Butterfly Valley (pilot film)

Before the Butterfly Valley franchise has ever started, an 11-minute pilot short film simply entitled "Butterfly Valley" was produced in early-1968 and pitched to the NBC network executives on June 14. Butterfly Valley (1969 series). It is also considered to be the true start of the entire franchise.
==Synopsis==
Twin sisters Rose and Petunia are playing with their friends on the playground, then they find a butterfly fairy named Princess Butterfly and visit Butterfly Valley. They meet the butterfly fairies and face against the ruler of the trolls, King Boogieman, who wants to marry Princess Butterfly.
==Plot==
Once upon a time, two little girls named Rose and Petunia are playing with their friends at the playground, then suddenly, they heard a twinkling sound and try to find where it comes from. They found out that it came from a small monarch butterfly on a bush.
The twins greet the butterfly, who turns out to be the butterfly fairy Princess Butterfly in her butterfly form. The twins hold each other's hands and suddenly…
They've all got ended up in a magical place called Butterfly Valley. Princess Butterfly magically changes into her fairy form, surprising Rose and Petunia. The three meet a little blue caterpillar, who transform to a little girl. She introduces herself as Bluebell, a young butterfly fairy who has yet to earn her wings.
Rose and Petunia greet the butterfly fairies, who are initially in their butterfly forms, but quickly transform to their fairy forms. Princess Butterfly soon informs the twins that she is in charge of ruling the kingdom, since her parents are making peace negotiations with the bee kingdom, but suddenly, dark stormy clouds began to cover the sky, forcing the butterfly fairies to hide in shelters.
The twins also hide in a shelter with Bluebell. Rose wondered why is everybody hiding, to which Bluebell responded that the evil trolls had used their own magic to make the stormy clouds appear.
Princess Butterfly soon heard a butterfly fairy mother screaming for help, since she could not find her son. Princess Butterfly enlists Rose, Petunia and Bluebell for help, so they try to find the missing child, but however, Butterfly and Bluebell are captured by the troll guards, who took them to the Troll Kingdom.
Rose and Petunia had found the missing child and reunites him with his mother, who thanks the twins for their help, then she asks where are Princess Butterfly and Bluebell and Rose responded that they are captured by the trolls, which shocked her and the child, then the twins follow the troll guards to the Troll Kingdom. They encounter a tyrannical ruler named King Boogieman. He soon viewed Princess Butterfly as a perfect bride for himself and grabs her.
Butterfly struggled to escape from Boogieman's hand, then Bluebell tries to attack Boogieman, but her magic powers are weak, then the twins decide to finish him off with their own magical powers by holding each other's hands and firing beams of light from their fingertips. King Boogieman soon shrinks to ant-size, allowing Princess Butterfly to escape from his hand, and runs away in fear.
Princess Butterfly, Bluebell and the twins soon escape from the Troll Kingdom and return to Butterfly Valley, where Princess Butterfly and Bluebell thank Rose and Petunia for their help.
Rose and Petunia bid farewell to the butterfly fairies and, by using their magical powers, transport back home and their friends, who are glad that they return to their world, came to them. The children sit down and Rose and Petunia tell a story about their adventure in Butterfly Valley as the film ends.
==History and production==
On January 17, 1968, Ronald Smickon and Bobby Westmoreland founded HeyKids Studios in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. They wanted to make an animated television series for children, but they had to make a pilot film to impress television executives, so they hired writer Sean Hancock and director Rudolph Pasky to help them produce the film.
Sean Hancock, sitting in front of his desk in his office, struggled to think of bringing something "magical and majestic" to the story, so he went to his daughter Kathy's room and saw her playing with a toy butterfly and a fairy doll on her bed. Kathy suggested Sean to use fairies and butterflies for the story, so Hancock went back to his office to quickly etch some rough drawings of what will become the butterfly fairies.
Meanwhile, Rudolph Pasky drove home and went to his son Ben's room, seeing him pretending to be a troll. This gives Pasky an opportunity to use trolls as the major antagonists, so he goes to his desk and sketch some trolls on his notebook.
At the evening in the studio, during dinner, the crew are joined by the soon-to-be art director Avery Jones, Tim Weiss and Glenn Donovan. Westmoreland came up with the title "Butterfly Valley", deriving from the place where the butterfly fairies live in.
The next day, the crew began production of the pilot film, spending five months to create characters, write scripts, train voice actors, record lines for the characters and animate scenes.
In June 14, 1968, the pilot film was completed and Smickon and Westmoreland went to New York City. They went to one of the offices at NBC's headquarters, then Reginald Baker opened the doors and asked the two to come in. Smickon sets up a projector and puts the reel of the finished product, then he plays the film against a white cloth. Something that Smickon and Westmoreland did not expect, the executives actually enjoyed the film. After the film was played, Baker asked the two to make a full animated series for NBC's Saturday morning timeslot with the same elements as the film.
==Differences from "Arrival"==
*The character designs are different from the final version.
**Rose and Petunia wear blank pink dresses with no white linings.
**The Butterfly Fairies have beige-colored skins as opposed to purple complexions.
**Princess Butterfly wears a yellow bonnet and not a purple one.
**Bluebell wears a blue sweater with green collar as opposed to a poncho with green trimmings.
**King Boogieman seemed to resemble the Wicked Witch of the West from the Oz book series, since he had a much skinnier physique.
*Princess Butterfly was voiced by Zelda Cheeseman, who gave her a raspier voice, rather than Phobie Lawerence, whereas Bluebell was voiced by Serena Fowler rather than Cheeseman.
*In the pilot film, Rose and Petunia are able to transport to and from Butterfly Valley without using the Magic flower.
*Rose does not whistle to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum, the theme music of the Eurovision network and its related events.
*The missing child was found and returned to his mother earlier than in the final version.
*The troll guards only capture Princess Butterfly and Bluebell, since Rose and Petunia are apart from the area the two butterfly fairies are captured.
==Home media release==
The pilot film was released on home media for the very first time on the Blu-ray box set Butterfly Valley: The 50th Anniversary Collection.
==Trivia==
*This marks the first production of HeyKids Studios, although at the beginning of the pilot, they were referred to as "HeyKids Productions and Releasing."
*The story for this pilot film would later be revamped for the first official episode of the 1969 series titled "Arrival."
Category:Episodes