The Dragon That Wasnt (Or Was He)

Plot

One stormy night, a servant dog named Yost is reading that storms are caused by dragons. Starting to believe it to be true, he wakes up his employer, a bear named Oliver. When Oliver tries to convince Yost that dragons do not exist. Yost tries to convince Oliver otherwise by showing him a book hed been reading during the storm. Oliver takes the book and reads a dragon-calling spell from it and the wind blows the curtains in their faces, and Oliver does not notice a dragon walking by the window. After the storm dies down, they see dragon tracks on the ground, and Yost goes searching for more evidence, Visiting Olivers next door neighbor Kit Cat. He tells Kit Cat about what had happened with her determining that if she were a dragon after having laid an egg, shed leave on the back path behind the gardens. In the middle of the forest, Yost insisted they look around to find something to convince Oliver that dragons are real and find a spherical object. Not knowing what it is, they take it back to Oliver, who assumes that it is a beach ball.

Meanwhile in a local bar, some gangsters are plotting a heist at a banquet to be held in Olivers mansion. One of the gangsters has been hired as a doorman.

The next morning, while Oliver is cleaning up for his party, the "beach ball" follows him, eventually carrying him outside to the fountain in front of his home. At this point, a dragon hatches out of the "beach ball" and he starts acting affectionate with Oliver, proving that Yost and Kit Cat were right, as Kit Cat points out that the little dragon believes Oliver to be his father, since Oliver was the first thing the little dragon saw. Oliver names the dragon Dexter, after his great grandfather. A rumor quickly spreads through town that Oliver laid an egg, after the local grocer brings an order to the Marquee explaining that he was late because hed witnessed Oliver hatching an egg with a creature in it. The size and shape kept changing each time that the story gets retold from the Mayors office to the newspaper making its way to the entire town.

Later that day, Yost and a duck he had hired to be waiter for Olivers party attempt to give Dexter a bath, but as Kit Cat had read earlier, dragons hated baths; Dexter reacts by growing very large and becoming aggressive. When Yost tries to explain this to Oliver, he goes upstairs to investigate himself. By the time that he reaches the bathroom, Dexter has returned to normal size. Oliver interprets it to mean that Yost and the Duck overreacted, leading Oliver to still believe that Dexter is still a harmless child.

Before the banquet starts, Oliver puts Dexter to bed, but Dexter doesnt immediately go to sleep and starts gathering up toys and anything else he could fit in his pillow case presumably starting a hoard. During the banquet, the gangsters are surreptitiously stealing the guests belongings, while Dexter is slowly making his way towards the party attracted by the music and food. Meanwhile Kit Cat is reading that dragons can be set off by sweet-tasting foods and shiny objects, and she realizes that Dexter might try to get into the party. She goes to the party and tries to get Olivers attention, but he ignores her and opens the curtain to the dining room, revealing the monstrous Dexter, who assaults the guests collections and shaking out what the gangsters couldnt steal. Kit Cat tells Oliver he needed to be firm with Dexter. Oliver initially does not believe that the monstrous dragon was Dexter, until he scolds him and Dexter returns to normal size. Oliver, in obvious denial of Dexter obviously being a dragon, tries convincing his guests that Dexter is still a child but very different and special in his own right and that he was only going through growing pains. One of Olivers guests, the local physician, tells Oliver to bring Dexter in for a checkup to help deal with the "growing pains".

Before he leaves for the hospital, the Police chief makes sure Dexter and Oliver go, and Kit Cat insists that she go with them to make sure nothing happens, with Oliver scolding her and insisting it was still nothing to worry over. When Oliver brings Dexter into the hospital the next morning, the gangsters kidnap Dexter and have him rob the bank for them. When Oliver arrives to stop Dexter, the giant Dexter grabs him and runs into the hills with him.

Oliver wakes up the next morning, alone in a cave, finding himself to be alone until Kit Cat comes to try to convince Oliver to send Dexter back to his own kind, over the Misty Mountains but Oliver continuing to be stubborn, motivated Dexter to chasing Kit Cat away. Dexter is scolded for it afterward by Oliver who suggests to have breakfast. Dexter opens his bag and dumps out some turnips he dug up, but since Oliver does not like the idea of eating them, Dexter leaves. After wandering through the hills for a few minutes trying to find Dexter, Oliver starts remembering how good he had him back home and eventually comes across the police, who arrest him for his presumed role in the bank robbery. Dexter returns apparently after having raided the grocers store for food he knew Oliver liked, but finds Oliver gone and starts crying. After The Mayor makes a deal with Oliver to capture Dexter and hand him over to the circus, under the premise that its for Dexters own good, Oliver cooperates. As Dexter breaks into the jail trying to save Oliver, Oliver tells Dexter he cant be the little dragons father anymore which saddens Dexter causing him to shrink down to the size he was when he hatched, leaving the jail in tears. Olivers name is cleared and he is released for helping to "capture the vicious dragon", and he later watches as a commercial for the circus with the gangsters hosting comes on TV.

Yost leaves for the opening premier of the circus leaving Kit Cat to watch it over the TV and her shouting at Oliver to be quiet, only to later see Oliver unpacking a blunderbuss that he brings with him going to the circus. At the start of the show Kit Cat can be seen sneaking to the back of the tent opening the cage Dexter was kept in trying to help him escape, only to find the Dragon was too sad and depressed to want to escape. Later one of the gangsters and the Duck show up to get Dexter into the show pushing, shoving and pulling him into the center ring with the lead gangster making himself the ringmaster trying to provoke him by whipping the ground in front of him. Oliver arrives at the circus and stops the act, bringing up Dexters spirits after seeing him. Oliver stirs up some trouble by firing his blunderbuss into the air scaring the crowd. This causes Dexter to grow and become aggressive again. The resulting chaos destroys the circus with the gangsters trying to get away with all the money, but Dexter stops them first by picking them up, only to have Oliver tell him to put the money box down. This causes some of the money theyd had to fly away on a breeze. Dexter sees it and burns it leaving the gangsters with nothing. He picks up Oliver and leaves for the hills again only unlike before Oliver gives a warmer farewell telling Dexter he is now a big boy and has to return to his Dragon kind over the mountains. Dexter hears a call from another dragon and climbs the hills returning it, waving goodbye to Oliver.

At the end of the Movie, Oliver admits his faults, misjudgments and stubbornness by admitting that dragons were in fact real and hed learned this from the book Yost had in the beginning, which Yost ironically burns up. With the mayor, newspaper editor and other friends at the table, Oliver toasts to Dexter and the dragons, after which we hear a dragon call scaring Yost, thinking another one was coming, but Oliver believed it was Dexter saying another goodbye to them all from the mountain, Confident that hed found his family. The movie ends with the Duck waddling up to the mountain with a net and cage, apparently hoping to catch a dragon of his own.

Cast