Name: True and the Rainbow Kingdom - A Royal Stink
Duration: 24 min 14 s

See the exact scores

The review is yours to read. Create a free account to reveal the exact SlowScreen score and every pillar score.

The picture is bright and heavily saturated from the first second, with candy colours, rainbows and glowing forests filling almost every frame. Real breathing space is limited: characters keep moving, sound effects punctuate nearly every beat, and the few quiet moments (True thinking on the rainbow path, the still forest of glowing wishes) are short before the next gag or effect arrives. There are no calls to action, no shouting at the camera and no cliffhanger hooks, which keeps the attention pull honest, though the repeated magic chants and the sparkle bursts of the wishing sequence add extra sensory load. A child who is sensitive to visual busyness will have to work to keep up with the colour and effect density.

The story is easy to follow and built on clear cause and effect: True says yes to a request without asking questions, and the stinky pet she allowed to be walked anywhere turns the whole city smelly. Each attempt has a visible consequence, from the flower blanket that fails to the wind wish that finally captures the smell, so a child can connect what happened to why. The small caveat is that a second thread runs alongside it, with Glummy Gloomer turning the kingdom gloomy while the stink plot unfolds, and the two only join up near the end. New characters, wishes and locations also arrive in fairly quick succession, which asks a bit of concentration from the youngest end of the audience.

Emotions stay mild and are handled with care. Crowds run from the smell and Cumulo faints in a puff of stink, but each of those moments is played for laughs and settles quickly, and nothing carries lasting threat. True names her own mistake out loud ('If I'd done my queenly duties right, none of this would have happened'), and the Rainbow King answers with 'even I don't have all the answers all the time', which models a kind response to failure. Glummy stays sour rather than menacing, and the ending accepts him as he is instead of fixing or shaming him, with the closing song stating that everyone likes different things.

True does the thinking on screen and it takes her several tries. She names the problem, covers Stinko in flowers and watches it fail, uses a scent wish that only makes things worse, then uses a wind wish to pull the smell away, and finally shrinks the gloom scepter before landing on the idea of giving the concentrated stink cloud to Glummy, who actually likes it. The failures are shown rather than skipped, and her reasoning is spoken aloud ('he can't zap anything if he can't find a scepter'). The main limit is that every solution runs through magic wishes handed to her by the wishing tree, so the steps she reasons through are real but the tools are not hers to earn.

Dialogue is clear, well articulated and mostly in full sentences, with characters explaining what they are doing and why ('I can't get Stinko to stop stinking, but I could use a wish to help him smell better'). Vocabulary sits comfortably above the toddler level, with invented but self-explaining words like gloomify, un-gloom and a snorfly nose, plus playful rhyme in Glummy's songs. Exclamations, sound gags and the repeated wish chant take up a fair share of the talking, so not everything said carries information, but the balance still leans towards meaning.

Almost nothing here transfers to daily life: the problems are solved with magic wishes, a talking cloud, a shrinking spell and a stink-producing forest critter, and the setting is a candy-coloured kingdom with no everyday equivalent. The practical actions a child sees, waving a scepter and shouting 'Zip, zap, zoo, I choose you', have no offline use. What does connect is the social layer: promising something without thinking it through, apologising for it, taking responsibility for a pet, and the closing message that people like different things. Those recognisable human patterns carry the value here, not the activities themselves.

More information

Rainbow City is populated almost entirely by imaginary beings, so the usual markers of human diversity, backgrounds, family forms, ages and body types, barely come into play. True and Zee are the only human-looking characters, and no parents, grandparents or other caregivers appear on screen; Mila's mother is mentioned but never seen. What the episode does do well is spread initiative around and let characters feel differently from one another, with Glummy allowed to stay gloomy and the closing song landing on the idea that everyone likes different things. Roles are not locked to character type, though authority sits with a king and the named supporting cast leans male.

The Rainbow Kingdom is an invented world from top to bottom: candy-coloured hills, a wishing tree that hands out three magical helpers, and a cousin of the king who zaps things with a Gloom Scepter. Almost nothing a child sees here maps onto their own street or home, so the connection to daily life runs through the feelings rather than the setting. What does stay grounded is the conflict: there is no villain, only Glummy Gloomer, who simply prefers to feel glum and is talked with rather than beaten. The magic follows clear rules the whole way through, and the emotional core (making a mistake in a big job, and people liking different things) is easy for a child in this age range to follow even inside such an imagined world.

There is more here for a watching adult than the candy-colored surface suggests. Bartleby the cat spends the whole episode insisting the terrible smell is fantastic, and Glummy Gloomer's flat, unbothered gloom plays as genuine deadpan comedy. The story also earns its ending: True's rushed decision as stand-in queen causes the mess, and the gloom and the stink end up cancelling each other out. What wears on a grown-up in the room is the permanently saturated palette and the wish ritual that repeats word for word every single time.

Themes

Problem solving

Central

True works through flowers, a scent wish, a wind wish and a shrinking wish before solving the stink problem.

Responsibility

Central

True takes on Royal Request Day for the Rainbow King and has to deal with the results of her own hasty decision.

Making mistakes

Central

True tells the wishes 'I made a mistake. I told a girl named Mila she could walk her pet anywhere, anytime.'

Magic

Central

Three wishes, Smellfer, Woosh and Sizer, are woken with the chant 'Wish come true!' to solve the problem.

Self acceptance

Recurring

Glummy sings 'I am still so very glum, but just look how far I've come' and is accepted as he is.

Individuality

Recurring

The closing song states that everyone from cats to kings likes different things and that likes do not need to match.

Pets

Recurring

Mila adopts a forest critter she names Stinko and insists on walking him every day.

Helping others

A Royal Stink

Sensory Calm

Focus & Storyline

Emotional Safety

Autonomy & Problem Solving

Meaningful Language

Developmental Value

Representation & Diversity

Realism vs Fantasy

Parental Fun

Themes

Activities

Emotions

Behaviour

Social lessons

Season 1

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

True and the Rainbow Kingdom

Related media

Bluey

The Berenstain Bears

Puffin Rock

Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes

Explore more

Just launched: free lifetime premium for the first 1,000 members to activate their account.