Der Räuber Hotzenplotz (2006)

Somewhere in the Bavarian countryside, the robber Hotzenplotz is causing trouble. One day, he steals Kasperl’s grandmother’s coffee grinder. Since the bumbling Constable Dimpfelmoser sees little hope of finding the robber, Kasperl and his best friend Seppel decide to track him down themselves. By using a ruse, they manage to find the robbers’ hideout, but then Hotzenplotz captures them. Hotzenplotz sells Kasperl to the wizard Petrosilius Zwackelmann and makes Seppel work for him at his hideout. Meanwhile, Constable Dimpfelmoser tries to learn more with the help of the fortune-teller Frau Schlotterbeck. Kasperl discovers a toad in the wizard’s castle, but it is actually the enchanted fairy Amaryllis. With Amaryllis’s help, Kasperl escapes from the castle and obtains the fairy herb that can restore the fairy to her true form. Zwackelmann, who has by now magically summoned Seppel and Hotzenplotz and transformed the robber into a bullfinch, is shrunk along with all his possessions by the fairy after she has been restored to her true form, and taken to the fairy realm. Seppel and Kasperl hand Hotzenplotz over to Constable Dimpfelmoser. Through an accident caused by the boys, Hotzenplotz is transformed back and manages to escape, kidnapping the grandmother. Seppel and Kasperl bring silverware as ransom, but Hotzenplotz captures them again during the handover. While Frau Schlotterbeck’s dog Wasti (whom she once accidentally bewitched into a crocodile) leads Constable Dimpfelmoser and Frau Schlotterbeck to the robbers’ hideout, Kasperl and Seppel manage to outwit the robber. With Wasti and the fairy Amaryllis’s help, they free themselves. The fairy transforms Wasti back into a dachshund, and the captured robber Hotzenplotz is brought to the village in a triumphant procession.