GERMANY
Every Sunday at 11.30am Germany’s fathers sit down with their young children
and watch a blue cartoon bear, an ursine mariner, tell tall tales. Käpt’n
Blaubär spins yarns about fish fingers that can speak and volcanoes
that spew out moles rather than lava.
The kids, more than a million, watch open-mouthed. Their fathers meanwhile are
waiting for the adult institution, a Sunday noon journalists’ podium, that
provides the weekly dose of high seriousness. Mothers, according to the
ancient Teutonic code, are busy in the kitchen or, in more radical
households, at the gym.
The curious feature of Käpt’n Blaubär is that he is
scripted and drawn by Walter Moers, famous for his adult comic strips about
Adolf Hitler. The premise of that strip is that Hitler is still alive and an
absolute idiot. One is called “Adolf – der Bonker” . . . So neo-Nazis are
incandescent and have sent Moers death-threats.
Käpt’n Blaubär however carries on regardless. He has
been lying until he is blue in the face – that’s the joke – since 1991. The
programme has therefore shaped the childhood of the first east-west
generation to grow up after German unification. Watching the programme, they
say, taught them to spot the difference between truth and lies.
— Roger Boyes
SPAIN
In the 1960s, during Franco’s dictatorship, Spanish children tuned into Los
Chiripitifláuticos, a traditional show featuring innocent jokes,
clowns and songs. At the end of the 1970s, after Franco’s death, Spain got
its version of America’s Sesame Street called Barrio Sésamo.
Set in a Spanish village instead of the streets of New York, it included
such characters as Chema el Panedero (Chema the Baker), Matilde, the owner
of the horchata stall, and an unidentified creature named Don Pimpón.
Then, in 1984, things got weird. Casting off four decades of Franco’s
puritanism, Spanish culture underwent a revolution known as La Movida.
In keeping with the times when Pedro Almodóvar started making his films,
children’s TV was seemingly taken over by a group of drug-crazed musicians
dressed like drag-queens, who came up with a now-legendary programme called La
Bola de Cristal (The Crystal Ball).
Fronted by a sort of gothic temptress named Alaska – a gay icon who had
appeared in Almodóvar’s first film and sang in a baritone voice – the
anarchic, magazine-style show broke all the moulds. It quickly attracted a
mass audience of children, teenagers and a surprising number of adults. It
was a revelation for the generation of Spaniards now in their thirties, who
have granted it cult status and credit it with predicting 3G mobiles and the
internet. But it has not aged well. Clips on YouTube show a baffling
procession of wandering Boy George lookalikes, synth-heavy ballads in the
manner of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, bad haircuts and shocking dancing. The
madness was interspaced with irreverent and surreal puppet shows called Electroduendes
(Electrodwarves) and episodes of The Munsters.
Spaniards who saw it as children say they were marked forever. “I think that Bola
de Cristal forged a generation,” wrote one internet user calling herself
“SpanishLadyinUK”. “The values it transmitted – very liberal – have become
part of my morality and that of my friends. And I’m thankful for that.”
However, the show had its detractors in the Catholic Church, and everyone
agrees it could not be made today. “If a girl came out wearing a negligee on
a children’s programme today they would crucify her,” said another internet
user after viewing a clip.
— Thomas Catan
CHINA
It’s a Chinese children’s classic. It’s topped entertainment for Chinese
children for 500 years. It’s the tale of a mischievous monkey and his two
sidekicks who accompany a young monk on a dangerous journey in search of
Buddhist scriptures.
First animated in the 1960s from a 16th-century Ming dynasty book Journey
to the West, the tale of the Monkey King is a recurring favourite on
children’s television hour in China. The magical powers and irreverent
attitude of this monkey, whose mission is to protect the monk from danger,
have proved a winning formula on the small screen.
The Monkey King’s trickery can outwit even such Chinese perennials as the
daily Da Feng Che– or Big Pin Wheel– show that plays on
Chinese Central Television’s top channel every day at 5.30pm.
The latest cartoon version of the tale was made in a 52-part series in 2005.
Replays featuring the bewhiskered monkey with the power to fly, to travel
108,000 miles in a single somersault and to transform himself into 72
different shapes are in constant demand among Chinese tots.
Few can resist the tale of how he dived to the bottom of the sea to steal from
the Dragon King a magic stick and caused a tsunami.
The Monkey King doesn’t hesitate to whip out the stick, shrunk to the size of
a needle and which is hidden in his ear, when in need of a weapon to defeat
the multifarious enemies that he encounters on his journey of adventure.
— Jane Macartney
RUSSIA
Cheburashka has become the mascot of modern Russia for a postSoviet generation
of parents nostalgic about their childhood under communism.
A bear-like creature “unknown to science” with outsized round ears and
innocent eyes, Cheburashka appeared in only four cartoon adventures with a
singing crocodile called Gena, who plays the accordion. But his impact on
children’s imaginations was so great that he has become the Russian
equivalent of Mickey Mouse. Brown furry Cheburashka dolls and T-shirts are
everywhere in Moscow and a snow-white version was produced to support
Russia’s successful bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics. He first appeared in a
1966 book by the children’s author Eduard Uspensky, who described how he
arrived in Russia from a tropical forest after falling asleep in a crate of
oranges. The cult of Cheburashka was born when the story was turned into a
cartoon in 1969.
Generations of Russians know the songs of Cheburashka and Gena by heart and
the most famous carries the chorus line: “Sadly, birthdays come only once a
year.”
The pair also face an unusual adversary in their adventures: a charming
hooligan pensioner named Shapoklyak who keeps a pet rat in her purse and
constantly creates havoc with acts of vandalism. Her theme tune declares
“You’ll never become famous for doing good deeds”.
The Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov recently bought back the international
rights to Cheburashka and 547 other Soviet-era cartoons for an estimated $3
million and handed them over to a new children’s channel launched in
September by order of President Putin.
An American company had bought the films after the Soviet collapse.
— Tony Halpin
JAPAN
Japan’s animations is better known abroad. But back home the most influential
of all TV programmes is one aimed at the youngest Japanese. Okaasan to
issho ( With Mother) was first aired in October 1959 and is still
on the air, shaping the psyches of a third generation of Japanese.
In its format, the half-hour programme, broadcast every weekday morning, is
somewhere between Rainbow and Play School. Sketches featuring
puppets and out-of-work actors in fluffy costumes are interspersed with
animations and mass singsongs of performing children led by painfully
cheerful presenters – the “big brothers” and “big sisters”, who often
graduate to show-business careers of their own.
Beloved characters over the years include Boo, Hoo and Woo, a Japanese version
of the Three Little Pigs, and Jajamaru, Pikkoro and Porori, respectively a
wild cat, a penguin and a mouse.
The show’s theme tune, The Three Rice Dumpling Brothers, was a
chart hit in 1999 selling 3.8 million copies. But it is the informational
segments of the show in which the Japanese virtues of cleanliness and
discipline are inculcated. “Physical Exercise” (with “PE Big Brother”) and
“Are you Brushing your Teeth Properly?” speak for themselves.
“May I Join you with Pyjamas?” is a particularly priceless feature in which a
preschool child struggles to button his or her pyjamas unassisted.
— Richard Lloyd Parry
FRANCE
The best known children’s television character in the country is Casimir, a
friendly dinosaur created in 1974 for a Gallic version of Sesame Street.
With Yves Brunier, a puppeteer and actor, playing the role inside a large,
round, orange costume, Casimir was the star of l’Île aux enfants,
one of France’s most successful children’s programmes.
The 20-minute daily show was launched to capture the Sesame Street
audience, but rapidly became an institution in its own right.
Broadcast from 1974 to 1982, it shaped a generation of primary school
children, and remains a pillar of popular Gallic culture through repeats and
DVDs.
With his wit and gentle mockery, Casimir became famous as a symbol of off-beat
French humour.
He was surrounded by a cast of characters representative of French society as
a whole. There was Monsieur Du Snob, the arrogant aristocrat François, the
naive student Monsieur Emile, the smiling postman, and Julie, the attractive
sweet vendor.
The storylines were gentle, and invariably ended with Casimir getting what he
wanted – usually food – and Monsieur Du Snob frustrated.
— Adam Sage
