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A Wish for Wings That Work

A Wish for Wings That Work: An Opus Christmas Story was a children's book by Berkeley Breathed that was published in 1991. It was made into an animated television special that same year. The story is 30 pages long, and contains large color pictures every other page, and small black and white ones over the writing. Each page contains at least one joke, either in the picture or in the story itself.

Plot

The story centers on Opus the Penguin (who was at the time one of the main characters in Breathed's comic strip Outland). Opus is downhearted because as a mere penguin he is denied the ability to fly. He longs to be able to soar in the air with the other birds, and his heart grows cold with the reality that he can't. Even the pigeons look down upon Opus, so Opus decides that one way or another he will learn how to fly. He orders a machine off the TV, and assembles it (maybe not correctly, the directions were in a different language). When it comes time to test the machine by jumping off a three mile high cliff, Opus decides to do something less dangerous, and goes home to make anchovy Christmas cookies. He doesn't give up on his dream though, and makes a Christmas wish to Santa for "wings that will go!". Happily for Opus, his dream of flying comes true, though not quite in the manner he expected.

TV special

The animated special, which was directed by Skip Jones and produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio for Universal Studios, featured the voices of Michael Bell as Opus the Penguin, John Byner as Bill the Cat, and Alexaundria Simmons as Ronald-Ann Smith. It also featured the voices of Robin Williams (credited under a pseudonym) and Dustin Hoffman.

The special now airs annually on the ION Television network.

The special was released on DVD for the first time ever on November 6, 2007.

Trivia

Post-hardcore band Poison the Well used the name for a song on their 1999 album The Opposite of December.
The special incorporates the plane crash scene from 1937's Lost Horizon, this time with Opus flying and crashing the plane.
As of 2006, the special is the only time that characters from Breathed's Bloom County series of comic strips have been animated.
Though Steven Spielberg helped produced the animation special, he was not credited.
Berkeley Breathed has voiced his dislike for the TV special, as shown from this 2006 exchange in the Washington Post (see link below):

Salt Lake City, Utah: I need a copy of "A Wish for Wings That Work" either VHS or DVD. Where can it be found?

Berkeley Breathed: Hopefully in the rubbish pail. We can do better than that and we will with an eventual Opus film.. but I'm glad you enjoyed it. I presume your family was on speed when they watched it. I would imagine it helps