"A magical adventure inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, Walt Disney animated musicals and the parables by Jesus Christ"
— The tagline.
Strawinsky and the Mysterious House is a half-hour animated CGI movie made in 2012 made by Hope Animation. It is specifically based on a German audiobook.
The titular Strawinsky the mole is one of four animal friends living in an unspecified fantasy realm. One day they come across a mysterious house inhabited by strange residents such as a Scottish troll, a cello, and an elf who turned into a fat abomination by reading books. Ultimately, they have been lead astray from Elohim by the nefarious Rat King, which soon also mind controls Strawinsky's friends by making them read books. It's up to him and the Scarlet Queen to dissolve the books and save everyone.
The movie would likely have faded into obscurity if not for said fat ex-elf's (known as the Globglogabgalab) singing sequence, which has quickly become memetic due to the Unintentional Uncanny Valley and frankly bizarre lyrics and character design. Oddly enough, however, it's the least strange thing about the movie.
The movie can be purchased here
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I'm the Globglogabgalab. I love tropes, and this article is a true treasure trove...
- All-CGI Cartoon: The cartoon is made entirely with computer graphics.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The mysterious music that lures Strawinsky and his friends into the titular house turns out to have been produced by a talking cello.
- In addition, most of the Globglogabgalab's books are also sentient, even joining in his "I Am" Song.
- Author Tract: The creator of the film is fairly outspoken about his theological leanings, regarding any piece of non-religious media as "spiritual fast food" and boy does it show.
- Bottle Episode: This movie is an adaptation of the third in a series of six audiobooks. The reason why the film started with the third installment rather than the first was because the first two audiobooks were much bigger in scope compared to this one, which mostly takes place in a single house, and mostly in that house's basement, which made it more feasible to adapt given the limited budget available.
- Breakout Character: The Globglogabgalab, mostly as a result of his cheerful demeanour and bizarre "I Am" Song, has gone on to become the film's most recognisable element and has quite a few memes revolving around him.
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Broken Aesop: The film’s message that "books that are not the Bible are evil" is hypocritical considering the film was advertised as being inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia, which is a book series (and one that's heavily inspired by Christianity at that). - Captain Obvious:Harald: Hahaha, the books are singing and dancing!
- Card-Carrying Villain: The Rat King flat out calls himself evil during his Villain Song.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: One of the bonus gifts included with the DVD is a 52-page comic book adaptation of the film.
- Creepy Good: The Globglogabgalab may look really, really grotesque and uncanny, but he is by no means a bad guy and is rather quite cheerful.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The troll repeats what he just said.
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish: The Globglogabgalab's song starts out relatively coherent, with the lines, "Delightful. Really delightful. I am the Globglogabgalab. I love books! And this basement is a true treasure trove!" The rest of the lyrics consist mainly of nonsense, such as the quote described below for Word Salad Lyrics.
- Fan Disservice: The Globglogabgalab is so fat and blobby that he can't wear clothes. The end result is this.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Globglogabgalab, a former elf that has become a monstrous, shapeshifting abomination by reading books. As his globgogabgalab form, he has a druglike addiction to books and practically orgasms upon absorbing new knowledge.
- Informed Species: Strawinsky is identified as a mole by the narrator, but he looks like an otter.
- "I Am" Song: Following his first line, the entirety of the Globglogabgalab's first few minutes of dialogue is comprised of one. "I am the Globglogabgalab! The shwabble-dabble-wabble-gabble flibba blabba blab - I'm full of shwibbly liber-kind, I am the yeast of thoughts and minds!"
- I Was Quite the Looker: According to the Scarlet Queen, the Globglogabgalab was once a slender, handsome elf before he became obsessed with knowledge. We'll take her word for it.
- Literal Bookworm: The Globglogabgalab takes things to uncomfortable new heights. Not only does he sing about books, he also depends on them for sustenance, eating their thoughts and ideas by shrinking and absorbing himself into the books, and upon emerging, caresses himself and giggles with glee from these feeding sessions. He used to be a handsome elf, but exposure to books turned him into wormly humanoid blob.
- Major Injury Underreaction: The Scarlet Queen apparently rips her palms apart while healing the porcupine. Because of her divine nature, she doesn't feel any pain.
- Messianic Archetype: The Scarlet Queen is the stand-in for the Holy Spirit, being the agent of Elohim who saves the day by destroying the Rat King's evil books and giving the cello a purpose in Heaven. Sympathetic characters constantly wax poetics about her, and the movie outright tells the audience to worship her. This is very odd considering that scarlet is usually associated with sin in the Bible.
- Metaphorgotten: The Globglogabgalab doesn't read books and he doesn't eat books; he somehow absorbs the information in the books into his body, the way that yeast is added to dough to produce its flavor... whatever that means...note To add to the confusion, he calls himself "the yeast of thoughts and mind" in his song.
- Rat Men: The Rat King outright refers to his people as "ratfolk". Besides himself, who is bipedal and wears a cloak, however, they aren't particularly anthropomorphic, and spend most of their time disguised as books.
- Shout-Out: In this official video by Hope Animation, the Globglogabgalab gives a shout-out to the movie The Atheist Delusion, which he calls "a true treasure trove".
- Space Whale Aesop: Be careful about what you read or else you’ll turn into a statue or become an Eldritch Abomination.
- Talking Animal: Strawinsky and his animal friends all have the ability to talk to each other and to the people of the mansion.
- Villain Song: The Rat King's song. It ends up being false-advertising since he leaves the movie immediately after singing it (with a flushing toilet sound effect, no less).
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Globglogabgalab can change his shape and size in his current state, such as transforming into a massive elephant with wings (but still having the same flesh texture all over the form).
- Word Salad Lyrics: The Globglogabgalab sings a song about his love for books. The chorus is as follows:Schwabbel-dabbel, glibber, glabber, schwibbel, schwap, glab
Dibbel, dubbel, schwibbel, schwabbel, glibber glab schwap
Schwabbel-dabbel, glibber, glabber, schwibbel, schwap, dab
Dibbel, dubbel, schwibbel, schwabbel, glibber schwap glab - You Dirty Rat!: The Rat King is a Satanic Archetype and his minions are rats that can turn into books.
