Barktroll's Blame

## Stats

**Barktroll's Blame** is the fifteenth episode of *The Neverending Story*. It aired on March 9, 1996. While it was the fifteenth episode to be aired (at least on HBO), it was the sixteenth episode to be produced.

## Summary

The Howling Forest is perfect and peaceful, with the Sap Jubilee occurring where the sap runs off the trees every thousand years. This is however interrupted by a sudden fire that happens. Meanwhile, Bastian can't find his lucky soccer shoes which may help him win a game on Saturday, and puts the blame on his dad because there were a few tears in them. He enters Fantasia and appears at the scene of the fire, and because Barktroll states he was there when the fire started, all the tree trolls believe he done it.

Barktroll runs over for choir practice, but the instructor says that he has been replaced. None of the other trees also don't want anything to do with him, running away and such. Not even a squirrel seems to be fascinated by him and bites his finger. Barktroll thinks he's finished and decides to move away from the forest. Bastian vows that they will find what really happened, and finds footprints in the ashy burnt area. Barktroll says it could've been a Lumberloafer, so they go run off to see if they have anything to say, but Barktroll looks in some bushes and falls down a hole, and Bastian follows as well. They land in the area of the Lumberloafers, happy-go-lucky animals that live in trees and say "oy!". Bastian asks a bunny but he says he didn't see anything, but maybe the Flimflams did. Barktroll thinks this could be a good new home, but he takes off when the animals try getting sap out of him.

They go to the Flimflams who are beavers working with wood. A beaver worker says that he also didn't see anything and brings up the Old Tree Trolls. Barktroll thinks about living here, but changes his mind again when he sees the beavers tearing up the wood. Next they go to an old forest which Barktroll decides would be a great place to stay, but he sees the haunting silhouettes of his neighbors and starts to have a second thought. However, these residents are just elderly tree trolls who all talk at once and bicker. Bastian asks one of them if they have seen anything related to the fire, so one of them lists somebody who was there when it happened. Trying to talk with them, Barktroll thinks he doesn't fit in with these three trolls and thinks he'll never find a home.

Bastian and Barktroll find an area where a frog, looking like exactly how the tree troll described, is partying with a couple of animals as they dance in a line. He asks the frog but he doesn't know a thing about the fire either. Barktroll dances around and is happy to be there, but he suddenly becomes sad and misses his old home in the Howling Forest, even if his friends wouldn't miss him, he misses them. Meanwhile, another fire has started in the forest, which is sourced from sunlight shining in the sap, causing specific spots to heat up and burn. Barktroll guides the tree trolls in it to the stream, while Bastian, riding Falkor, commands some flying bats to dump water on the burning spots. In the end, they apologize to Barktroll, and everyone parties again.