The Paper Bag Princess

**The Paper Bag Princess** is the third episode of the animated series, *A Bunch of Munsch.* It was originally aired on Showtime in the United States on October 14, 1992, and then it was aired on CTV in Canada on November 28, 1993, after *50 Below Zero*, which is based on the first 1980 Robert Munsch's book of the same name. It was followed by Pigs.

## Plot

Robert Munsch appears in a lumberjack suit in a magical fairytale land driving a golf caddy, and tells the story of a young princess named Elizabeth who learned a valuable lesson.

She is about to meet the prince of her dreams named Ronald, a young prince the same age as her who is very skilled at everything he does and often boasts his fame to everyone most of the time.

Meanwhile there is a thug-minded Dragon that likes to cause destruction and mass mischief among the kingdom, and is similar to a thug. He finds Princess Elizabeth and Prince Ronald in his tennis court and he attacks them, especially at Princess Elizabeth, in which he destroys her room, and burns her clothes. This forces her to escape from him by going down a garbage chute and into a nearby dumpster. She then gets a paper bag from the dumpster, and uses it as a dress and wears it. Prince Ronald then gets captured by the dragon instead and taken to his cave lair where he gets fed random food at it in a cage. Princess Elizabeth then sets out and finds him herself.

During her journey she encounters a bunch of the other fairytales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Hansel and Gretel. Eventually she finds the Dragon's lair and knocks on the door. But after hearing the cries, the dragon locks the door so Princess Elizabeth cannot hear his cries with his tail; and then Princess Elizabeth comes up with a plan to distract the Dragon so she can unlock the door, or find a way to get in and save him by making him do things that tire him. But as soon as she tries taking her chance, the dragon always comes back. This happens on and on until the dragon starts to regret how showoff-y he is when he becomes too tired to breathe any more fire, and passes out while breaking down. Princess Elizabeth then takes her chance and opens the door to save Prince Ronald, only for her to learn his true colors and arrogance, and he declines to be rescued. The dragon then agrees with the Princess Elizabeth's scolding of Ronald's arrogance to him, and blows fire on his ass which makes him retreat. Then Ronald then starts to regret his own attitude and decisions he's made, and sadly goes back to the kingdom he once ruled.

Princes Elizabeth then decides to marry and be with the dragon instead, and the two fly off together as a new couple, and as her newly found self, she learns what true happiness really means.

## Trivia

* This is the only episode to not take place in Toronto, nor Canada.
* It unknown what time era this episode takes place in due several elements of the story being more new.
* This was the first episode to ever be made due to the prototypical animation, art style, it being longer, and it in fact being priority number one in the production cycle of the series despite it being the third episode to be released.
* All of the characters are supposed to be adults, yet there is no adult features about them, and they appear mentally and physically more like children. Either they never thought of the book, or was made to make it appeal to kids more.
* This is the oldest time era of all of the episodes in the series.
* Ronald in no way acts polite, so it is unknown why this is mentioned in the song, "A Perfect Guy". However, maybe this just Elizabeth and Ronald just guessing or exaggerating.
* This episode was aired on Showtime in the United States the same day that the Rabbit Ears Productions stories series, *American Heroes and Legends* premiered.

## Differences the Book

* Before the beginning of story about Princess Elizabeth, the Dragon appears and starts singing a rap song.
* The dragon passes out from exhaustion in the book, and Prince Ronald stays in the cave while Princess Elizabeth runs off into the sunset to live on her own. But here she lives with the Dragon instead, and Prince Ronald gets attacked, and also the Dragon agrees when Princess Elizabeth lashes out at Ronald. The dragon also has a change of heart too.
* Princess Elizabeth and Ronald knew each other very well in the book version, where as here, she never really knew or met him until she offers a picnic date with him.

## Goofs

* Despite this episode taking place in England, but everyone has Canadian accents, and even then, everything is pronounced an American way.
* The paper bag, when it it first shown, it's a lot smaller. But when Princess Elizabeth puts it on, its the same size as her body.
* Ronald's hair changes from red to orange throughout the episode.

## Gallery

Main article: The Paper Bag Princess/Gallery

## References

1. ↑ https://outlet.historicimages.com/products/mva33127
2. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/485015233/