is an Italian television

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

show that was broadcast on

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

from 1957 to 1977. The series mainly showed short

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

films using live action, various types of

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

, and

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – wikt:inanimate, inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. S ...

. It had an audience of about 20 million viewers.

History

Initially, the only income for

Italian television Television in Italy was Timeline of the introduction of television in countries, introduced in 1939, when the first experimental broadcasts began. However, this lasted for a very short time: when fascist Italy entered World War II in 1940, all ...

broadcasters came from subscription fees, but the amount was still very low. Rai had already thought of introducing a space dedicated to advertising in the television schedule.

was looking for an original, innovative and interesting way to offer it to the public in a pleasant way through entertainment and shows without disturbing them. Then came the idea of making relatively long (average three minutes) funny curtains, comics and sketches, which attracted people's attention. At an experimental level, some of the test procedures were performed with the ''proto-caroselli'', based on fictitious products, made in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. In fact, this is what the carousel will look like two years later.

Animated segments

''Carosello'' began to feature hand drawn and stop-motion segments in its second year, produced by Gamma Film, Paul Film, and Studio Pagot among others. Among the series' most notable segments were ''

Calimero ''Calimero'' is an animated television series about a charming but hapless anthropomorphized chicken; the only black one in a family of yellow chickens. He wears half of his egg shell still on his head. Calimero originally appeared on the I ...

'' and '' La Linea'', who appeared in other content outside ''Carosello''. Pallina (Italian for 'little ball') was an Italian cartoon character created by

Quartetto Cetra ; ) was an Italian jazz vocal quartet established during the early 1940s and active until 1988. Career The band was based on the Mills Brothers and started performing under the name Quartetto Egie from the initials of the singers' first names: En ...

for the series. She originally appeared in the 1960s, running from 1961 to 1969, and was a mascot for various cleaning products, including Solex and Vetril.

References

1950s Italian television series 1957 Italian television series debuts 1960s Italian television series 1970s Italian television series 1977 Italian television series endings Italian television shows featuring puppetry {{Italy-tv-prog-stub

History

Animated segments

See also

References