Flight of Dragons

Flight of Dragons was possibly my favorite movie when I was younger. This despite the somewhat questionable animation and the fact I never got to see the ending since my grandpa had a bad habit of taping over the end of everything (even though he was great about editing out commercials).

I loved Carolinus, Gorbash, Smrgol and the others. Ommadon and his fierce black dragon Bryagh terrified me--as I suppose they should. But all the baddies, even Ommadon with his horrid teeth and twisted features, paled in comparison to the sandmirks. Yes, sandmirks--those little rat goblin things that were supposed to be on the beach but were magicked into the forest by Ommadon.

I don't know if my hatred of rats was solidified before or after the arrival of the sandmirks, but I'm going to go with both. Nothing reinforces the hatred of rodents quite as much as seeing their twisted little cousins try to cause the hero's brains to leak out of their ears. And the queen, oh the queen, she was an epic of horror and nightmares that would haunt me every time I watched the movie (including that time a year ago, and I was what? Oh 23 at the time).

And this, my friends, is why I will never be able to totally make my peace with rats. Thank you 1980's animated fantasy.

Sandmirks appear in earnest at 1:46.