The Tale of Tillie’s Dragon is a 1995 award-winning animated family-fantasy film written and directed by Mike Stribling and features the voice talents of Kath Soucie, John Kassir and Frank Welker.
When a little girl named Tillie befriends a playful young dragon named Herman, she soon has to protect her new friend from the villagers of Schatzberg, who believe all dragons are fire-breathing monsters led by her Uncle St. George who dreams of slaying a dragon.
- Angry Mob: Tillie ends up having to hide Herman from the furious villagers when they realize there's a dragon around.
- Blue Is Heroic: Herman is our co-protagonist, and he's a friendly blue dragon.
- Delightful Dragon: Herman is a kind and playful young dragon with Cute Little Fangs.
- Dragons Versus Knights: Tillie’s Uncle St. George dreams of getting to slay a dragon. He changes his mind when he meets Herman.
- Dying Town: Schatzberg, according to Tillie, has definitely seen better days.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Mayor Simmons becomes a huge Dirty Coward when Herman accidentally causes panic at the village, but due to the news of a dragon attracting a lot of tourists having improved the local economy, he ends up begging Uncle St. George not to slay the dragon for the sake of keeping the money coming, and returns everything he took from George to make him abort the dragon slaying.
- Cool Uncle: Tillie's Uncle St. George seeks to be a badass knight even if he's got a quite a lot of Perilous Old Fool going on in his fantasies of slaying a dragon to carry on the name of his ancestor. On the bright side, he proves to be a Reasonable Authority Figure in the end.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In the end, after almost being sent away from her uncle due to the poverty and the villagers being on the hunt for Herman due to his fire-breathing cold causing havoc, Tillie and Herman manage to live happily ever after through Uncle St. George's covering for Herman and making his castle a tourist attraction due to the dragon sightings attracting visitors, thus improving the economy of the village and forcing Mayor Simmons and Wilner to slave at the castle to keep up the newly restored business.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Tillie and Herman end the film by laughing at Simmons and Wilner's antics before becoming illustrations.
- Friend to All Living Things: Tillie, big time. She's introduced talking to some cute forest critters and later helps a small dog escape from a dogcatcher. She's only initially surprised to realize that Herman is a dragon, but instantly takes a liking to him.
- Generation Xerox: Uncle St. George's ancestor is THE Saint George, and thus he believes that he must follow his lead and also slay a dragon like he did, and is further encouraged to by Mayor Simmons for his own gain.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Tillie is a kindhearted Friend to All Living Things, and wears a purple outfit.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: St. George is The Dreaded among dragons, Herman becomes terrified when he assumes Tillie is his niece before being told that it's actually a descendant.
- Interspecies Friendship: Between Tillie, a human girl and Herman, a dragon.
- Kid Has a Point: Tillie persuades Uncle St. George from slaying Herman by reminding him his lessons about friendship he taught her himself.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Mayor Simmons essentially steals Uncle St. George's riches for himself pretending that the village needs it due to the poor economy, and in the end he does help the village's economy... by humiliatingly working his butt off at the castle's tourist attraction.
- Mayor Pain: Mayor Simmons, a greedy, hedonistic and manipulative individual who seeks to take more land, money and possessions from Uncle St. George, on the pretense he's doing this to help the Dying Town.
- Nightmare Sequence: In some versions of film, Tillie has a nightmare in which she and Herman are having a picnic only to have it disrupted by a storm and then they are attacked by a monstrous adult dragon.
- No Antagonist: The main source of conflict stems from the villagers' prejudice towards dragons getting in the way of Tillie and Herman's Interspecies Friendship, since Uncle St. George wishes to slay a dragon but is a Reasonable Authority Figure and Mayor Simmons, while creating some conflict with his manipulations, is too much of a bumbling Dirty Coward to be a considered a genuine Big Bad.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: The bond between Herman and Tillie has some Puppy Love shades, from Herman taking hold of her hand while saying how much he likes her and the kisses to the cheek between the two.
- Produce Pelting: Simmons gets a tomato thrown in his face when he tries to address to the Angry Mob.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Uncle St. George turns out to be this when he listens to Tillie and sees for himself that Herman is innocuous.
- Red Is Violent: In contrast to Herman's heroic blue color, the vicious dragon from the Nightmare Sequence is red-scaled.
- Riches to Rags: Wilner teases Simmons that they might be headed for this fate given how the village is too busy with the tourism business and is unlikely they'll re-elect him.
- Rump Roast: In the ending Mayor Simmons and Wilner are manning a fire-breathing dragon prop at Uncle St. George's castle (feeding its fire through Simmons shoveling coal into the furnace while Wilner works a bellows). Simmons punches Wilner down in response to his teasing, which pushes the bellows too hard causing a huge burst of flame that literally backfires on them.
- Spinning Paper: Used when the news of a dragon terrorizing Schatzberg is passed around the world.
- Storybook Opening: The movie opens and ends on storybook-style illustrations and a narrator explaining the plot and the characters.
- Sneeze of Doom: When Tillie is trying to sneak Herman out of the village after he has gotten a cold from playing in the river, he begins unintentionally sneezing-fire.
- Tragic Monster: Averted. Herman had the markings of potentially becoming this given how he was lonely due to all the animals he encountered fearing him, but becoming friends with Tillie changes his life for the better.
- Überwald: Schatzberg has this vibe going on, due to its Germanic architecture and some of the villagers' strange accents and how quickly they grab Torches and Pitchforks when they feel threatened.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Inverted. Mayor Simmons is a tall and well-groomed Affably Evil nobleman while his assistant Wilner is a slimy, grey skinned, gothic LeFou-looking Depraved Dwarf.
- World of Jerkass: The inhabitants of Schatzberg are established being quite unfriendly, like the shopkeep ordering Tillie to get off the street for simply standing in front of his establishment, or the baker rudely refusing to give her some water. However, Tillie doesn't resent them, explaining that the poor economy of village has been making everyone grumpier.
- The X of Y: The Tale of Tillie's Dragon.
- You Can Talk?: Tillie is surprised when Herman reveals his speech and intelligence, and he explains that he rolled his egg down to a school where he learned how to speak and read by listening to the lessons, and he loved secretly attending those classes until that school closed, Tillie being one of its former students.
