The Spanish bad boys Zipi y Zape, sort of Dennis the Menace squared, first appeared in a comic strip in Pulgarcito magazine in 1947.
They have since spun off into many more comics, three movies, a television series, a video game, and tons of merchandising. But Zip and Zap and the Captain's Island (2016) is, as far as I know, their first appearance outside el mundo español.
Zip (Teo Planell, top photo and left) and Zap (Toni Gómez, right) are lanky androgynous teenagers who remind me of the Sprouse twins on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, except that they're constantly insulting and yelling at their parents: stick-in-the-mud novelist Pantuflo (Jorge Bosch) and his wife (who is so mousy and withdrawn that she doesn't get a name in the cast list).
At Christmastime, they visit an isolated island so Dad can meet with a publisher. They get lost, and end up at a children's home run by the enigmatic Miss Pam (Elena Anaya), a sinister butler, and a cackling, demented nun.
At Christmastime, they visit an isolated island so Dad can meet with a publisher. They get lost, and end up at a children's home run by the enigmatic Miss Pam (Elena Anaya), a sinister butler, and a cackling, demented nun.
The next day, Miss Pam tells Zip and Zap that, due to all their mischief, their parents have abandoned them. They will live at the children's home forever.
Oh, and won't you meet two other new residents, the too-cool-for-school Macky (Máximo Pastor, recent photo left) and super-inquisitive flibbertigibit Flecky (Iria Castellano).
Zip immediately starts a gay-subtext buddy-bond with Macky, while Zap gets a goofy hetero-crush on Flecky.
Did you figure it out? Yep -- Miss Pam has lured the family to the island. She is using a retro Frankenstein machine to regress "troubled parents" to their 11-year old selves, before they lost their primal joie de vivre. She's Peter Pan, making her own crew of lost boy-adults who shouldn't have grown up.
The children's home is occupied mostly by regressed parents, except they're not really regressed. The parents are locked in a chamber while their young selves...but not really. At the end of the movie, all of the regressed parents leave the island to rejoin their parents.
Wait -- Zap gets a crush on his own mother? Why does that bother me, when Zip crushing on his own father seems fine?
But we're not done. Miss Pam is also collecting people who look or act like literary characters...then...turning them into other things. So she turns a detective who acts like Sherlock Holmes into a gorilla.
Why not turn him into Sherlock Holmes?
A girl who looks like Pippi Longstocking has an octopus-submarine like Captain Nemo's Nautilus
The children are being controlled by a magic snow globe kept in an aquarium.
Did I mention that it's Christmastime, for no apparent reason?
I think you're just supposed to give your brain a rest, let the bizarre imagery flow over you, and wait for the father-son and mother-son couples to hug.
By the way, since the movie came out, Toni Gomez has lost his androgynous long hair and hunked up a bit. His photos online mostly show him modeling and kissing girls.
Wait -- why is it the Captain's Island? There is no captain.....
Did you figure it out? Yep -- Miss Pam has lured the family to the island. She is using a retro Frankenstein machine to regress "troubled parents" to their 11-year old selves, before they lost their primal joie de vivre. She's Peter Pan, making her own crew of lost boy-adults who shouldn't have grown up.
The children's home is occupied mostly by regressed parents, except they're not really regressed. The parents are locked in a chamber while their young selves...but not really. At the end of the movie, all of the regressed parents leave the island to rejoin their parents.
Wait -- Zap gets a crush on his own mother? Why does that bother me, when Zip crushing on his own father seems fine?
But we're not done. Miss Pam is also collecting people who look or act like literary characters...then...turning them into other things. So she turns a detective who acts like Sherlock Holmes into a gorilla.
Why not turn him into Sherlock Holmes?
A girl who looks like Pippi Longstocking has an octopus-submarine like Captain Nemo's Nautilus
The children are being controlled by a magic snow globe kept in an aquarium.
Did I mention that it's Christmastime, for no apparent reason?
I think you're just supposed to give your brain a rest, let the bizarre imagery flow over you, and wait for the father-son and mother-son couples to hug.
By the way, since the movie came out, Toni Gomez has lost his androgynous long hair and hunked up a bit. His photos online mostly show him modeling and kissing girls.
Wait -- why is it the Captain's Island? There is no captain.....
