Pingu

The programme is set in Antarctica and centres around penguin families living and working in igloos. The main character, Pingu, belongs to one such family. He frequently goes on adventures with his little sister, Pinga, and often gets into mischief with his best friend, Robby the Seal.

Some of the characters appearing in Pingu are given below.

The original production from 1988–2000 and 2003–2006 created 156 five-minute episodes and one special 25-minute episode. The episodes were written by Silvio Mazzola and were directed and animated by Otmar Gutmann using clay animation, at Trickfilmstudio in Russikon, Switzerland.[6] In the style of voices a retroscript was chosen, and all voices were performed by Italian voice actor Carlo Bonomi without a script, using a language of noises that he had already developed and used for Osvaldo Cavandoli's La Linea. This feature enables people of different linguistic backgrounds to be able to follow the story.

In 1993, David Hasselhoff released a single titled "Pingu Dance",[7] a rap song (in Switzerland only) based on the Pingu shorts and featuring samples of Penguinese. A portion of this song is used as the theme to Pingu in international airings, and was also heard in the re-dubbed version of the "Pingu Looks After the Egg (retitled Pingu Helps with Incubating)" episode, replacing the "Woodpeckers from Space" song from the original version.

A special twenty-five-minute episode, Pingu at the Wedding Party, was also produced in 1997, and introduced a family of green penguins.[8]

In October 2001, HIT Entertainment bought the rights to the series, including the original 104 episodes and the wedding special, for £15.9 million.[9] HIT later revived the show, and produced a further 52 episodes[10] created at Hot Animation Studios in 2003 through 2006. These episodes were animated through stop motion like the original, but used resin casts of the original clay puppets (which had deteriorated by this time). CBeebies airs only the original version of Pingu with the original cartoon title card (series 1 and 2) from the 52 episodes, and shows the first 13 episodes of series 3 with the claymation inspiration intro. JimJam contains all of the show's 156 episodes and Pingu at the Wedding Party, but it contains the re-dubbed versions of series 1–2 and contains the original version of Pingu at the Wedding Party, without the titles and credits.

Contrary to some sources, there was never any CGI used in these later episodes. When HIT Entertainment bought the rights, Carlo Bonomi was replaced with new voice actors Marcello Magni and David Sant. Magni and Sant, Italian and Spanish actors based in London, both have a mime and clowning background and were already aware of the clown language of "Grammelot" on which the penguin language was based.[5]

In 2006, after the last episode aired, Pingu finally ended its 16-year run on TV.

Pingu had aired on Nickelodeon in the UK for a period of time in the late 1990s.[11]

The very first time Pingu was ever mentioned in the US was on a documentary called Pingu - A Cartoon Character who conquers the world[12] where a detective tries to figure out why Pingu is so popular, at the time Pingu was shown at the Paley Center. Then the series began airing in the United States on a morning omnibus program titled Small World, as part of Cartoon Network's Sunday morning lineup. The program featured various animated shorts produced internationally, and ran from 1996 until the show's discontinuation in 2001. The series did not air in the US from 2002 until 2005, when reruns of the series returned to the country on PBS Kids Sprout, but was removed sometime in 2010. As of 2018, the first five seasons of Pingu are available on Amazon Prime Instant Video.[13]

In 2006, Pingu was featured in a music video for Eskimo Disco's first single, "7–11". The music video was also released via CD, on 18 December 2006.[14]

In India, Pingu was aired by Doordarshan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since 2000, it is aired by Hungama TV and Animax.

In Kenya, Pingu was screened on KBC.

In South Africa, the original series of Pingu began airing on SABC2 and the 2003 series later went onto air on e.tv as part of their children's strand Craz-e!.

In Nigeria, Pingu was being shown on NTA.

In Australia, episodes of Pingu originally aired as a segment on the children's programme, The Book Place on the Seven Network from 1991 to 1996 and later aired on ABC Television as a stand-alone programme in 1998.

In Germany, episodes of Pingu were aired from 10 November 1990 on ZDF, and later on KI.KA.

Pingu was broadcast in the U.A.E. on their English-speaking television network Dubai 33.

Pingu was shown on television for the very first time in Singapore and first aired on Kids Central from 2003 to 2006 and then on Okto from 2012 to 2014.

Pingu aired in New Zealand on TV3 from 1997 to 2006, and on Four beginning in 2011.

Pingu was also aired in Malaysia on TV3, as a part of the morning television program.

Pingu also aired in the Philippines on TV5 (now The 5 Network) in 2008 to 2009.

In Canada, Pingu airs on TVOKids, CBC Kids, Knowledge Network, Toon-A-Vision and YTV. Pingu has been a mainstay of the children's programming blocks on TVOntario since the mid-1990s. It can still be seen on TV in that country since APTN airs "The Pingu Show" as part of its morning children's programming block "APTN Kids", and the show is available in English and French language versions. Some of the controversial episodes, such as "Pingu Quarrels With His Mother" (also known as "Pingu Argues With His Mother") and "Little Accidents" (also known as "Pingu's Lavatory Story"), have aired uncut on APTN Kids. In British Columbia, Pingu is aired during commercial breaks on Knowledge Network.

In the United Kingdom, Pingu was featured in the Children In Need 2009 video by Peter Kay, which contained many other popular characters. This was shown on live television across the United Kingdom, and then sold on both CD and DVD.

A game, released in Japan, made for the Nintendo DS, Pingu no Waku Waku Carnival ("Pingu's Wonderful Carnival") was made by Square Enix and released in November 2008. This game is a series of mini games starring Pingu and his friends, including one in which Pingu's mother and father bake a heart-shaped cake, with the gameplay style resemblant to that of Cooking Mama.[15] Another game for the Nintendo DS is Fun Fun Pingu. Little is known about the storyboard, though.

Other video games based on the series are Pingu's 'Barrel of Fun! for the PC in 1997 and Pingu and Friends in 1999, (both of which were released exclusively in the UK by BBC Multimedia) Pingu: Sekai de Ichiban Genki na Penguin for the Game Boy in Japan in 1993, and Fun Fun Pingu for the PlayStation also in Japan in 1999.

In August 2017, reruns of the fifth and sixth seasons of Pingu started airing in the Milkshake! programming block of the British television channel 5Star.[16]

Pingu received mostly positive reviews. Common Sense Media rated the show a 4 out of 5 stars, stating that "parents need to know that this claymation series is funny, endearing, and entertaining. Although the series is appropriate for all ages, the plots might be difficult for the youngest viewers to follow."[19]

• Pingu on IMDb