Castillo

A shower of shooting stars is due this very night, and all the inhabitants of the village have gathered to marvel at the spectacle. Meanwhile, Wiz the Wizard is miserable because his grandfather left him a magic talisman that would give him devastating powers, but he’s never been able to make it work. Suddenly his grandfather’s ghost appears to Wiz and reveals that the second half of the magic talisman is in the possession the Duke’s family, who stole it from him by their cunning and treachery.

Lumbus the travelling salesman appears in the village again, and this time he has a real miracle elixir with him: Superflex seems to be the answer to the prayers of bald men everywhere, for it almost immediately gives them a luxuriant thatch of hair. And the magic cure has apparently turned up just in time: the Duke has just lost the last hair on his head. First the Blacksmith tests Superflex – with spectacular results – and then the Duke rediscovers the pleasures of fast-growing foliage.

Most of Castillo’s inventions are absolutely brilliant, but sometimes they do cause an awful lot of problems. Take the seven-mile-leapers he has just made, for instance. Adelaide thinks these spring-powered shoes are fantastic, but when someone leaves them lying around and the Duke falls off the balcony, he lands on them and is catapulted right into the well. Now he’s stuck there, and every attempt to get him out is in vain. It wouldn’t be so bad, but Wiz the Wizard wastes no time in adding a sixth law to the law book, stating that if the Duke is out of action for more than a day, a new duke has to be chosen. And since children and employees of the court aren’t eligible, that only leaves the Landlady, the Blacksmith, the Shop-keeper... and of course Wiz himself. It looks as though the glorious reign of the Duke is about to be relegated to ancient history. But thank goodness Castillo once again comes up with a solution to the problem – and like most of his ideas, it’s absolutely brilliant...

Walli the Finance Minister has managed to lose the Duke’s entire fortune, including Adelaide’s dowry, in a series of unfortunate investments. So the Duke fires Walli on the spot and tells her to make sure she gets the money back in three days. Walli swiftly decides that magic represents her only chance of making some money that quickly – she turns up at Wiz the Wizard’s den with a touching story and manages to persuade him to hire her as a housemaid. This way she hopes to discover his secret formula for manufacturing gold. Meanwhile Adelaide, Castillo, Siegfried and Bruni stumble across Wiz’s gold machine in a cave...

Castillo and Siegfried are in the depths of despair. These days Adelaide and Bruni seem to have no time for them, because both girls are just wild about the latest pop singer: the sensational Howie. They even dismiss Castillo’s latest invention as a childish toy when Lumbus turns up with the Howie Express – a whole range of Howie souvenirs for fans. There’s something for everyone: a Howie scarf for Bruni, the latest fan magazine for Adelaide and a Howie songbook for Brother Martin. Castillo and Siegfried try everything to win back the hearts of their errant girlfriends. But nothing works: their kitsch duet, a bouquet of flowers and Siegfried’s strong-man act all meet with hoots of derision.

On her fifth birthday Walli is presented with a very special gift from the Duke: a magic set. When her first attempts are a resounding success Walli gets a bit carried away, and then the inevitable happens: she makes a very magic sort of mistake and turns the Duke into a miniature version of himself. In a fit of rage Princess Adelaide smashes the magic wand... which means apprentice wizard Walli can now no longer restore the dwarf Duke to his rightful size. The throne is in serious danger, but Wiz the evil Wizard has a spare wand hidden in his den. In a daring venture the shrunken Duke manages to steal the magic wand and escape. It’s just a bit of a shame that the Duke has to revert to his full size while Walli is flying home with the Duke on her back...

It’s full moon... but what’s driving everyone in the village absolutely crazy is that it’s been full moon for days now, and nobody knows if this night will ever come to an end! Brother Martin peers through his telescope and discovers strange flashes of light coming from the moon, but neither he nor Castillo has any idea what that could mean. Wiz the Wizard is sure he knows what the problem is, though: the cosmic clockwork in the moon has gone wrong, and the Man in the Moon is signalling to Earth because he doesn’t know how to fix it. There’s only one thing for it: Castillo will have to be shot up to the moon from a huge cannon, armed with a box of tools and a modern tincanophone so he can talk to the people back on Earth. Castillo reaches the lunar surface and meets the Man in the Moon in person. And when he manages to fix the cosmic clockwork he is given a very special present as an expression of gratitude: a moonstone.

Bad news from the king: in order to make room for a modern highway, the entire village is to be demolished and rebuilt 200 metres away. A senior official from the Ministry of Public Works is sent to survey the area and make sure the plan can be put into effect. Naturally all the villagers are at their wits’ end, and there is no knowing exactly how disastrous it all might have been if Castillo hadn’t once again come up with a scheme to save them...

Every decent village has to be thrown into turmoil now and then by a furious argument. This time it’s the Shopkeeper and the Landlady who are at each other’s throats. Since the Landlady has started selling beans and bacon at the inn for next to nothing, nobody has been buying anything at the village shop. Castillo and Bruni come up with a wonderful scheme; they’ll run cookery classes for the whole village. Unfortunately the cunning plan backfires, because suddenly everyone’s so keen on cooking that nobody bothers going to eat in the Dragon’s Inn any more. And strangely enough, the most fanatic of the budding cooks is the Duke himself. So now Castillo and Bruni have to come up with another idea - to bring peace and harmony back to the village at last.

Toothache is just awful! As Baquette the Chef discovers for himself when he takes an enthusiastic bite of a cherry and forgets about the stone inside. An ice-pack, herbal remedies, meditation – nothing brings the desired relief. Finally Garlic decides to take matters into his own hands; he pulls out the offending molar himself. This solves the problem of his toothache, but now there’s a huge gap in his teeth, and as a result every time he speaks he makes a very strange whistling sound. And the Duke objects strongly to a whistling chef in his household. According to Brother Martin treatment of a whistling gap costs 500 gold pieces, but the Duke’s Finance Minister, Walli, refuses to spend more than one gold piece. Not enou

How can a cute little mouse plunge the entire village into confusion? Princess Adelaide receives a wonderful gift from the Spanish Duke Rodriguez – Lolita, a flamenco mouse. But Adelaide’s delight at her new friend is short-lived. When Adelaide leaves the cage door open in a moment of forgetfulness, the rodent makes a run for it. And soon the villagers are aghast at the amount of destruction one mouse can cause, from nibbling at sausages to gnawing at apples. All their attempts to recapture the dancing mouse prove futile. And then comes the final straw: the Duke’s royal roast is swiped!

One day the Landlady gets a frightening letter from her sister. It seems that the village is haunted by ghosts! Everyone has to be especially careful, otherwise... but unfortunately Castillo burns the letter by mistake, so she never finds out what awful fate might await them. The Landlady promptly panics and soon scares everyone in the village out of their wits. All the villagers agree that the only way to get rid of the ghosts is to frighten them away by putting on terrifying disguises. When Siegfried strolls out of the woods a little later he is met by a sight to strike terror into his heart; the whole village is full of horrifying figures. Reduced to a quivering wreck, Siegfried turns to Wiz the Wizard for help. The great magician comes up with a brilliant plan: the ghosts that are haunting the village must be frightened away by figures in terrifying disguises...