Series / Kingdom Adventure

Kingdom Adventure was a puppet show (with a little animation mixed in) that was intended to be much like Lord of the Rings or Narnia, teaching Christian values to kids in an allegorical, fantasy setting.

The main characters are a boy named Pokum and a girl named Keena; they live in Lumia Forest, and they and their community are constantly threatened by an evil wizard named Zordock and by other characters under Zordock's influence. But they aren't without help; a God-analog who never appears on screen called "the Emperor", and His Son, called "the Prince", are with them in their struggles every step of the way. The Emperor has a long-term plan to put Zordock out of commission—a plan that the kids and their friends and allies are a part of.

Along the way, they have plenty of adventures and learn a lot of lessons about how to live with each other and deal with the world they live in.

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Kingdom Adventure provides examples of:

• Agony Beam: Zordock has this ability: he fires beams at minions who annoy him, and while the beams don't do any visible damage, they do seem to cause at least moderate pain.
• An Aesop: Being a Christian work aimed at kids, aesops are inevitable. There's even an episode that deals with drugs, of all things!
• Angel Unaware: It's revealed that Reagle has a humanoid form, much the same way Dagger does, when Napps shoots Reagle out of the air, and he reverts to his humanoid form while injured and on the ground. Pops and the kids take him into their home to recuperate, even as Lolly and Garbo complain about having to take care of him. They change their tune when he helps Garbo out of a jam, and they figure out that Reagle is one of The Emperor's special soldiers. The episode where all of this happens is even called "Angel Unaware"!
• Annoying Arrows: Zig-zagged:
  • At one point, Dagger gets hit by a stray arrow from Napps. He pulls it out later, but is in pain from it. Possibly justified by virtue of the fact that he's a magical being capable of shapeshifting.
  • In another episode, a different character was hit with an arrow, lost a great deal of blood from it (off-screen, of course), and needed days of rest and food before he could so much as stand up and walk around.
• Arboreal Abode: Pokum and Keena live together with their also-young housemates Garbo and Lolly in Pops' tree home. It's heavily implied that all homes in Lumia are trees, and even Lumia Castle looks like a giant hollowed-out tree.
• The Archmage: The Prince has shades of this, being both royalty and weilding powerful magic, sometimes even carrying a gold staff.
• Back from the Dead: The Prince comes back to life after being killed—it's even stated that He did in the opening title sequence! All part of who He represents.
• Bad Habits: Pokum at one point needs to sneak into Lumia Castle to retrieve a magic book. Fortunately for him, there are monks who work in the castle's library with typical In the Hood clothing, and who've taken a vow of silence, so all he needs to get inside with no one the wiser is a brown hooded robe and a little distraction.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: While reporting to Zordock, Dagger says that the protagonists are up to something good...and then says "And that's bad, right?" Zordock agrees.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Minstrel Vibes manages to sneak Pokum out of the castle, in full view of Pitts' guard Gorf no less, by immediately telling Gorf that Pitts called for him and needs him in the library right away. It works so perfectly that Gorf shows no signs of recognizing that Vibes isn't alone!
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played straight for the most part, in that the cuter the character, the fewer character flaws they tend to display: Pokum and Keena are the cutest of the kids, and their housemates Garbo and Lolly have buck teeth and less-appealing proportions, and they tend to be naughtier kids. Pitts, Dagger, and Gorf are uglier still, and are recurring villains. All this straight-playing makes a subversion all the more noticable, when a wart-covered purple monster turns out to be not only friendly but an important ally and the former Magistrate.
• Big Bad: Zordock is this series' Satan-analog, a Sorcerous Overlord who also put Pitts in the position he's in as Magistrate. While Magistrate Pitts functions as the main antagonist in many episodes, Zordock is the main threat the protagonists need to deal with over the course of the series.
• Bloodless Carnage: despite the Prince being struck on the neck with a sword and Dagger being shot in the backside with an arrow, there's no blood. It was stated that someone who'd been hit with an arrow had lost a great deal of blood, though it wasn't shown on-screen.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Both The Emperor and The Prince are stated to have this trait in the flashback episode detailing how the kids first met the Prince.
• Captain Crash: Most of the time when he's in vulture-form, Dagger fails to land gracefully.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Dagger routinely refers to Zordock as "Your Evilness", and Zordock doesn't mind that title: if he did, Zordock would've used his Agony Beam powers on Dagger for calling him that!
• Cute Mute: Gigag is a childlike character who is on the heroes' side and always seems to be smiling, but he's both mute and deaf.
• Devious Daggers: Considering that he's actually named "Dagger", it's not surprising that (a) a dagger is indeed his weapon of choice, and (b) he works as an infiltrator, messenger, and spy for Zordock. He doesn't often fight or kill, but he does pull a knife when he needs to.
• Dirty Coward: Most of the villains are depicted this way:
  • Dagger cowers when Zordock is angry at him, and not without reason. He also immediately does as he's told when Pokum points the Emperor's sword at him and tells him to take him to Zordock.
  • Magistrate Pitts is just as afraid of Zordock as Dagger is, and is also afraid to go into the dark woods without his guards to protect him.
  • Zordock himself qualifies; it's a bit hard to see it for how scary Zordock is, but when the audience or in-universe characters analyze him, he fits: he's stated to be afraid of the Prince, and it's no lie: when the Prince so much as shows up, he retreats, though not without spoken defiance. He doesn't even kill the Prince himself; he forces a minion to do it for him.
• The Dragon: Pitts was put in his position as magistrate by Zordock, and ultimately has to take Zordock's orders, no matter how frightening or repulsive he finds them.
• Dumb Muscle: Gorf is one of Magistrate Pitts' guards to Lumia Castle, and he's dimwitted and very easy to trick.
• Enchanted Forest: The area under Zordock's influence is called the Dark Wood, and is pretty sinister-looking, and is said to be full of dangerous beasts and next to impossible to escape alone.
• Every Man Has His Price: Pitts makes this assumption when he tries to purchase Keena's watering can. Keena doesn't trust him and doesn't accept his offer, even when he offers 50 silver coins!
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Pitts found out firsthand how dangerous the Wonder Root was, he ordered every wonder root removed from his territory. Though it's ambiguous whether this was concern for his citizens' safety or a personal dislike for anything that had ever threatened him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Pitts has a lot of trouble understanding the motivations of the protagonists.
• Evil Counterpart: There's a brave, loyal, helpful eagle who works for the Prince named Reagle, who also acts as a foil to the cowardly shapeshifting vulture Dagger, who works as a spy and messenger for Zordock. The contrast becomes stronger when it's revealed that Reagle can shapeshift into a humanoid form as well.
• Fantastic Drug: There was an episode meant to teach against the dangers of drugs where a few of the characters were trying something called a "wonder root". Its effects apparently entailed some kind of high, hearing things, and eventually blindness.
• Faux Affably Evil: Zordock is almost always an angry Card-Carrying Villain, but once in a while he'll adopt this attitude temporarily to flatter a minion or attempt to trick a hero. It never takes long for him to revert to his usual self, though.
• Fed to the Beast: Pitts' favorite means of execution is feeding prisoners to Gulp, a beast who lives under his castle. Gulp is actually a vegetarian with human-level intelligence, but Pitts doesn't know this.
• Fell Asleep Standing Up: Magistrate Pitts has an aptly-named guard: Napps. He regularly falls asleep at his post while standing up; unsurprisingly, the protagonists end up taking advantage of this.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Zordock's lair is a cave with a lot of (cartoon) fire in the background, clearly intended to evoke this.
• Forced Transformation: This is one of Zordock's abilities. Gulp is actually Magistrate Kendrick, Pitts' predecessor, who was loyal to the Emperor and refused to go along with Zordock's plans. Zordock turned him into the beast that everyone now calls "Gulp" to punish him, but he's still got human-level intelligence, is capable of speech, and actively helps the protagonists whenever he can.
• Genius Ditz: Gorf is Dumb Muscle and generally bumbling, but has surprising artistic talent and is an excellent dancer. He also figures out before Pitts does that it takes a pure heart to grow a trilly.
• The Ghost: The Emperor is mentioned often, but is never on screen.
• God-Emperor: This universe's God-analog is called "The Emperor", and considering the powers His Son has, it's pretty clear that The Emperor would also qualify as a god!
• God's Hands Are Tied: Zordock thought that stealing the Princess's ring would prevent the Emperor or the Prince from directly intervening. It's implied that he might've been incorrect about this; while the Prince sent some of his followers to rescue the Princess and recover the ring instead of going himself, the Emperor's Book and holy weapons still affected Zordock, even while he was wearing the ring. Plus, working through his followers tended to be the Prince's modus operandi, even before Zordock stole the ring.
• God Was My Copilot: At one point, Pokum, simply believing the Prince's promise to be with them when there's trouble, bravely stood up to Zordock and demanded in The Emperor's name that he leave Vibes alone. He did this completely unarmed, while Zordock was weilding very powerful and dangerous magic. Pokum had no idea the Prince was standing right behind him as he was saying this until after Zordock left and the other characters told him.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Played with: Pitts' guards aren't actually bad at fighting or weak, and when they're on alert, they present a genuine threat to the protagonists. That said, one of them is very dimwitted, and the other regularly falls asleep at his post.
• Guile Hero: Minstrel Vibes is very good at making up lies on the fly and getting Magistrate Pitts and his guards to believe what he wants them to believe. Justified in that he knows Pitts and the guards well, having worked for or with them in the castle for some time, so he knows how to use their flaws and expectations to his advantage, and has gotten the heroes out of a jam more than once with his ability to trick them.
• Healing Hands: The Prince has this ability as part of his status this universe's Jesus-analog.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Prince allows himself to be murdered as part of The Emperor's plan to save Lumia.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Gorf has more artistic ability than his status as a Dumb Muscle guard lets on; lampshaded when Napps compliments him on his ability when he perfectly replicates Keena's painted watering can.
  • Pitts himself has several hints that he's a redeemable character; after realizing you need a pure heart to get trilly flowers to grow, the episode ends when trilly that he's holding begins to bloom.
• In the Hood:
  • Zordock is never seen without his horned hood. Probably because he's the only character played by a human actor instead of a puppet or a cartoon.
  • There's also an order of monks called Mosquitobites who take vows of silence, work in Lumia castle's library, and wear brown robes with the hoods up. Naturally, at one point, one of our heroes disguises himself as one to sneak into the castle.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's implied Pitts is capable of becoming this in an episode where purity of heart was the core focus; the very last shot of the episode shows Pitts holding a flower that can only bloom in the presence of a pure heart, and it ceases to wilt as the other characters look on in awe.
• Kick the Dog: Zordock establishes his villainy early on by using an Agony Beam on his minion Dagger, just for annoying him.
• Leave No Witnesses: The moment Zordock realizes the kids saw him arranging the murder of the Prince, he orders his minions to kill the kids, too.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Pokum at one point prays to the Emperor for a sword and shield, receives them, and the shield is effective at blocking Zordock's magic.
• Made a Slave: Zordock's said his long-term goal is to make all the citizens of Lumia his slaves. He seems to change his plans for the main characters specifically between making them his slaves or killing them; probably either one would make him happy. Dagger has been stated to be Zordock's slave as well.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: When Pitts orders Napps and Gorf to kill Reagle, he tells them to do this word-for-word. They all know Reagle is the Emperor's bird, so they know they won't get away with it if they don't.
• Master of Disguise: Dagger has shades of this; he can put on disguises and not get recognized by the heroes for quite some time, and can disguise his voice pretty effectively if necessary, as well. The audience never has difficulty figuring out who he is, though.
• Messianic Archetype: The Jesus-analog of this universe is named "The Prince", but interestingly, it's not him alone that functions as the lynchpin of The Emperor's plan to save the land: it's actually the love between The Prince and his wife-to-be that is going to save the land.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Depending on the episode, Napps and Gorf might qualify: in some episodes they have no problem feeding children to Gulp. In other episodes, they get childishly weepy when told to go out and kill an eagle. Possibly justified by the fact that they know the eagle in question works for The Emperor, but have no such knowledge about the kids.
• Morphic Resonance: Dagger has two forms: a flying cartoon vulture form, and a live-action puppet humanoid form. In his humanoid form, his nose is long and hooked, like a vulture's beak. He also has a small helmet in both forms.
• Never My Fault: Magistrate Pitts has this attitude. One minute he's praising his guards and insisting nothing can get past them (which isn't true at all, by the way), and the next he's blaming them for a security breach when he realizes Zordock is about to pull a You Have Failed Me on him!
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Defied when the Prince shows up to stop Zordock from punishing Vibes for refusing to work for Zordock.
  • Played with for Magistrate Kendrick: he also refused to work for Zordock and was turned into a beast for his trouble, but he never stopped believing in the Prince or the Emperor despite this, and was able to make good use his beastly form.
• No One Could Survive That!: Pokum and Keena manage to evade Dagger, Pitts, Napps, and Gorf in the Dark Wood after witnessing them killing the Prince. Despite the fact that Zordock ordered them to Leave No Witnesses, they realize that the Dark Wood is so dangerous that those two kids aren't likely to make it out alive, so they give up the chase.
• Offing the Annoyance: Downplayed, in that Zordock will use his Agony Beam magic on minions when they annoy him or when they fail him, but he won't kill them: he most definitely does not have reserves at his disposal, and does rely on his minions to get things done.
• Offscreen Crash: When Dagger crashes while landing in his vulture-form, he typically does so offscreen. It's easy on the (low) budget of a Religious Edutainment program to do this with reused cartoon footage, and it adds both comic relief and characterization.
• Only the Pure of Heart: It requires a pure heart to make a special, magical flower called a trilly grow. When Pitts walks past trillies, they tend to wilt.
• The Power of Love: The Emperor's long-term plan to save the land of Lumia is to harness the power of his son and his soon-to-be daughter-in-law's love.
• The Quisling: Magistrate Pitts is helping to bring Lumia under Zordock's control, and owes his position as Magistrate to Zordock in the first place.
• Rain, Rain, Go Away: Lolly's attitude toward a rainy day amounts to this. The characters pass the time by telling the story of when the Prince was murdered, and how He came back to life again.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the start of one episode, the Prince walks right into Zordock's cave headquarters like he owns the place and tells Zordock to his face that he's no match for even one believing luman! Zordock is clearly terrified of him, but defiant nevertheless.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Most of the special effects (e.g. fire, rain, and magic) were done using hand-drawn animations that interacted with live-action puppets and objects, and when Dagger shapeshifted into his vulture-form, he went from a live-action puppet to a cartoon bird.
• Save the Princess: For most of the series, the Princess is kept in Lumia Castle, technically under the guard of Pitts (who is one of Zordock's minions), but she's still considered to be safe there. However, Zordock manages to steal the Princess's ring, kidnap her, and take her to the Dark Wood. Pokum, Gigag, Vibes, and Magistrate Kendrick in his Gulp-form go to rescue her.
• Sleepyhead: Magistrate Pitts' guard Napps lives up to his name: usually, if he's at his post guarding Lumia Castle and no action is happening near him that he's involved in, he's sleeping standing up! He often wakes up if someone comes near him, though.
• Smooth-Talking Talent Agent: In one episode, Vibes agreed to play his instrument for The Prince as part of The Prince's plan. Trying to get him to stop, Dagger put on a Paper-Thin Disguise as one of these kinds of agents to try to talk Vibes into playing for him, telling him that he could be playing for royalty. Vibes told him he already did play for royalty; whether Vibes saw through the disguise or simply realized Dagger had nothing to offer him wasn't entirely clear.
• Sorcerous Overlord: As this series' Satan-analog, Zordock qualifies. He has magical abilities including Forced Transformation, an Agony Beam, creating a variety of objects and substances with magical effects, and corrupting the forest into a dangerous Dark Wood, and is the series' Big Bad; his stated goal is to make Lumans his slaves.
• Super-Strength: In spite of taking an arrow to the back, it's revealed that Reagle has this. He was able to pick up a large piece of tree trunk that was pinning Garbo down, while working alone and with only one hand, when several normal Lumans working together couldn't budge it.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Magistrate Pitts thinks his guards are dumb failures, and not entirely without reason. That said, he overestimates his own intelligence and underestimates that of his guards, often blaming them for his own shortcomings.
• Thunder Equals Downpour: As soon as the Prince is killed in the dark wood, lightning flashes, and it begins pouring down rain, despite the fact that there was no previous indication that a storm was coming at all.
• Token Good Teammate: Vibes is a minstrel, a musician who works for Pitts, but who also loves the Emperor and sometimes (often reluctantly) puts himself in danger to help the heroes.
• Took a Level in Badass: Just after seeing the Prince murdered in the chronologically earliest on-screen events, Pokum was running away from Zordock screaming. By the end of the series, he's armed with a sword and shield from the Emperor, and successfully goes toe-to-toe with Zordock and wins, albeit not without help.
• Underground Railroad: It's heavily implied that The Prince has one of these set up for lumans who escape Pitts' custody. Pitts' favorite form of execution is to have his prisoners Fed to the Beast, but the "beast" is actually a vegetarian with human-level intelligence, and he's one of the good guys, to boot, so obviously, he doesn't eat the victims, and just after a prisoner gets dumped into the pit, a friend of his lets them go and directs them to another luman. This route of escape keeps the victims alive, and it keeps Pitts from catching on to any of this.
• Undying Loyalty: Numerous characters have this toward the Prince and the Emperor, and the more loyalty they have, the better they are, by the in-universe morality. For that matter, the royal family is also true to the land of Lumia, though it's sometimes hard for the citizens to see it.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: When the main characters need to find a way to rescue the princess, they huddle up and start coming up with a plan, their talk unintelligible to the audience except for Pokum declaring, "That's a great idea!" They are successful in rescuing the princess, but how much of it is according to plan and how much of it is successfully reacting to the enemy's moves isn't altogether clear.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: It seems like each villain who is under the last villain is one of these in comparison to his superior:
  • Magistrate Pitts has two dimwitted Dumb Muscle guards named Gorf and Napps, and compared to them, Pitts is greedy, intentional, and cruel.
  • Pitts himself answers to a demonic warlock named Zordock, and compared to him, Pitts is cowardly, weak, stupid, and clumsy.
  • Dagger's squeaky voice, clumsiness, cowardice, and the fact that he never shuts up (even when he really should) make him laughable next to Zordock, as well.
• Villainous Demotivator: Zordock uses a magical Agony Beam on minions who fail, or even annoy him. His underlings are thusly terrified of disappointing him.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Dagger demonstrates the ability to change into the form of a vulture, allowing him to travel distances quickly, helping him in his job as a spy and messenger for Zordock. He's not mastered landing, though.
• Whole-Plot Reference: One episode is a reference to the Book of Job, with Pokum getting a skin rash and being taken away from his home as a result. It even has The Prince and Zordock arguing at the start of the episode about whether Pokum would still believe in The Prince if everything were taken away from him!
• The Wise Prince: The Prince in this series acts as a mentor-figure, has powerful magic, and is divinely wise.
• Would Hurt a Child: Gorf has no moral qualms with feeding children to Gulp, and is indeed eager to please his boss by dropping Keena and Pokum into Gulp's pit. Napps and Pitts have no problem threatening them either, for that matter.
• The X of Y: A MacGuffin that is implied to have some magical effects is The Ring of Promise, essentially the engagement ring that the Prince gave to the Princess.
• You Have Failed Me: Zordock downplays this trope in that he uses an Agony Beam on minions who've failed him rather than killing them outright, as he does not have many minions to work with. At the same time, he exaggerates it by using his Agony Beam on minions who annoy him, whether the annoyance is due to failure or not.
• Zany Scheme: Eventually, Pitts' attempts to get Keena's watering can degenerate into this—for starters, he thinks the watering can is magical, but it's not. His bumbling guards further complicate matters.