Cheburashka

Cheburashka (in Russian: Чебурашка) is a character of children's literature Russian drawn from a history of the writer Eduard Uspensky. It is also known to be the hero of a series of cartoon films of the end of the year 1960 with the beginning of the year 1980, produced by Soyuzmultfilm Studio. In this series, its voice is that of Klara Rumyanova.

According to the history, Cheburashka is a small animal of the approximate size of a five year old child, with the large fluffy round ears, unknown of science as that is shown in the first episode of the series (one sees it there refused at the entry of the zoo because concerning an unknown species), and alive in the tropical forest. It was found in an orange case, deadened after having eaten its content.

Cheburashka is not its name strictly speaking; the orange salesman who found it in first thus baptized his species. When it took it in the case and sat it on the table, the legs of the small animal were still engourdies following its long stay in the case, and it fell ( tchiebourakhnoulsya , Russian чебурахнулся, a Russian word of the current language meaning “tumbled down” in French) table on the chair, where it could not sit down for the same reason, before finally choir on the ground. The words comprising this root are out-of-date in Russian; Uspensky gave them one second life.

The animated series

This series is made up of four episodes:

Guiena the Crocodile and his/her friends ( КрокодилГенаиегодрузья ) - 1969
Cheburashka ( Чебурашка ) - 1971
the hurdy-gurdy Rams Chapeauclaque ( Шапокляк ) - 1974
Cheburashka goes to school ( Чебурашкаидётвшколу ) - 1983

See (uelques quotations of КрокодилГенаиегодрузья on Wikiquote Russian speaker.

Characters

Cheburashka has some friends, most notable being Guiena the Crocodile, which carries a coat and a hat, smokes a pipe, works on its legs of behind and occupies an use of Crocodile to the zoo. He plays of the Accordéon, and its preferred songs are the Birthdays arrive only once the year and the blue Coach . These two songs form part of the Russian popular culture now, and the first is often played in the birthdays.

Cheburashka and Guiena have sometimes business with a named old woman Chapeauclaque (Russian Шапокляк). Chapeauclaque is a charming old woman seemingly, wearing a hat and a dark dress. On the basis of the principle that “Nobody becomes famous with good deeds”, which constitutes besides the topic of its song, it spends his time playing of the turns to people, helped of its rat tamed Lariska, which it carries in its reticle.

Re-use of Cheburashka

The character was selected like Mascotte of the Russian Olympic team to the Olympic Games of summer of 2004 in Greece, and of the headstocks to its effigy circulated in the Russian team with the Winter Olympics of 2006 with Turin. It is also a question of one of the rare Russian cartoon film characters to be the subject of many Plaisanterie S and riddles.

The word Cheburashka is also used in a Sens illustrated to name objects more or less resembling to the character (like the Antonov Year-72 which, seen of face, shows two engines on both sides cabin giving him the air to raise two large ears), or for nice objects just like him (for example, it is about the nickname given to a small bottle of Limonade).

Cheburashka is now declined in a series of Russian cartoons, and several licensed products are sold, like books of history for children or of the soft toys.

The character became also known in other countries of old the the USSR, as of the Eastern bloc. Its celebrity also extends to the Japan, where he was the hero of a series of cartoon films projected in fifteen cinemas in the country, attracting approximately: 700000 spectators between the summer 2001 and spring 2002.

" Drutten och krokodilen Gena", Sweden

In years 1970 of the television programs and radiophonic, discs and magazines were produced in Sweden, taking again the characters of Cheburashka and Guiena. These two characters are based on cuddly toys bought at the time of a voyage in Soviet Union, and resemble Cheburashka and Guiena. However, the stories do not have a relationship with the Russian stories.

Collector's items

Cuddly toys of Cheburashka and other objects of collection of its universe, produced in Russia and in Japan, are sought by the world. The artistic skater American Johnny Weir is thus known to be an avid collector of objects on this topic.

The Song of Cheburashka, Israel

The song also exists for the Israeli children. She is sung in Hebrew on the chain Hop Chanel.

The film

Ivan Maximov declared in 2004 during an interview, that Pilot Studio had put in building site a film on Cheburashka, whose scenario had been written, but that turning had been stopped for lack of funds. In Japan, its popularity is such as on April 4th, 2006, the Television channel TV Tokyo Broadband Entertainment published a press release declaring that in partnership with Frontier Works, Inc. it had acquired the rights to carry out a Remake cartoon films of origin in the shape of a film. It is possible that this news refers to the project of Pilot Studio. At all events, the announced film, just like the cartoon films, would use Marionnette S, but while adding to it of modern technologies like the Animation in volume ( stop motion ) or of the synthesized images, and would be carried out in English and Russian.

Discusses on the royalty

The royalties on Cheburashka and his image were the subject of many debates. In 1994, Eduard Uspensky deposited the name of the character like his image, and undertook to sell the rights to many countries. Leonid Shvartsman, the realizer of cartoon films, tried to prove that he was the creator of the visual appearance of the character, and that the royalties on this appearance were to be separate those of the character of literature. March 13rd, 2007, Shvartsman and its lawyer did not obtain a request for 4,7 million Rouble S with BRK Cosmetics and Eduard Uspensky. Shvartsman affirmed that Uspensky had sold the image of Cheburashka at the company BRK Cosmetics so that it uses it on tubes of Toothpaste. Defense claimed that the artist who had drawn the character for the tubes toothpaste had ever seen the character of cartoon films, and, in spite of the fact that its drawing was an exact copy of the character of films, that it had been inspired only by the books of Uspensky. The lawyer Vladimir Entin suspected that the jury had been bribed to return such a verdict, but agreed that it did not have any proof of it.

Sources and references

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