Last
Monday in this space I wrote about cult-television knights. This week, I change course to feature their
nemesis: dragons.
A
dragon is widely defined as a legendary monster, one with the physical
qualities of a lizard or a snake. Myths
of dragons exist in European, Mediterranean, Chinese, and Middle Eastern
society. Some dragons are believed to be
winged, while other legends suggest they remain earthbound, living in caves.
Because
dragons are difficult to “create” on TV budgets, they have not been seen as
frequently as more human-sized monsters or creatures. Nonetheless, over the years several have
appeared in regular series, especially of the animated variety.
In
1992, a Fox sitcom called Scorch ran for just three half-hour
episodes before cancellation, but featured the adventures of a small, sarcastic
dragon that lived with an American family.
So basically the series was ALF…with scales.
In
this case, Scorch was over a thousand-years old, and was struck by lightning
before crash-landing into the Stevens home.
There, he moved in with a Dad (Jonathan Walker) and his daughter, Jessie
(Rhea Silver-Smith).
More
recently, another “comedy” dragon appeared in the short-lived HBO series Flight
of the Conchords in 2007. In the
seventh episode, “Drive By,” an animated serpent called Albi The Magic Dragon appeared in animated form.
Dragon
Tales (1999
2005) meanwhile was a children’s show (developed by Land of the Lost star
Wesley Eure...) about two children, Max and Emmie, who could use a dragon scale
to transport them to Dragon Land, where they met and shared adventures with
dragons such as Ord, Cassie, and the
two-headed Zak and Wheezie.
More
recently, two other children’s programs, Dragons: Riders of Berk (2012 –
2013) and Dragons: Defenders of Berk (2013 – 2014) --
based on the 2010 film How to Train Your Dragon (and
starring David Tennant…) -- have aired on the Cartoon Network. This series features such memorable CGI
dragon creatures as Toothless, Storm-fly and Thornado.
Animated
dragons have also appeared on Ben 10 (as captives to the Forever
Knights), but television has generally been bereft of live-action dragons.
That
changed with the arrival of Game of Thrones (2010 - ), an
elaborate fantasy series which features the hatching of three dragon eggs, and
the development/growth of those dragons.
In particular, the dragons are contextualized in the series as a kind of
(living) weapon of mass destruction, and therefore greatly feared.
John fun analysis of Dragons. They are always interesting in stories. Even Lost In Space had dragons.
ReplyDeleteSGB
If I could add a personal recollection:
ReplyDeleteHere in the Chicagoland area, we grew up with children's TV host Bill Jackson and his sidekick, Dirty Dragon. Whether he was eating the mail in the post office (on Cartoon Town) or eating the coal in the furnace room (on Gigglesnort Hotel), Dirty was always a trip. Even when he made an appearance (via a man in a life size costume) at a theater in Crest Hill and scared me to death (hey, I was only two!). But Bill Jackson helped calm me down.
Dragons have always been the standard or most boring fantasy creature in my mind. Nevertheless every movie or TV series has their own interpretation of the creature and only the most cartoonish renditions actually annoy me. I am always surprised how dragons are a succesful part of a movie even though my prejudice is against them.
ReplyDelete-T.S.
Sometimes, I think if dragons and dinosaurs still existed then we’d be running and saving our lives just like the people in the movies. It would be fun an adventurous. I am happy about one thing, that kids’ shows don’t show dragons as a threat but as a friend and which is why I like that my kids are not scared of anything now. It all happened because of Andy Yeatman and his shows on Netflix.
ReplyDelete