Help! I'm a Fish

What if you were turned into a fish?

This is the plight of Fly, his sister Stella, and their cousin Chuck, after stumbling across Professor MacKrill's labratory, where Stella mistakes a bottle of Fish Potion for a drink, and (unknown to the others) is transformed into a starfish. In the ensuing confusion, she accidentally gets thrown out of a window into the sea by Fly, and only upon consulting a video tape do the other three find out what happened to her. Whilst searching the sea for Stella though, a storm brews up, and in a moment of hot-headedness Fly drinks the potion, turning into a fish himself. A few moments later the boat capsizes, and to save himself from drowning Chuck drinks the potion himself, whilst the MacKrill seemingly drowns. Although things seem hopeless, the professor did make an antidote, but as luck would have it, it was tossed into the ocean when the boat capsized, and is now in the hands of Joe - a megalomaniac pilot fish, who has plans to rule the fish.

Oh, and did we mention that if Fly, Chuck, and Stella don't get the antidote in 48 hours, they'll be stuck as fish forever?

Although a Danish production made by the studios 'A. Film A/S', it was originally released produced and recorded in English in an attempt to increase revenue, it was later released in Danish under the title "Hjælp, jeg er en fisk". Despite the English original cast it wasn't until 2006 that it came to U.S. shores, under the title A Fish Tale. Not to mention it had really sucky cover art.

Tropes used in Help! I'm a Fish include:
  • Absent-Minded Professor: Mac Krill. Also counts as a Mad Scientist.
  • Adult Fear: Imagine waking up, finding a darkened house with the kids you were looking after gone...
  • Animal Talk: Averted. Even though Fly, Chuck, and Stella have been turned into fish, they can't speak with others except ones that have been exposed to the antidote.
  • Animorphism
  • Atlantis Is Boring: Averted. Much like Disney's The Little Mermaid and later Finding Nemo, the movie portrays the ocean in a much more diverse and entertaining way, though it nonetheless looks nothing like the seas around Denmark should be...
  • Big No: Chuck does one of these near the end of the movie.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The Professor's water-pump system. And possibly Fly's fishing lure.
  • Conspicuous CGI: The CGI is cel-shaded, so it isn't always as conspicuous. The giant octopus is fairly sticky-outy, though.
  • Covers Always Lie: The U.S. cover art not only renames the film to A Fish Tale, but has a really crappy 3-D rendering (WARNING! Click the link at your own risk!) of the shark and the main characters. For extra stupidity, the top says "Alan Rickman", but Rickman's character isn't even shown on the box art. This solitary name also makes it sound like Rickman is the lead role. Or the shark.
  • Deranged Animation: Stella's 'turning-into-a-starfish' sequence.
  • Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: An underwater version, but nonetheless seems to work under the same principles.
  • Disney Death: MacKrill nearly drowns during the storm, but the main characters still think he did.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Joe, who also gets a slight Death by Irony.
  • Family-Unfriendly Violence: Fly getting injured at the hands...uh....claws of a crab.
  • Foreshadowing: When Chuck is washed into Mac Krill's lab, he has a jellyfish stuck on his head, which is what he will turn into later. Similarly, while in the lab, Fly comes across a stuffed fish labeled "California Flyfish", which looks exactly like the one he will turn into.
  • Green Aesop: The professor's whole reason for creating the fish potion - due to a danger presented by melting icecaps. It's not actually as big of a motivator as you might think, though.
  • Guile Hero: Fly.
  • Happily Married: Fly is a serious oddity in the world of children's animation--not only does he still have both his parents, but they genuinely love each other! Who'da thunk?
  • Heroes Gone Fishing: Literal variation; the whole plot springs up from a fishing trip.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Alan "Severus-Snape" Rickman voices Joe. And the Professor is Terry Jones.
  • Hollywood Healing: Averted. After Fly turns back into a human he still has the injury he got earlier.
  • Hilarity Ensues: Averted, hard.
  • I'm Cold... So Cold...: Fly. Played straight however, due to him having (seemingly) lost quite a bit of blood.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chuck's mother. While she seems like your typical "nasty, negligent aunt" in the opening, she proves herself to be fairly formidable in searching for her son, and softens up in the end.
  • Lego Genetics: Random bits of ocean-stuff is enough to turn humans into fish, fish into humans, and, eventually, seahorses to actual horses.
  • More Teeth Than the Osmond Family: The crabs.
  • Morphic Resonance: Each transformed character keeps at least one physical characteristic of their human form.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Fly does this to Joe while the latter is singing "Intelligence". He was actually trying to continue the song, but it hilariously failed.
  • Nerd: Paging Chuck to the white courtesy phone.
  • Never Say "Die": Averted: Characters use the word "die" (and all other variations of the word) freely throughout the movie. The troper even thinks he might have caught a pun on the trope.

Chuck: The professor went underwater and I... I think he sank too.
Fly: What?! You mean, drowned?!"

  • New Era Speech: Joe makes a short one before his Villain Song.
  • No Cartoon Fish: Partially averted. Simply put - Cartoon = Human/Fish that has been exposed to one of the potions. Not Cartoon = Not exposed to the potion.
  • Oh Crap: Joe gets a minor one right before he kicks the bucket.

Fly: "Can a human breathe underwater?"

  • Poor Man's Substitute: Here, Alan Rickman is kind of like Tim Curry if Tim Curry was unavailable. However, that doesn't make him any less awesome as Joe.
  • Scenery Porn: The underwater landscape.
  • Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum
  • Shout-Out: the main villain, Joe the pilot fish, seems disturbingly similar to the Joker from Batman's earlier animated series.
  • Team Pet: Sasha
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Skirt-wearing starfish? Alrighty then.
    • Seeing how Fly keeps his hat and Chuck keeps his glasses, I think we should be more concerned that she has pigtails.
  • Title Drop: Averted. No one actually says "Help! I'm a fish!" like you may expect from the title. They do say "Help!" a lot, though.
  • Unnamed Parent: In the credits, Fly and Stella’s parents are listed as ‘The Mother’ and ‘The Father’.
  • Villain Song: "Intelligence"
  • We Can Rule Together: Implied by Joe, when he’s trying to weasel the anti-fish formula out of Fry, Chuck, and Stella. It’s only an act however, as he plans to feed them all to Shark.
  • Weirdness Censor: When Fly finds Starfish!Stella on the floor he doesn't notice this starfish has pigtails and a skirt.
  • Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Used quite a fair few number of times.
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