Look, Dragonheart is… I’m not proud of what Dragonheart does to me. Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Where the original song has him sadly retiring into oblivion when his original child companion grows up and forgets about him, these specials suggested that Puff is a kind of eternal way station for troubled kids - and that imaginary friends are a helpful tool on the path to growing up. Written by Romeo Muller, who also scripted the 1970s adaptation of The Hobbit and wrote many of Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion holiday specials, Puff the Magic Dragon and its follow-up specials positioned the genial dragon as a kind of combination fantasy BFF and insightful child psychologist, leading his kids through weird fantasy lands that help them process childhood traumas and get past their own dysfunctional defensive mechanisms. Burgess Meredith voiced the dragon, a kind of ersatz adult capable of both offering wisdom and of seeing the world with the same outsized imaginations as the kids he helps. The friendly dragon of Peter, Paul and Mary’s classic song got a trio of gently absurdist animated TV outings in the 1970s and ’80s, courtesy of CBS. The Rankin-Bass version picks up what Tolkien was laying down in drawing his dragon from classic heroic epics: This is a beast of an older, more primal age, something fearsome in size and power that’s also fearsome in its craft and cunning, even if he’s ultimately vain enough to be tricked into courting his own death.

This isn’t some upsized version of a familiar reptilian creature, or a sleek fantasy wish-fulfillment pet Smaug is illustrated with intimidatingly fine details, with irregular teeth, coarse hair sprouting from his face and back, and a bulk that suggests a predator big enough to eat whenever and wherever he wants. Have Gun – Will Travel star Richard Boone gave him a gravelly, rich, aristocratic purr of a voice, but the animators made him a uniquely visceral monster. Tolkien’s The Hobbit real ones know that the OG version in the 1977 Rankin-Bass movie is one of the all-time great movie dragons. Forget Peter Jackson’s CGI Smaug in the ridiculously overstretched live-action version of J.R.R.

Animated film dragon school progect