First written in 1959 as a poem by filmmaker Leonard Lipton and set to music in 1963 by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, "Puff, the Magic Dragon" tells the story of a boy who outgrows his childhood fantasies. The song also inspired a series of animated CBS TV specials that recast the eponymous dragon, voiced by Burgess Meredith, as a sort of fantastical child psychologist coming to the aid of some deeply troubled children. All three specials were written by Romeo Muller, who also wrote most of the work of Rankin/Bass Productions.
The specials were:
- Puff the Magic Dragon (1978): Puff comes to the aid of young Jackie Draper, who's so plagued by fear and self-doubt that he's stopped talking.
- Puff in the Land of Living Lies (1979): Puff helps a girl named Sandy, who has a habit of telling lies, by taking her to a magical world inhabited by famous fictional fibbers such as Pinocchio and Baron Munchausen.
- Puff and the Incredible Mr. Nobody (1982): A boy named Terry receives Puff's help after his wild imagination and imaginary friend, Mr. Nobody, prevent him from living in reality.
The TV specials provide examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Played with. The parents of the children love and care for them very much. Other adults such as teachers or doctors are exaggerations of this trope.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The inhabitants of the Land of the Living Lies are the embodiments of all the various forms of lying (monstrous lies, little white lies, etc.).
- Art Initiates Life: Terry journeys to the Fantaverse and paints a boat for himself and Puff to sail in.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Very Long John Black and Bluebeard Kidd, a gigantic pirate captain... before his Heel–Face Turn.
- Batman Gambit: Puff is quite the
Magnificent Bastard when he needs to be, apparently allowing himself to be trapped or lose his powers so his young wards will have to discover themselves. - Captain Colorbeard: The "Black and Bluebeard" part of Very Long John's name.
- Compulsive Liar: Sandy has a habit of telling absurd lies, resulting in her alienating her friends.
- Down the Rabbit Hole: The animated version of Puff tends to take children to fantasy worlds where they have to confront metaphors for their own problems.
- A Dog Ate My Homework: Sandy lies to her teacher that a dragon stole her homework and ate it with ketchup and mustard. At the beginning of the special, Puff acts out this lie, before explaining that it was a lie.
- Heel–Face Turn: Very Long John does this when he becomes a baker.Very Long John: I'm a new man! No, no, no, no, no. I'm an old man with a new heart!
- In Name Only: Despite attempts to arbitrarily weave the lyrics into the narrative, the first special has very little to do with the song of the same name outside of the character and location names.
- It's All My Fault: Sandy believes that she was the cause of her parents' divorce. Puff helps her to see that it wasn't her fault and that her mom and dad still love her.
- I Will Find You: Terry's parents try to convince him that Mr. Nobody isn't real. This causes Mr. Nobody to disappear. Aided by Puff, Terry goes on a quest to find him.
- Kangaroo Court: In the Land of the Living Lies, Sandy is put on trial on a false accusation of picking apples and eating flowers. The judge is the Monstrous Lie, the jurors include the Meaningless Lie and the Vicious Lie, and the prosecuting attorney is an intimidatingly Speaking Simlish giant.Prosecuting Attorney: Little girl, isn't it true you zipped the zapper when you snipped the snoo? Hmm?
Sandy: I can't understand him!
Puff: Because he's the prosecuting attorney. A genuine flimfam. - Kilroy Was Here: The bald, long-nosed figure is seen in the Land of the Living Lies, peering over the top of a graffiti-covered fence.Puff: Always was there, and never was anywhere.
- Level Ate: Terry imagines a landscape made of pasta, then paints a picture of it.
- Misplaced Retribution:
- Early on, Sandy breaks her mother's lamp by throwing a ball, then blames her dog, Muggs, who wasn't anywhere near the lamp. Much to Sandy's dismay, her mother decides that Muggs is too big to keep around and decides to give him back to Aunt Clara.
- In the Land of the Living Lies, when Sandy is falsely accused by the judge and jury, she panics and blames Puff, who is arrested.
- Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Kleftomania, the music kingdom, is under the control of a savage beast. Terry soothes the beast by taking out a flute and playing a tune he wrote.
- Quacking Up: Terry's Imaginary Friend is Mr. Nobody, a talking duck who wears a saucepan hat with a feather.
- Saving the World With Art: Or music, when Terry frees Kleftomania by soothing the savage beast with his flute.
- See-Thru Specs: Puff's smoke rings have this effect. Looking through them allows Puff and Jackie to see that Very Long John secretly wants to be a baker.
- The Shrink: Puff is the Awesome variety.
- Soup Is Medicine: Seen in the first special, when Jackie brings Very Long John to Honalee to cure the Living Sneezes with chicken soup and restore Honalee to its former glory.
- Straw Vulcan: The tall, red-headed doctor and the bald, bearded doctor, who not only suffer from Genre Blindness, but are both Nay Theists. They tell Jackie's parents that Jackie will never speak, nor relate in any way to the world around him.
- Time Master: With the aid of a magic alarm clock, Puff has the ability to temporarily stop time. He does so before taking Sandy to the Land of the Living Lies, then starts it again after taking her back to her home.Puff: I've stopped the clock 'twixt the tick and the tock. We can go anywhere, do anything, and when we return, not one second will be lost.
- Token Good Teammate: The short doctor in the first special is more optimistic to the idea of Jackie speaking and relating to other people eventually, though his two comrades quickly shut him down.
- Unlocking the Talent: Terry has a gift for drawing, painting, and composing poetry and music. When his teacher calls his painting of a pasta landscape silly, Terry decides to avoid any future blame by giving Mr. Nobody credit for his art—until he believes that Mr. Nobody is the gifted one. Puff helps Terry to rediscover his talent.
- "Where? Where?": Variant in the first special — Puff already knows he's a dragon, but as he's walking by Jackie Draper's house and sees him sitting silently in his room, he pulls the trope in an initial effort to cheer Jackie up, asking the boy "I beg your pardon, could you tell me if you just saw a dragon pass by? I could swear I saw one." (chuckles) "Most unusual nowadays." Then he looks again and says "Aaahhh... your mirror across the room. I did see a dragon! Me." Later, after Jackie's back to normal at the end of the special, Puff walks by the house again and this time asks the audience "I beg your pardon, did you happen to see a dragon pass by? Oh, the mirror. I did see a dragon! Me. By the way... where's your fancy stuff?"
