelina running away with the swallow on the day of the wedding, we see the ceremony. Thumbelina refuses to marry Mr. Mole, Grundel and Berkeley confront her, and she stands up to them as well. Cornelius arrives to fight Grundel while Mr. Mole and the weddinggoers chase down Thumbelina, who only escapes them by causing an avalanche with Mr. Mole's treasure.

* AgonyOfTheFeet: During the "On the Road" number, Mrs. Toad uses this method to get Thumbelina to join the singing: ''by stepping on her foot''!

* BigThinShortTrio: Mrs. Toad's sons Mozo, Gringo, and Grundel, respectively.

* DarkReprise: The tune of "Let Me Be Your Wings" is used for a short reprise called "Once There Was The Sun". It keeps the magical, upbeat tune and has sunny visuals, but it's about Thumbelina lamenting both the harsh winter and Cornelius' apparent death.

* {{Expy}}: Jacquimo is basically a dreamier version of Henri from ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail''. French birds in Creator/DonBluth films who sing a bouncy number early on about never giving up? Yeah.

* InkSuitActor: Mrs. Toad was modeled after her voice actress, the guitarist and singer Charo. [[HumanoidFemaleAnimal Jarringly so]]. Thumbelina herself also has a degree of resemblance to Jodi Benson.
* InterspeciesRomance: Various characters try to force Thumbelina into one of these, one to a toad and the other to a mole, and by the end of the movie, she gets together with the fairy prince.

** "Follow Your Heart", as Jaquimo is encouraging Thumbelina to not give up on herself and make her way home.

* PopStarComposer: This is Barry Manilow's first project with Creator/DonBluth. He not only wrote the songs, but he also wrote the film score along with William Ross.

* SongsOfSolace: "Soon" is sung by Thumbelina to comfort herself because she's lonely. Her mother later sings it to comfort herself over her missing daughter.

* VillainSong: Depending on who you consider to be the villains and who are just [[JerkAss mean]], we have "On the Road", "Yer Beautiful Baby", and "Marry the Mole".

* AnalogyBackfire: Jacquimo's opening monologue has him describe ThePowerOfLove and its capacity to overcome impossibility, a perfectly fine moral... but he ends up citing ''Literature/SamsonAndDelilah'' and ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' as examples, evidently unaware that [[LoveMakesYouDumb love]] ''[[LoveMakesYouDumb caused]]'' [[LoveMakesYouDumb problems]] in those stories, [[DownerEnding which ended more than a little poorly]] (for the record, Ms. Fieldmouse correctly cites how Romeo and Juliet's love led to them ''dying'', so [[InUniverseFactoidFailure Jacquimo's bad analogy is intentional]]).

* RidingInThePalmsOfGiantHands: Thumbelina is no bigger than her mother's thumb, making her small and light enough for her mother to lift her up with one hand easily.

* GagBoobs: Mrs. Toad's NonMammalMammaries. They're not massive, exactly, but there's just no way to ignore them. They're also perfectly spherical from any point of view.

* {{Gainaxing}}: Mrs. Toad's bosom bounces slightly at some points.

* RapunzelHair: Even when Thumbelina has her hair in a high ponytail, it still goes down to her thighs.

* AdultFear: For any parent afraid of losing their daughter. Thumbelina gets kidnapped and forced to marry a sleaze, but escapes only to be lured by a shady nightclub owner into dancing for entertainment (and her clothes come off towards the end). She's then taken in by a rich old creep who also wants to keep her for himself as repayment for his kindness. The whole film feels an awful lot like a euphemism for child sex-trafficking.

* PepTalkSong: "Marry the Mole" is a strange pseudo-example. While Miss Field Mouse thinks she's giving Thumbelina good advice and encouragement, she's also telling her to marry someone for their money and that love is over-rated.