Tad, the Lost Explorer (2012) on Netflix

TV-PG20121h 32mAdventure Animation Comedy

Tad is a Chicago bricklayer who daydreams about archaeology. Mistaken for a professor, he flies to Peru to rejoin a stone key and find the lost Incan city of Paititi.

Netflix3.0/5
IMDb6.0/1010,012 votes
Rotten TomatoesNot available

Trailer

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Plot summary

Tad lives in Chicago, where he works as a bricklayer on the subway and spends his time dreaming of archaeology. After he is fired for daydreaming on the job, he brings a vintage Coca-Cola bottle he found on the site to his friend Professor Humbert, who has just received a letter from Professor Lavrof in Peru. Lavrof holds one half of a stone key, and both halves together open the lost Incan city of Paititi. At the airport Humbert takes the wrong pills and is taken to a hospital, so Tad flies to Cusco in his place with his dog Jeff. There he meets Freddy, a local hustler, and Sara, Lavrof's daughter, along with men from Odysseus Inc., led by Kopponen, who want the key.

Cast

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tad, the Lost Explorer (2012)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

In Spain, Tad, the Lost Explorer spent five weeks at number one and took €18 million, breaking domestic box office records for a Spanish-animated feature; it was the year's highest-grossing film in Spain, beating Ice Age: Continental Drift, Madagascar 3 and Brave.
Because the filmmakers did not want Tadeo to lose his hat until the end of the short animation and the hat reduced the character's expressiveness, animators first animated him without it and adapted the character with the hat on afterwards.
Tadeo was animated in three forms built from the same geometric shape: one fully clothed, one without hat and shirt, and one wearing only boots and underwear, all done in Character Studio.
Enrique Gato created the Tadeo character with the 3D program Autodesk 3ds Max, starting as a simple facial animation test with four basic gestures that he saw had the potential to become a short film protagonist.