Tales for All, in French Contes pour tous, is a long-running series of French-Canadian children and young adult films by producer Rock Demers. Most of the films are unrelated to one another, with only two of them (The Dog who Stopped the War and Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller) getting actual sequels. In general, the movies tend to feature one form or another of a Coming of Age Story; some are down-to-earth fare, some are unabashed fantasies.
The movies have enjoyed varied receptions, ranging from forgettable to excellent; some of the earlier films are considered cult classics in Quebec (and the very first of them, The Dog Who Stopped the War/La Guerre des tuques, is not so much a cult-classic as a generation-defining film).
The series includes (so far) over twenty films: the full list
can be found on that other wiki. Works with their own trope pages include:
This movie series provides examples of:
- Animated Adaptation/The Remake: La Guerre des tuques got a CG adaptation many years later, called Snowtime.
- Annoying Younger Sibling:
- François' younger brother. He wanted to join his brother in their snowball war, but an annoyed François keeps turning him away. Luc take advantage of this by recruiting François's brother for the last battle.
- On the other hand, Lucie, Sophie's little sister, is far from annoying and helps the gang.
- As Himself: Vincent and Me, centered on Vincent van Gogh, featured the last person to have known van Gogh alive, Jeanne Calment, as herself, then 114 years old.
- Asian and Nerdy: François in The Dog who Stopped the War. He wears glasses and designed the fort by drawing a blueprint.
- Bilingual Bonus: All of François' rants in Vietnamese.
- Bittersweet Ending: In The Dog Who Stopped the War, Cleo, the titular dog, ends up caught up in the big snowball war and one of the towers of the snow fortress collapses on her, killing her. This causes everyone to come to their senses of what they have done and sadly bury Cleo in the barn. On the bright side, the movie ends with the kids tearing down the fortress and laughing as they all run away, both sides having come together as friends once again.
- Butt-Monkey: Marcel in The Tadpole and the Whale. The poor guy has a strong attraction to water in many comical ways.
- Canine Companion: In The Dog Who Stopped The War we have Cleo, Pierre's Saint Bernard, who is beloved by all of the kids in the neighborhood. The dog's titular action was to be fatally injured as collateral damage of the kids' snowball war, making them all come back to their senses.
- Canon Discontinuity: In the epilogue of Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller, Ralph claims that Charles Merriweather was freed from his stamp and went on to live with Mr. Bronson. The Return of Tommy Tricker completely disregards all this, and reveals that the boy in the stamp was actually Charles' sister, Molly.
- Children Are Innocent: Subverted in The Dog Who Stopped the War. Their ongoing snowball war reveals the not-so-nice side of the involved children, and while their coming of age doesn't make them innocent, it does bring out their better qualities.
- Cirque du Soleil: The Great Land of Small includes performers from the then-fledgling company (at that point, they hadn't mounted productions beyond Canada) to add color to a Magical Land.
- Death by Newbery Medal: The Dog Who Stopped the War. Guess how?
- Frozen in Time: In Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller, when you're inside a stamp you stop aging until you're release.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Many children are kidnapped in The Peanut Butter Solution including the lead character, Michael. Understandably, parents are worried sick.
- Kids Are Cruel: In The Peanut Butter Solution, Michael eventually don a wig when he loses his hair. Unfortunately, during a soccer match, another boy ripped his wig off. Everyone laughed at him, even his teammates (well except his friend Connie). Michael ran away back home while the other kids ran after him and taunted him mercilessly. The poor boy broke down crying in his bed.
- Malicious Misnaming: François is always referred by the moniker "glasses" as a way to insult his nerdy appearance.
- Out of Focus: Ralph in The Return of Tommy Tricker. In Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller, he's the stamp traveller. As for sequel, but he's just kinda... there. Nancy and Albert get considerably more to do, while Ralph doesn't really contribute very much.
- Phantom-Zone Picture: Stamp-travelling is a form of this. After shrinking yourself into the image on a stamp, the letter with the stamp must be mailed successfully and then opened. This is the only way to escape from the stamp.
- Product Placement: Skippy peanut butter paid for prominent product placement in the film The Peanut Butter Solution.
- Ridiculously Fast Construction: The snow fort in The Dog who Stopped the War. Christmas vacation only last for two weeks and the fort somehow get raised by five kids almost overnight.
- Running Gag: In The Tadpole and the Whale, Marcel keeps getting wet, either by falling in water or getting splashed.
- Serious Business: In The Dog Who Stopped The War, the titular conflict is a snowball war between the neighborhood kids with the ownership of a large snow fort as stakes. As expected of this trope, things get way out of hand, and it takes the fort collapsing on, and fatally injuring, Cleo (the titular dog) for the kids to finally get how stupid they are acting.
- The Smurfette Principle: France is the only girl in Luc's gang.
- Spoiler Title: The Dog Who Stopped the War. The original French title La Guerre des tuques (roughly "The War of the Knitted Caps") isn't spoiling anything however.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Luc and Sophie falls for one and another despite being on opposite sides of their snowball war.
- Token Minority:
- In The Dog Who Stopped the War, François and his little brother are the only non-Caucasian of the movie.
- Connie and his little sister are the only Token Minority in The Peanut Butter Solution.
- Zerg Rush: Luc's final move is recruiting all the neighborhood's children and sending them in a massive attack against the fort.
