Fool's Fire
A family of "little people" are peacefully having dinner when the thundering sound of horsemen is heard. One of the male adults helps the other family members to hide, but with nowhere else in the house to hide he jumps out a window and flees, only to be ridden down by a horsemen, captured and kidnapped to a foreign kingdom. He is dragged before a royal court of monsters (literally and figuratively) consisting of the monstrously fat king and his equally repulsive court, called "Hop-Frog" because of his now-limping gait, and forced to become the new jester.One morning, the practical joke-obsessed king orders the inventive yet sensitive Hop-Frog to provide entertainment for the arriving Duke and Duchess of Siri-Siril. Following Hop-frog's physical comedy and a sumptuous banquet, the king's guests wheel in a giant bird cage, containing a young dwarfish woman named Tripetta, as a gift for the king. It's love at first sight for Hop-Frog, but his feelings and the condescending and cruel treatment at the hands of the so-called "normal" courtiers only tortures him even more. Events take an even uglier turn when the king summons Hop-Frog, orders him to come up with a original idea for an upcoming costume ball and forces him to drink goblets of wine (which the poor dwarf can't handle). Trippetta, who has been forced to be present, tries to halt the bullying, but has a goblet of wine thrown in her face for her efforts. This in turn has the effect of immediately sobering Hop-Frog up, and he comes up with a brilliant idea: the king and his councillors will be covered in fur and pretend to be ourangutangs bound together by a lengthy chain and, most appealing to the King's sadistic nature, scare the you-know-what out of everybody. The conceit is a strange one, but the King and his men readily accept it. Later that night, Hop-frog frees Trippetta from her cage to assist him in carrying out his plans for the costume ball.The night of the ball arrives and the plan is carried out; the king and his councillors are sewn into tight-fitting body-suits (which are painted all over with tar and covered with flax) and equipped with carved wooden masks. The illusion is a flawless one, so much so that when the "Eight Chained Ourangutangs" bust into the party at midnight and create their commotion, none of the guests complain when Hop-Frog lowers a chandelier chain down from the ceiling, hooks it to the chain connecting the beasts and has it and the "apes" hoisted into the air. Using a torch to pretend to try and find out who these costumed people are, he sets them all afire, with the other partygoers too far out of reach to help. He and Trippetta (who has been waiting on the roof) watch coldly from the roof as the fire claims its victims, then escape into the air on a makeshift flying machine as flames slowly spread through the kingdom.
revenge