Some might say Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet The Groovie Goolies is the worst Looney Tunes ever… and I’d agree with that. But this Italian Tweety and Sylvester commercial for canned De Rica lima beans is so hilariously off-model, off-animated, off-everything… ya gotta love it. (Don’t miss the shot of Tweety’s butt at :36). Here it is. This takes the prize:
Like black velvet paintings, foreign animations of American cartoons are good kitschy fun – if you are in the right frame of mind. For example, Gene Deitch’s Czech-made Tom & Jerry short Dickey Moe will scar your brain – in a good way.
Thanks to cartoon researcher Charles A. Brubaker, I have a few choice examples of the Japanese take on our beloved characters. Check out this anime version of teenage Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm:
If you want to play a drinking game, take a shot everytime a character says “Baby Felix” in this trippy (dubbed) clip from the Japanese Felix The Cat show:
And finally, while we’re at it, check out the first 60 seconds of the embed below – a Japanese take on the MGM cartoon stars that lets Filmation and Deitch off the hook (followed by a Japanese dub of Tex Avery’s Field and Scream, always worth watching in any language).
If anyone has any other example of odd foreign animation of American cartoon stars… let me know in the comments section below.
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
I’ve heard there was an animated Disney show in Italy based on Donald’s comic book super hero alter-ego, “The Duck Advenger”, but I could never find a clip for proof.
Not sure if a cartoon was made, but an intro to a Disney anthology program aired on Italian TV 30 years ago was produced by comic author Romano Scarpa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSDD-mlxDFU
Nic, speaking from experience with the Disney ducks, there has never been a PAPERINIK (Duck Avenger) animated series. There was this video game several years ago—in which the US translators evidently weren’t aware of the name Duck Avenger.
I know about that video game as there was a whole page about it in a special video game, retail, exclusive, Disney Adventures magazine issue from 2005 or 2006.
Matter of fact, that issue had the misguided fact that there was a “Duck Advenger” TV show in Italy. Why an official Disney publication had a false fact in the first place is beyond me.
There was Little Lulu anime produced by Nippon Animation that aired back in 1976 to 1977. ZIV International later picked it up and gave a (poor) English dubbing.
Here’s the Japanese theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oltz5TusQlc
The dubbing to the Little Lulu anime was hilariously amateurish. It sounded like it was dubbed by college students (thus reminding me of early anime fandubs)! Cute US theme song, though. Titra/Titan Studios could do a better dub, which isn’t saying much. 🙂
Sylvester works as an Italian – and Tweety’s gender is finally explained. Yes, it was off model and a bit clunky – but the jokes worked. I could easily watch seven minutes of this.
Tom and Jerry in Germany retrofitted clips of a few shorts to present each cartoon as an entry in Jerry’s diary. They inserted brief animation of the show’s title and credits by having Tom flip through the diary, I don’t remember if this is the only new animation added but I always found it to be an interesting concept. They also did a few shorts with Jerry narrating the action in German as if he was reading it. Here’s the intro:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AtX2OVhdmQ8
I like how the font on the book resembles what you would see in one of Gene Deitch’s cartoons!
This was the Japanese intro used almost 50 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs-LUmDhZpw
Pretty sure there were at least a couple of original T&J shorts that did a clip show format, at least one of them about a book one character wrote and the other was reading.
At last – someone else who likes Dicky Moe!
I rather liked the De Rica commercial! I always imagined that Gene Deitch should do Looney Tunes (imagine Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny chasing each other with trippy animation and spacy sound FX!), since he already did Tom & Jerry and Popeye (I enjoyed his works on those), but this came very close!
Did anyone notice that Tweety looks a little bit like Calimero? That’s because this was animated by his creators, Pagot Studios! (Pagot also co-produced the two Calimero anime series with Toei, one in 1972, the other 20 years later.)
I just remembered this strange clip of Betty Boop, it’s in English but my Puritan senses tell me it wasn’t made for an American audience (unless of course it was unauthorized or that an adult audience was in mind). I have no clue to where the clip comes from but the California raisins-esque peeping Tom suggests the 80s:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fIfe36kgvfo
I know I’ve seen that before, too, but for the life of me I can’t remember when or where. Surely someone visiting this site knows its origin?
My head hurts.
You’ve came to the right place then!
I remember watching those Gene Deitch/Chuck Jones Tom & Jerry cartoons alongside the Hanna Barbera cartoons back in the late ’80s to the early ’90s along with the Three Stooges, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, and the post-’48 Looney Toons including Dicky Moe.
Is tweety female in that commercial? I know tweety was female in the 60s bugs bunny show newspaper strip.
Was pebbles and bam bam that big in japan? They had tons of tiny toons ads in japan also.
You can find anime wacky races ads as well. (that show was huge in japan.)
It is interesting how certain characters or shows that don’t mean much domestically become something else in foreign markets. It’s just one of those unexpected ordeals that happen anyway.
There was an anime based on Lilo & Stitch.
I heard that Disney tried to import that to the U>S> on Disney XD, but it got lost in the shuffle (probably because they already had the U,S, show).
It’s interesting that got made at all, and lasted as long as it did (3 seasons, though work switched from Madhouse to Shin-Ei towards the end). Madhouse of course is probably best known for some of Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s works like Ninja Scroll, the stuff they did for Marvel or the 2009 film “Redline”. Shin-Ei has been behind the popular ongoing Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan series themselves.
Speaking of American-adapted anime, leading up to the 1984 Olympics, a Japanese cartoon featuring the Disney Studios-designed Sam the Eagle found it’s way to the airwaves in Japan. I don’t believe it was ever licensed/distributed outside the country, and perhaps for a good reason going by this clip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbYTpXvuUic
Road Runner: http://vimeo.com/57232697 (Argentine production)
Bugs, Silvester and Yosemite Sam: http://vimeo.com/42625996 (Argentine production)
Tom and Jerry: http://vimeo.com/43636244 (Argentine Work In Progress)
Donald and Goofy: http://vimeo.com/42774151 (Argentine production)
Mickey Mouse! http://vimeo.com/42625996 (Argentine production)
The Rubbles: http://vimeo.com/31052702 (Argentine production)
These cartoons give me a headache in my eye!