Happy Ness: The Secret of the Loch is a children's cartoon that aired for thirteen episodes in 1994-1995. It was produced by Abrams Gentile Entertainment, and C&Dnote .
The plot kicks off when Halsey, Haden and Hanna McJoy, whose parents are working at Prize Castle, decide to go looking for the supposed ghost of Sir Angus Prize, rumored to haunt the castle after disappearing on the loch one stormy night. Stumbling upon a subterranean paradise, they meet and become friends with the not-so-dead Sir Angus and the friendly — and magical — Loch Ness Monsters, led by Happy Ness and a number of other Nessies named for various emotions and other traits (such as Bright Ness, Silly Ness, Brave Ness and many more) and gifted with magical Loch-Ets that grant them the ability to spread their titular emotions to others via a magical Ness Bless. However, the children and their new friends' adventures are often complicated by the actions of the wicked Queen Pompous Ness and her followers, such as Mean Ness and Dark Ness, who are always out to steal the Loch-Ets.
Not to be confused with The Family-Ness which is another similar themed also British series which aired a decade earlier and used the same "-Ness suffix denotes personalities of a group of Loch Ness monsters" concept.
This show contains examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: All the Nessies come in many different colors.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Nessies are all essentially the embodiments of the emotions or personality traits they're named for.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Pompous Ness lives up to this to a T.
- Bookworm: Bright Ness. She has a tendency to read books a lot. Her Loch-et even has an image of a book on it.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: Happy Ness uses a spell to send a "Ness Bless'' (transferring her happiness to a desired target). The others are capable of doing the same thing, using their own respective namesake emotions as the base."Time to send a part of me through the air and through the sea! I'll give thee some happiness by sending a magical ... Ness Bless!"
- Clamshell Currency: Seashells (or sand dollars) are the Nessies' money.
- Cool Old Guy: Sir Angus Prize.
- Cool Shades: Cool Ness wears them.
- Court Jester: Silly Ness, who is dressed up in jester attire.
- The Cutie: Cute Ness. She lives up to this to the fullest.
- Dark Is Evil: Dark Ness, who can shroud areas in darkness.
- Edutainment Show: The show teaches its viewers about emotional problems and how they can be overcome.
- Fictional Currency: Sand Dollars. Note that these are really used as the currency in the Land of Nessies.
- Fiery Redhead: Hanna, the youngest of the siblings. While her brothers share her hair color, she's the most energetic of the three.
- Flight: An ability that all Nessies share.
- Hardboiled Detective: Eliot Ness.
- Immortality Inducer: Sir Prize has a trinket that holds a part of who he is inside that keeps him forever young.
- Invisibility: Sir Prize and the Nessies use their trinkets to render themselves invisible to the eyes of the outside world.
- It's All About Me: Selfish Ness. He thinks only of himself and not others. However, he's as loyal as ever to Pompous Ness.
- "I Want" Song: In "Money Can't Buy Happy Ness", Pompous Ness sings "I Wanna Be Rich", which is... well, exactly what it sounds like.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Induced by Forgetful Ness's version of the "Ness Bless". He uses it to take down Pompous Ness in one episode (though he has trouble remembering the words for it; fortunately, the other good Nessies help him).
- Magical Accessory: The Nessies' Loch-ets. These can transfer their emotions to any desired target, and render them Invisible to Normals.
- Meaningful Name: All the Nessies are named for the emotion or trait they embody.
- Mistaken for Afterlife: The McJoy children initially think they're in the afterlife the first time they meet Sir Prize.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The Nessies look like a cross between seahorses, actual horses, swans and dragons. Their heads look like those of stylized horses or cutesy dragons, bodies like seahorses and their long necks and flippers resemble the necks and wings of a swan.
- No Indoor Voice: Befitting his name, Loud Ness always sounds loud whenever he speaks, no matter what.
- Opaque Lenses: Cool Ness admits that he can't see well through his Cool Shades in "Circle of De-Light" which leads him getting tricked by the poorly disguised Gloom Lagoon Nessies.
- Pink Heroine: Happy Ness, the leader of the good Nessies, is pink in color.
- Princesses Rule: Subverted, both Happy Ness and Pompous Ness are queens of their respective lands.
- Punny Name: Sir Prize = Surprise. For that matter, all of the Nessies' names.
- Quicksand Sucks: Rich Ness finds himself in trouble after discovering he's blundered into a quicksand bog.
- Ship Tease: Bright Ness gives Cool Ness a kiss on the cheek when he offers to help her take care of the Nessies' Loch-ets in "Circle of De-Light", resulting in him blushing.
- Tears of Joy: Sad Ness starts shedding these at the end of the episode "It's Not Bad to Be Sad".
- That's No Moon: Early in the first episode, the McJoy children crawl out of the water onto what they think are boulders. When the "boulders" start moving, they realize their mistake... fortunately, said "boulders" turn out to be the back and neck of the friendly Silly Ness, who doesn't even notice they're there.
- Theme Tune Roll Call: While neither the opening or ending themes do this, the song that appears in the first episode does this at one point.
- Trojan Horse: A Trojan Nessie is built from emotional wood in order to help Rich Ness get back into his nest when Pompous Ness locks him out.
- Villain Song: "I Wanna be Rich", the song Pompous Ness sings in the episode "Money Can't Buy Happy Ness".
- Water Is Dry: No matter how many times a character enters water, they always seem to come out dry.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pompous Ness dismisses Useful Ness once she has no further need of him.
- There's a world of Nessies, and they're all a part of you.
