Pierrot is a character from the comic series "Pierrot And The Lamp" which was created by Peyo. He is one of the two main characters in the series, the other being Pierrot's Genie.
Character[]
Pierrot is a little boy living in a French town, where he has come into possession of a magical lamp with a genie that has the ability to grant wishes. However, the genie's magic has a tendency to misfire, resulting in embarrassing situations for Pierrot.
Personality[]
In terms of personality, Pierrot is very kind and helpful. After acquiring the lamp genie, he often comes to the aid of others with the genie's help, such as enabling police to capture criminals, or providing money for beggars. He also cares for his family and friends, especially the lamp genie. On one occasion when the genie is stolen by a gangster, Pierrot does not hesitate to rescue him.
Despite his access to a genie that can grant wishes, Pierrot seldom exploits it, probably because he is just an innocent little boy, and therefore not greedy for money or other material possessions, such as toys. He usually calls on the genie's services only when he has some problem which he cannot solve by himself, in other words, as a last resort.
Pierrot can easily get cross, especially when the genie's magic causes problems rather than solutions. Once, Pierrot had to give away all his pocket money because of the genie's mistakes and forced the genie to eat a whole piece of paper as punishment.
Relationships[]
Pierrot meets the genie for the first time
Throughout the series, the character closest to Pierrot in terms of relationships is the lamp genie, who is in fact his best friend. The boy first discovered the genie with his lamp in the very first episode of the comics, while digging in his backyard. At first, Pierrot did not like the genie whose bumbling magic caused the boy a lot of trouble and decided to get rid of him by selling his lamp to an antique dealer.
However, everything changed when on the way to the shop, Pierrot witnessed a bank robbery taking place and immediately called on the genie to prevent the robbers from escaping. The genie succeeded in doing so, causing the entire gang to be caught by the police. After that, Pierrot changed his mind about the genie and decided to keep him, and they have been good friends ever since.
Though the genie helps him a lot, Pierrot does not overly rely on him, no doubt due to his spells often misfiring. Sometimes Pierrot gets annoyed with the genie for the trouble his magic causes, but the boy always forgives him. As the genie often helps him (albeit with unintended mishaps), Pierrot also does his best to help his magical friend whenever the genie is in trouble. As noted earlier, the relationship between Pierrot and the genie is more like that between two good friends rather than a master and slave.
As far as is known, no mention is ever made of Pierrot having parents or guardians of any kind, the only known family member in the series being his aunt Ursule. However, it is not likely that she is Pierrot's guardian as she clearly does not live with him. Also, there is no mention of any other friends of Pierrot other than the genie, nor classmates as he is never shown at school.
Since he is merely a young boy, Pierrot does not have many enemies except for the occasional villains, such as gangsters, attempting to steal his wishing lamp. In one story, a crook does succeed in stealing the lamp and forces the genie to produce hundreds of bank notes, but when he tries to spend them, he gets arrested since the genie produced fake bank notes by mistake.
Trivia[]
- The appearance of Pierrot changes differently in different comic magazines. In the original Bonux Boy version, he has golden hair and bright skin. In the Spirou version, he has a dark brown hair and a darker complexion. In the Spanish Strong version, he has light brown hair and bright skin. In the Cartoon Creation version, he has orange hair and bright skin.
- The comic stories do not mention about Pierrot's accurate age, but it is assumed that he is younger than Peewit in "Johan And Peewit" and Scruple in "Smurfs", which means he is under 9 years old. The age of Pierrot should be similar to Benny Breakiron, the titular hero of another comic series.
- Pierrot has a very similar appearance to Pussycat's owner.