Wander to Wonder is a 2023 animated short film (14 minutes) from Great Britain, directed by Nina Gantz.
There's a children's puppet show, called Wander to Wonder, in which a genial older man, Uncle Gilly, appears with his three puppet friends, Billybud, Fumbleton, and Mary, having adventures and learning lessons like how it's important to take baths. The time frame appears, from the video camera and stacks of tapes Uncle Gilly has in his apartment, to be mid-70s to 1980s. The show has a very low-rent, public access feel, being only Uncle Gilly himself filming episodes with a VHS camcorder and a little puppet set on a desk, but Uncle Gilly does have piles of fan mail from adoring children, so somebody's watching.
They aren't watching anymore, however, because Uncle Gilly is dead. He's lying dead on his floor, and apparently he's a solitary guy because he's been there long enough to draw flies. This is a problem because as it turns out, Billybud, Fumbleton, and Mary aren't puppets. They are tiny living people, Lilliputians. And since they're actual tiny people and not, say, Living Toys, they are beginning to starve, with Uncle Gilly dead and the last of the food they can reach running out. Still, the three of them keep recording shows, seemingly out of habit.
Toby Jones is the voice of Fumbleton.
Tropes:
- Aerith and Bob: More like Aerith, Aerith, and Bob. The three "puppets" are named Billybud, Fumbleton, and...Mary. This may be because on the puppet show, Mary seems more like the voice of reason as opposed to her two wacky buddies.
- And the Adventure Continues: The fire that destroyed the apartment also opened up a gap in the front door. The puppets stare at the light coming through the gap and realize that now they can get out. Smash to Black, The End.
- Black Comedy: Very dark comedy indeed. The puppets get so hungry that they eat one of the flies that's been buzzing around Uncle Gilly's corpse. That's followed by them filming a skit called "Don't Eat the Flies" in which Mary tells the children that they can eat lots of different things, like cake, but they shouldn't eat flies because "they're not very nice." (Fumbleton and Billybud are visibly ill in the background.)
- Chekhov's Gun: Billybud's skill was juggling. He decides to juggle lit matches, and he burns down the house. (The puppets survive by jumping into the oven.)
- Creature of Habit:
- The "puppets" are still recording puppet shows, apparently out of habit (it's implied that the show is a invokedLong Runner). Although they're getting weird with it, as Mary introduces a segment that is titled "Hobbies" only to find Fumbleton naked from the waist down and doing a soliloquy from Hamlet. At one point Mary records a desperate plea for the children to send some food, only for Fumbleton to remind her that no one is watching anymore.
- The puppets, filming the show themselves, play a chord from a harmonica by having one of them pull the harmonica across a tiny bellows while the other one pushes the bellows. A later clip shows that Uncle Gilly used to play a chord on his harmonica to introduce segments.
- Full-Frontal Assault: The fire that destroyed the house has also opened a hole in the door, and a pigeon gets in. Mary and Billybud shake with terror, but Fumbleton comes charging forward, naked from the waist down again, holding some long pointed object (a fountain pen?) like a spear, and shouting the "Once more unto the breach!" speech from Henry V. He kills the pigeon.
- Large Ham: Fumbleton keeps reciting soliloquies from Shakespeare. He's unbearably hammy, although he's having a good time.
- Lilliputians: The puppets are actually living, breathing, tiny people. And they're in trouble, because they've just broken open the last jar of pickles, and are now out of food.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Fumbleton is prone to this, as in the opening scene where he's naked from the waist down while performing a soliloquy from Hamlet.Mary: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SHOW YOUR WILKY?
Fumbleton: Nobody's bloody watching! - Mood Whiplash: There's the opening credits of a children's puppet show, then a clip in which Uncle Gilly teaches his puppet friends about the importance of taking a bath. The next clip shows Mary introducing a segment called "Hobbies"...only to reveal Fumbleton with no pants on doing the "Alas, poor Yorick" soliloquy from Hamlet.
- Posthumous Character: Uncle Gilly is dead from the start, appearing only in flashbacks of the puppet show. But the rather dank nature of his apartment and the fact that nobody's discovered him when he's been dead for days suggests a lonely existence, outside of his tiny friends.
- Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A melancholy Mary rewinds and watches a clip of Uncle Gilly on the show saying "Precisely Mary, you're so clever." She does this several times.
- Riddle for the Ages: How has nobody found Uncle Gilly? Apparently he lived alone, but he also had a puppet show that children actually watched. Did no one wonder when there were no more new episodes? Was he a Reluctant Retiree that killed himself?
- Shout-Out: Fumbleton loves to recite Shakespeare, and delivers Large Ham performances of soliloquies from Hamlet, Henry V, Macbeth, and King Lear.
- Show Within a Show: Uncle Gilly's show "Wander to Wonder" comes off as a sweet and charming, if very cheap, little puppet show, aimed at small children, where Uncle Gilly and his puppet friends have adventures and learn lessons. Although it's got a strong public-access feel about it, there were kids writing fan letters to Uncle Gilly, and there was merchandise, as one shot shows a "Wander to Wonder" jigsaw puzzle.
- Stop Motion: The cartoon is animated with stop motion.
- Stylistic Suck: The opening credits of "Wander to Wonder", and the clips from the Show Within a Show, are made to look like low-def VHS tapes. The little signs that Uncle Gilly used to introduce segments of his episodes are hand-drawn, suggesting a very cheap show indeed, even if there were kids somewhere actually watching it.