# Help! I'm a Fish

Help! I'm a Fish (Danish: Hjælp, jeg er en fisk; also known as A Fish Tale) is a 2000 animated science fantasy musical film directed by Stefan Fjeldmark, Greg Manwaring, and Michael Hegner, and written by Fjeldmark, Karsten Kiilerich, John Stefan Olsen, and Tracy J. Brown. It stars the voices of Alan Rickman, Terry Jones, and a then-unknown Aaron Paul. The film tells the story of three kids–Fly, his little sister Stella, and cousin Chuck–who turn into fish and must return to human form before 48 hours are up; otherwise, they will be stuck as fish forever. They must also contend with a pilot fish who has taken the antidote for himself, which he has his own plans for.
It was released on 6 October 2000 in Denmark, 10 August 2001 in the United Kingdom, and 5 September 2006 in the United States. Animation production was split between A. Film Production in Denmark, Munich Animation in Germany, and Terraglyph Interactive Studios in Dublin, Ireland. The film was a commercial failure and box-office flop, grossing $5.6 million in Denmark against an approximate $18 million budget and receiving mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and audiences.

## Plot

Fly is an impulsive 12-year-old boy living with his younger sister Stella and parents Lisa and Bill. When their parents go out for the night, Fly and Stella are babysat by their aunt Anna and her son Chuck, a cautious, overweight genetics prodigy, and Fly and Stella's cousin. When Anna falls asleep, the children sneak out to go fishing. Caught in a high tide, they stumble across the boathouse of Professor MacKrill, an eccentric but kindly marine biologist. Reasoning that climate change will melt the polar icecaps to produce marine transgression within the next century, MacKrill reveals he has developed a potion to transform humans into marine animals, along with an antidote to reverse the process.
Mistaking it for lemonade, Stella drinks the potion and turns into a starfish, which Fly unknowingly throws out the window into the sea. Chuck discovers the mistake after finding Stella's transformation caught on camera. The trio set out to find Stella, but their boat sinks in a storm. Fly and Chuck drink the potion, becoming a California flying fish and a moon jellyfish. Bill and Lisa return home to find Anna frantic with worry. Noticing that Fly's fishing equipment is gone, Bill, Lisa, and Anna head to the beach to search for them but find only Fly's rollerblades. The adults fear the worst until Professor MacKrill, having survived the storm, arrives and shows them the video of Stella's transformation.
Underwater, the leaking antidote attracts a lemon shark and a pilot fish. They consume it, gaining intelligence and anthropomorphic appearances. The pilot fish names himself Joe and uses the antidote to create a civilisation of intelligent fish, intending to launch a revolution against humanity, whilst The Shark becomes his dim-witted subordinate.
Fly, Chuck, and Stella reunite, accompanied by Sasha, a seahorse whom Stella adopts. They must find the antidote within forty-eight hours, or their transformations will be permanent. The trio swims to Joe's domain, a sunken oil tanker, where Fly tries to steal the antidote. They are caught and interrogated by Joe about their intent and origins. He demands that they manufacture more of the antidote, or the Shark will eat them. The children are imprisoned and guarded by an aggressive, militaristic king crab. Sasha frees the children, who manage to escape.
The children decide their only hope to become human again is to duplicate the antidote's formula, gathering ingredients from around the ocean. Just as they complete the potion, Joe and his army appear and corner them. In a stand-off, Joe drinks the last of the original antidote, transforming his fins into hands. The children try to escape, but Fly is wounded by the crab, who drinks the new antidote and declares himself King Crab. At the same time, MacKrill and Bill pass over in a makeshift boat powered by a water pump. The pump causes an underwater typhoon, sucking up the army. The Shark eats the King Crab but is incapacitated when he is sucked head-first into the pump.
Chuck remembers that MacKrill has another vial of the antidote in his laboratory. Formulating a plan, Chuck plans to carry Fly and Stella through dangerous seawater intake pipes back to the lab. However, Stella has to leave Sasha behind as the journey could kill her. The children flood MacKrill's laboratory to reach the potion, but Joe follows, stealing it. Fly pursues Joe into the pipes, tricking him into repeatedly drinking from the potion by challenging his intellect, causing Joe to eventually mutate into a deformed humanoid and drown.
Fly drags the antidote back into the lab, Chuck uncorking it just as Lisa and Anna open the door to the flooded lab. Chuck and Stella become human once more, reuniting with their parents and MacKrill. After a few tense moments in which a stuffed fish is mistaken for Fly's body, the human Fly emerges from one of the lab's pipes with a broken leg. Some time afterwards, the family and MacKrill spend some time together on the beach. Sasha appears, so Chuck and MacKrill transform her into an actual horse, who Stella rides around joyfully.

## Cast

| Character | Danish voice actor | English voice actor |
| Fly | Sebastian Jessen | Jeff Pace Morgan Fane (additional dialogue) |
| Stella | Pil Neja | Michelle Westerson Alexandra Jakobsen (additional dialogue) |
| Chuck | Morten Kernn Nielsen | Aaron Paul Alessandro Juliani (additional dialogue) |
| Joe | Nis Bank-Mikkelsen | Alan Rickman |
| Professor H.O. MacKrill | Søren Sætter-Lassen | Terry Jones |
| Shark | Dick Kaysø | David Bateson |
| Sasha | Louise Fribo | Louise Fribo |
| General Crab | Ulf Pilgaard | David Bateson |
| Bill (The Father) | Peter Gantzler | John Payne |
| Lisa (The Mother) | Paprika Steen | Teryl Rothery |
| Aunt Anna | Ghita Nørby | Pauline Newstone |
| Bus driver | Zlatko Burić | Richard Newman |
| Seabass | Michael Hegner | Scott McNeil |

## Production and music

On 4 October 1997, Stefan Fjeldmark (who is the film's writer), Michael Hegner, and Greg Manwaring were hired and set to direct Help! I'm a Fish, also known as A Fish Tale. Karsten Kiilerich, John Stefan Olsen, and Tracy J. Brown wrote the script for the film. Anders Mastrup and Russell Boland produced the film for release in 2000. On 9 March 1998, it was announced that Jeff Pace, Sebastian Jessen, Michelle Westerson, Pil Neja, Alessandro Juliani, Aaron Paul, Morten Kernn Nielsen, Terry Jones, Søren Sætter-Lassen, Alan Rickman, Nis Bank-Mikkelsen, David Bateson, Dick Kaysø, Louise Fribo, Ulf Pilgaard, John Payne, Peter Gantzler, Teryl Rothery, Paprika Steen, Pauline Newstone, Ghita Nørby, Richard Newman and Zlatko Buric joined the film. On April 12, 1999, it was announced that Søren Hyldgaard would compose the music for the film. In 1996, a pilot trailer was completed, which has resurfaced on the Internet. The environment and object designs, animation, plot, character names, voices, and designs are noticeably different from how they would eventually appear in the finished film.
Development and storyboarding of the film were completed in Denmark. Production then moved to Germany and Ireland for the final phases of animation, lighting, colour and production to maximise tax credits offered to foreign film projects in Germany and Ireland. The film's soundtrack contains "Help! I'm a Fish (Little Yellow Fish)" performed by Little Trees, "Agloubablou" performed by Cartoons, "Ocean of Emotion" performed by Meja, "People Lovin Me" performed by Lou Bega, "Ocean Love/Ton Amour Ocean" performed by Anggun, "Close Your Eyes" performed by Patricia Kaas, "Interlude" performed by Terry Jones, "Fishtastic" performed by Terry Jones, and "Intelligence" performed by Alan Rickman.
The production took about four years to make, with the production work being split and moved around frequently.

## Release

The film was released theatrically on 6 October 2000 by Nordisk Film and was released on DVD and VHS on 6 January 2003 by Movie Star.
HanWay Films and PID (Producers International Distribution) handled international sales to the film.
The film had a theatrical release in the United Kingdom by Metrodome Distribution, released on 10 August 2001. In Ireland, the movie was screened on 27 June 2003 as part of the athletes' evening entertainment programme for the Special Olympics World Games.
In North America, the English dub of the film was released in 2006 by Genius Products and in 2007 by Alliance Atlantis.

## Reception
### Box office

Help! I'm a Fish, according to distributor Nordisk, was a moderate success in Danish due to the school holiday week when the film's box office increased 240% from the first week to the second. In the second week, it grossed $915,945. In comparison, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark has grossed $885,020 after six weeks. It became the most-watched Danish cinema film of the year, with 335,000 tickets sold during the last 13 weeks of 2000 in 3 ½ weeks alone. The film grossed $5.6 million in Denmark against an approximate $18 million budget and became a box-office bomb.
The film was deemed to have been more successful at the box office in Germany, France, and Finland, where audiences are even more suspicious of non-US animations.
The UK release of the film opened to a mediocre £81,908 within 157 cinemas.

### Critical response

Help! I'm a Fish received mixed-to-positive reviews.
Renee Schonfeld from Common Sense Media calls the movie an "entertaining, nicely animated story, with engaging heroes, cleverly designed musical sequences, and exciting action." She also praised voice actor Alan Rickman as a "funny, slitheringly evil performance made well […] tops a solid cast" and the animation as "old-fashioned and combines simply-drawn characters with beautiful underwater settings." She gives it a three stars out of five rating. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian calls it a "sweet, charming and entertaining little cartoon." He also noted that Rickman's "superbly wicked character isn't on, but it's a nice little holiday film nonetheless." Lisa Nesselson of Variety Magazine reviewed that "classy, impressionistic animation of underwater inhabitants […] the drawing style switches to a more standard cartoon look." She also noted that they prefer the "bloated, charmless overkill of a live-action 'Grinch' to the beautifully rendered and emotionally spot-on 'The Iron Giant,' 'Fish' comes as salutary entertainment for all but the very youngest viewers," and the "script is genuinely down to the wire as the trio matches wits with evil Joe. Musical numbers are adequately catchy." Olly Richards of Empire gave the film two stars out of five, stating that "Despite a flourish or two in the design, this really doesn't bring a lot to the table, given the current level of competition in the animated film stakes." Time Out calls it "lacks that extra dimension which would engage and entertain the adults in the audience as well as the kids." Evening Standard calls it out "The animation is light years behind Disney or DreamWorks, but achieves a sort of nostalgic charm because of it […]."

## Awards

Help! I'm a Fish won a Children's Jury Award for Feature Film or Video – Animation in the 2000 Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

## Soundtrack

Danish teen-pop girl group Little Trees performed the title track, "Help! I'm a Fish (Little Yellow Fish)", which was released as a single in the UK. Fellow Danish girl group Creamy also recorded a version of the song. The Belgian girl group K3 also recorded a Dutch version of the song for the movie.
* Help! I'm a Fish (Little Yellow Fish) – Little Trees
* Do You Believe in Magic? – Loona
* Wobble-Di-Bubble-Di-Doo – Cartoons
* People Lovin' Me – Lou Bega
* Funky Sharks – Shaka feat. Sko
* Mother Nature – Little Trees
* Interlude (Professor) – Terry Jones
* Fishtastic – Terry Jones
* Ocean Love – Eddi Reader
* Close Your Eyes – Patricia Kaas
* Interlude (Jelly Fish) – Jeff Pace & Alessandro Juliani
* Suddenly – Solveig
* Ocean Of Emotion – Meja
* Intelligence – Alan Rickman
* Interlude (Goodbye) – Michelle Westerson
* Barracuda – Zindy featuring Pablo

## Legacy

A television series adaption was announced by Egmont Imagination in May 2001, and would consist of twenty-six episodes. Further development has not been stated to take place, and the series was never made.
The film's stars Aaron Paul and Alan Rickman would later co-star again in the 2015 film Eye in the Sky, released shortly after Rickman's death. Paul expressed his regret that despite working with Rickman on Help! I'm a Fish and Eye in the Sky, they never got the chance to meet.