Plop and the Gnome Baby (2009)

Directed by: Bart van Leemputten | 65 minutes | family | Actors: Walter de Donder, Aimé Anthoni, Chris Cauwenbergs, Agnes de Nul, Ron Brandsteder, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Johan Boskamp, ​​Piet Huysentruyt, Kobe van Herwegen, Jenne Decleir, Sofie van Moll

In ‘Plop and the gnome baby’, gnome Lui finds a large forest stream strawberry, bobbing in a crib over the river through the gnome forest. The viewer then knows for a long time that there is a baby under that strawberry, because that has just been told by the voice-over, nicely illustrated by a reading book. It is a smart idea to incorporate one of the most exciting moments of the film – the film opens with it – in this way; the picture book creates some distance and makes it seem less scary for a small baby’s cart to break loose from its parents’ cart and plunge into the river. It seems that this time the makers have deliberately chosen to remove any form of tension from the film, because in ‘Plop and the gnome baby’ we only find good-natured gnomes, no character has anything evil in his sentence such as making penguin soup or stealing the Christmas gnome’s sleigh. The strength of the Plopadventures lies in the mutually different characters Plop, Klus, Lui and Kwebbel, and the filmmakers have kept that in mind this time. Also, none of the gnomes are really in danger and the preschoolers only have to worry about whether Plop can gather enough forest stream strawberries for the cookie baking contest. Okay, and of course whether the baby will end up with his mom and dad again, but for now the small and cute curmudgeon (played completely imperceptibly by four different babies) is having a great time with his temporary daddy Lui, so that’s not really worrying.

Poor Klus is this time the subject of the well-known recurring joke: he gets a wet suit again and again and later he even gets other liquids thrown at him (well, babies…). The nice thing about the scenario, however, is that this joke also has a real function this time: because Klus has had to change so many times and his clothes are not yet dry, he borrows clothes from Lui, which makes Plop think at a crucial moment that the postman leaves his mushroom. The whole story is well put together, big compliments to screenwriter Haydee Nackaerts. What also stands out in a positive sense is the camera work, which is very decent, especially in the scenes at the stream. The decoration of the decor, the gnome forest and the arrangement of the mushrooms, also seem to have been raised a level. The acting is well above expectations. The performances by the well-known TV personalities, Ron Brandsteder, chef Piet Huysentruyt and Jean-Marie Pfaff, are very short but entertaining.

Sure, it’s a cash cow, this series, but it’s clear they’ve done everything possible (within the budget and what the target audience wants) to make this episode something fun. ‘Plop and the gnome baby’ is therefore one of the better films in the series. Time will tell, but perhaps we can even speak of a Plop classic.