Tad, The Lost Explorer

Tadeo Jones is a bricklayer who lives in Chicago, working on the construction of the city's subway. Ever since he was five years old, he has dreamed of being a professional archaeologist. After being fired from his job as a bricklayer for daydreaming and for his dog urinating on the construction foreman, Tad visits his friend Professor Humbert, asking for the professor's help in investigating an apparently vintage bottle of Coca-Cola Tad found on the construction site. The professor receives a letter from his friend Professor Lavrof summoning him to Peru to re-unite his half of a stone "key" that will unlock the legendary Incan city of Paititi.

Arriving at the airport, Professor Humbert suffers an accident after taking the wrong pills and is taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, a member of the nefarious firm Odysseus Inc. is spying on them and sends the photo to the other members who are in the Sechura Desert.

Tad, the Lost Explorer was produced by Lightbox Entertainment, Telecinco Cinema, El Toro Pictures, Telefónica Producciones, and Ikiru Films, and co-produced by Media Networks. It was distributed by the Spanish subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, in collaboration with AXN, Televisió de Catalunya, Grupo Intereconomía, Mediaset España, and Canal+. The film became the first full-length animated feature with these characters, originally introduced in Enrique Gato's short animations.

In 2001, Enrique Gato decided to create a new character, parodying Indiana Jones, to add a touch of humor as well as greater action and dynamism to his work and counter the static character movement of his earlier short film, Bicho. Work on the project did not start until two years later, when he began writing the script for the big screen.

The film generally received positive reviews mainly from Spanish critics and audiences praising the animation, action scenes, Gato's direction, and cast of characters. Fausto Fernández of the Spanish film magazine Fotogramas gave it three out of five stars. He called Tad, the Lost Explorer "the best film in Spanish animation history" and praised its visual quality and cast of characters, although he criticized the choice of soundtrack. He added that, "as a film deriving from cartoons, it stood up well against bigger-budget titles."

Carmen L. Lobo of the newspaper La Razón gave it three out of five, calling it "a candid story, furiously-paced and strongly influenced by comics, yet stripped of any malicious double meaning." She described it "as full of scenes that seem lifted from a video game, adding that the settings in which these unfold are impressive." Jordi Batlle Caminal of La Vanguardia wrote of the film: "The animation is top notch.