La pietra dei sogni

This remarkable cartoon series from 1990 goes to the top of my wish list for a return! It was created by Michael Jupp and produced by Martin Gates (he also produce another childhood favourite of mine "The Wind in the Willows: The Adventures of Mole") and with this animated T.V series's state of the art animation and beautiful songs it blew me away! It follows the tale of Rufus, an Nook who are cuddly, friendly and hard working creatures who assist the Dream Maker who help to bring sweet dreams to the world but the Lord of Nightmare has other ideas, he wants nightmares to rule! Only the Dream Maker with the help of the magical Dream Stone can stop along with Rufus at his side and not to mention his pet Albert, a goldfish with a doggy attitude! This has captured my heart and I want it so much to return to terrestrial television! 10/10

I have spent about the last five years not only trying to find people who remember this show, but to remember the name of it myself. It's quite hard to find others who remember it when you describe it as "A cartoon with these bear kind of things who flew around on leaves and sent out good dreams with a crystal thing...you know the one...a dream crystal or something?" Blank stares. And today I finally Googled it just as 'cartoon 90's dream' and lo and behold! The Dreamstone (I know, could it have been any more obvious...unfortunately my brain doesn't work that way)! Anyway, the point is, it was an EXCELLENT show, right up there with Captain Planet, Widget the World Watcher and Samurai Pizza Cats...go 90's cartoons and everyone who can remember them!

'The Dreamstone' was absolutely fantastic. I'm lucky to have four episodes, including the double-length pilot on video. The show is absolutely stunning, a visual tour de force, with believable characters and some truly fantastic voice-over work. The scripts were never dull, the stories never boring, the show mesmerised me in a way no other cartoon has ever done, or probably will ever do. The Noops, Rufus & Amberley were fully-dimensioned, Rufus in particular so wonderfully realistic that many I know have actually dubbed me as the human version of him. We have the advantage of seeing the show now with our older, more cynical eyes - and that everyone who has seen the show since that I know still holds it in great adoration as a result is a testimony to it's sheer brilliance.

The Dreamstone is certainly a show that brings back my nostalgia goggles. With the internet I can now take another gander at the show. For those of you unacquainted with the show, The Dreamstone is a British animated series created for CITV during the early 90s. The central plot for each episode revolved around the Land of Dreams, a world completely divided in half in the premise of providing happy dreams and nightmares for it's inhabitants. Good dreams are provided in the Land of Dreams by a wizard like character blatantly nicknamed the Dreammaker, and a population of species called the Noops (strange little Jazz Jackrabbit type civilians) and the Wuts (a tribe of magical poodle like beings) while the Nightmares are provided by demonic lizard Zordrak and his ghostly Aggoribles in the land of Viltheed. The Dream Maker manages to keep nightmares from invading the Land of Dreams thanks to the title device; the Dreamstone which holds away Zordrak's Aggoribles. As such Zordrak is insistent on nabbing the thing, enlisting his minions, the Urpneys (basically slovenly humans with lizard tails and enormous noses) to steal it, with limited success.

The show starts off with a rather epic narration more or less explaining the basic plot above. In a rarity, each episode begins from the villains' point of view. All the bad guys have an amusing charm to them, ranging from the incredibly fearsome (but hilariously hammy and exasperated) boss Zordrak, his scatterbrained second in command Sgt Blob and his two neurotic "not-all-that-evil" cronies Frizz and Nug and the rivalistic and completely deranged mad scientist Urpgor, who creates the inane vehicles and inventions which Blob's men utilise to try steal the stone. Character oozes from these guys and the clever wit and slapstick means they usually make every scene they are in a hoot, leaving me to wonder why exactly I begun to lose interest in such a charming show. Then we meet the good guys...

Following the villains plotting their attack on the Utopian Land of the Dreams, we then meet the protagonists, the Dream maker, his two young Noop assistants, Rufus and Amberley and his pet Dogfish Albert (yes, that's exactly what it sounds like). The depiction of the heroes is EXTREMELY cutesy. Most of the protagonists are rather bland and never really intertwine themselves into the show's comedy as well as the bad guys do. Even the manner they are voiced and animated is much flatter and generic in comparison to that of the villains (which almost rivals what Disney and Warner Bros were churning out at the time). Not to mention they are thoroughly infallible and lacking in pathos, and half the time come off more as self righteous bullies due to the Urpneys' ridiculously sympathetic dynamic. In short, you WILL root for the bad guys the large majority of the time.

It's a real shame. The concepts for the show overall brim with potential and are genuinely creative. Mike Jupp's character designs are brilliant and the surreal setup leaves you wanting to see more. Sadly the show's heart doesn't seem to be really with it (oddly enough the actual dream premise is hardly ever seen and most attempts world building are ruined by the heroes' dull execution).

The Dreamstone is a show that REALLY makes me want to love it, but in the end I can only say so for half of it, it's a really big shame, if they had kept up a consistent charm and personality to the good guys as much as the villains, this may have earned an impressive 8 or even a 9 If you want to get a taster of the show, I highly advise watching the opening special for the series at it's highest form, otherwise watch any episode and have a laugh, just be expected to fast forward through to the far more entertaining villain scenes each and every time.

This was one of my favourites in the 90s and still holds up today. It is unique in that the main characters are the baddies, and they're only bad under sufferance. It is a witty and imaginative show which doesn't fall into the trap of condescension and allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions from their imaginations. It is beautifully animated, has a wonderful soundtrack and is in every respect a piece of art. The original Mike Jupp concept piece is available on YouTube and demonstrates that in its earliest iteration this was a much darker piece called "The Dream Thief". Some of that darkness remains lurking in the mountain of Viltheed...

At last there is a full remaster and DVD release available, and with a collectible miniatures line and board game being promised for 2020 we can but hope there will be a bit of resurgence in recognition for this beautiful work.