The Toy Castle is a Canadian Preschool Show that aired on Treehouse TV from 2000 to 2003. It is based on the 1992 television special The Tin Soldier, which is loosely based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen.
The series takes place in a castle playset in two children's bedroom. When the children go to sleep at night, the toys in the castle come to life and get up to fun activities. The stories are told mainly through narration; the characters themselves do not speak, instead expressing themselves through ballet dancing.
The series has a total of 65 episodes. It won a Gemini Award for Best Preschool Show in 2003.
General:
- The Baby of the Bunch:
- Rag Doll sounds and tends to act the youngest of the toys.
- Physically, Little Mouse and the Baby Mice are the youngest of the toys, being a young boy and two baby twins, respectively.
- Blush Sticker: Most of the characters, namely the Solider and Rag Doll, has painted red cheeks, highlighting their nature as toys.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Most of the characters are named for what toy they are; the China Doll is a doll made of fine china, the Ballerina is a ballerina doll, and the Strongman is a strongman action figure. The series only gives proper names to the frogs, Frederick and Freda.
- Flowers of Femininity: Ballerina, the most feminine character, wears pink flowers in her hair and on her tutu.
- Half-Identical Twins: The frogs, Frederick and Freda, have the exact same costume, but can be told apart by their outfits; Frederick wears a powdered wig and a suit, while Freda wears a big bow and a dress.
- Informed Species: The only thing goblin-y about the Goblin is that he has pointy ears. His costume suggests he is a jester of sorts.
- Keet: The Clown is always energetic and goofy.
- Manchild: Even though most of the toys are adults, they act more like children. This may be their nature as toys, which are children's playthings.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The sinister Goblin wears a red-and-black jester suit. Downplayed in the series, where he's not as mean.
- Red/Green Contrast: The two green frogs, Frederick and Freda, wear primarily red.
- Regal Ringlets: The China Doll, the most dainty and proper of the toys, wears her hair in blonde ringlets.
Tropes specific to The Tin Soldier:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The Jack-in-the-Box Goblin makes several advances towards the Ballerina, but she can't stand him.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Zigzagged; the Soldier and Ballerina survive to the end of the story, unlike in the original tale where they both burned to death. However, the Goblin isn't so lucky, as he is thrown from the castle wall and shatters.
Tropes specific to The Toy Castle:
- Actually Pretty Funny: In "Mary Had a Little Lamb", the China Doll is not happy with the Goblin's shimmy-shammy dance as the lamb, but she later admits that he made her play more fun, and lets him do it.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the original special, the Goblin had exaggerated makeup on his facial features, dark, sunken eyes, and generally looked very sinister. Here, the Goblin has softer facial features, making him look cuter and more friendly.
- Adaptational Badass: Invoked in "Little Red Riding Hood", where Grandma (played by an uncooperative Goblin) is able to take on and defeat the Big Bad Wolf (played by the equally uncooperative Clown).
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- In the original special, the Goblin/Jack-in-the-Box was the villain, who had it out for the Soldier. In the series, he's still mischievous and a bit selfish, but he's now more good-natured and playful.
- Invoked in "Cinderella": The Strongman plays one of the wicked stepsisters, but he portrays her as being much nicer to Cinderella, as he is unable to bring himself to be mean to the Ballerina, who plays Cinderella.
- Adapted Out: The children's parents and nanny, the rats, and the Tin Soldier's fellow soldiers are cut from the series.
- An Aesop:
- In "Cake Walk", the Soldier learns that he shouldn't worry about looking silly when having fun with his friends.
- In "Party for One", the Goblin learns that having a dismissive attitude will drive his friends away, and instead he decides to combine all their music into one song, rather than everyone playing a different song at once.
- In "Private Rag Doll", Rag Doll gets the Soldier's blunderbuss stuck to her back, and learns that she should not take other's things without asking.
- In "Little Voice", Rag Doll learns that when she makes a mistake, instead of ignoring it, she should say she's sorry and make it right.
- Aside Glance: In "Alouette", the Strongman tells the China Doll that anything girls can do, boys can do better. Cue the China Doll doing this.
- Be Yourself: In "Rag Doll's Gift", Rag Doll tries to do a ballet dance, but falls right over. The Clown assures her that her Rag Doll dance is just as good.
- Birthday Episode:
- "Rag Doll's Gift" takes place on the Clown's birthday.
- "Ruby" takes place on Mama Mouse's birthday.
- Camping Episode:
- In "The Intruder", the Soldier, the Goblin, and the Clown have a campout, and gets scared silly when they mistake the shadow of the Soldier's blunderbuss for an intruder in their tent.
- In "Solo Sleep-Out", Little Mouse decides to have a campout in the courtyard all by himself. Mama Mouse, Papa Mouse, and the Soldier are all worried about him being alone, so they each give him some sort of instrument to call them if he gets scared. Little Mouse eventually realizes that he's not ready to sleep out by himself yet, so Mama, Papa, and Soldier join him, and Papa tells Little Mouse that it's okay to be scared.
- Canon Foreigner: The mouse family are exclusive to the series, being softer replacements for the more sinister rats from the special.
- Chaos While They're Not Looking:
- In "Mary Had a Little Lamb", whenever the China Doll isn't looking, the Clown and the Goblin screw around with their costume pieces.
- In "Silly Willy Dilly", whenever the Soldier has his back turned, the Clown and the Goblin both act silly with each other.
- Copycat Mockery: In "Copy Cat", the Clown, irritated at the Rag Doll for interrupting a game of Bizzle Ball, decides to copy her every move to get her to go away. This includes her dancing, then pulling faces at him, stomping her foot, and eventually crying. The Goblin, in a rare act of empathy, decides to copy the Clown right back to show him the error of his ways.
- Demoted to Extra: Dolly Bird, who was a major character in the special, only appears once in a blue moon in the series; literally, as she only appears in two episode, once on the night of the blue moon.
- Every Episode Ending: Each episode ends with the children in the room shifting around in their sleep, sending the toys into a frenzy as they all rush to get back into position for the day.
- Face Your Fears: In "Phish Phobia", the Sailor helps the China Doll deal with her fear of fish by gifting her a pillow that looks like a fish, which she loves.
- Half-Identical Twins: The Baby Mice have identical faces and outfits, but can be told apart by the female twin having longer hair and a bonnet.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In "Tea Party", the Goblin nicks various snacks from the Frogs' tea party, which they blame on each other. By the time the ruse is discovered, the Goblin is feeling overstuffed, so the Frogs get their revenge by pulling him into a fast-paced dance routine. By the end, the now very queasy Goblin begs them to stop and promises never to pull that trick again.
- Minimalist Cast: There are only about a dozen characters, and only 2-4 appear per episode.
- No Antagonist: There is no direct villain in the series, as most of the conflicts are disagreements between friends. The closest to an antagonist the series comes is the mischievous Goblin, and even then, he's mainly a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and not a true villain (unlike in the original special, where he was a straight antagonist).
- Oh, Crap!: Whenever the toys hear the children about to wake up, they all panic and run back to where they had been left.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The Baby Mice; the female twin wears a pink outfit, while the male twin wears a blue outfit.
- Pom-Pom Girl: The narrator describes the Rag Doll as one verbatim in "Private Rag Doll", because her role in the parade is to shake pom-poms.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the original special, the frogs are a duke and duchess and implied to be a couple. In the series, they're instead twin siblings.
- Scooby Stack: In "Duck, Duck, Goose", when Rag Doll knocks on the castle door, the boys all poke their heads out, stacked on top of each other.
- Shaking the Rump: In "Mary Had a Little Lamb", the Goblin has to be the lamb in the China Doll's show, and she gives him a fake tail to wear. Being an immature boy, he decides to run with this and won't stop shaking the tail as a joke. The China Doll is not amused at first, but eventually admits the show is more fun when the Goblin does this "shimmy-shammy, shake your little lamby" dance.
- Shout-Out:
- "Cinderella", as the title suggests, has the Ballerina, the Solider, the Strongman, and the Sailor perform the play of Cinderella.
- In "Poor Invisible Me", the episode opens with the Goblin, Ballerina, Solider, and China Doll dancing to Swan Lake.
- Sibling Rivalry: Downplayed; Little Mouse loves the Baby Mice, but sometimes he can get a little annoyed with them. In "Invisible Big Brother"; Little Mouse gets envious of the Baby Mice, because the Ballerina and China Doll are giving them all the attention and not noticing him. He decides to go off and hang out with the Sailor, who agrees to talk to the girls about it. Little Mouse later gets to help the girls with what the babies like to do, and does a silly dance to get them to stop crying.
- Sick Episode: The Ballerina, and later the Soldier, get the sneezes in "Pas de Choo". However, it later turns out that they were allergic to the flowers in the castle, and not truly sick.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the original special, the Goblin survives to the end of the series.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Several episodes have the cast put on plays based on various fairytales and nursery rhymes that take up most of the plot, including but not limited to, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Brother John", and "Sleeping Beauty".
- Word, Schmord!: In "Follow the Leader", the Clown is unimpressed with Rag Doll's turtle leading, and grumbles "Turtle, schmurtle".
