''Pingu'' is a

stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

animated children's television series originally produced in Switzerland. It was co-created by

Otmar Gutmann Otmar Gutmann (24 April 1937 – 13 October 1993) was a German filmmaker who specialised in animation. He co-created the stop-motion television series ''Pingu'' alongside Erika Brueggemann. He started as an amateur in the 1960s. As a professiona ...

and Erika Brueggemann. It centres on the titular anthropomorphic

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is Endemism in birds, endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing fr ...

and his family, who live in the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish ...

. The series aired on

SF DRS Schweizer Fernsehen (SF; "Swiss Television") was the German-language division of SRG SSR, in charge of production and distribution of television programmes in Switzerland for German-speaking Switzerland. It had its head office in Zürich.

for four series from 7 March 1990 to 9 April 2000, and was produced by the Swiss animation studio Pingu Filmstudio; with Swiss toy company Editoy AG, and later on, Pingu BV handling IP ownership of the series. The series has been popular outside of Switzerland, particularly in the United Kingdom and Japan, in part due to its lack of a real spoken language. Nearly all dialogue is in an invented

grammelot Grammelot (or gromalot or galimatias) is an imitation of language used in satirical theatre, an ''ad hoc'' gibberish that uses prosody along with macaronic and onomatopoeic elements to convey emotional and other meaning, and used in association w ...

"penguin language" referred to as 'Penguinese' or 'Pinguish', consisting of babbling, muttering, and the titular character's characteristic sporadic honking sound, which can be popularly recognized as "Noot noot!" or other variants, accompanied by turning his beak into a megaphone-like shape. In the first four series, all the characters were performed by Italian voice actor

Carlo Bonomi Carlo Bonomi (12 March 1937 – 6 August 2022) was an Italian voice actor who was best known for his voiceover work as the voice of Mr. Linea in the animated series ''La Linea (TV series), La Linea'' as well as Pingu and various other character ...

, using a language of sounds he had already developed and used earlier for

Osvaldo Cavandoli Osvaldo Cavandoli (1 January 1920 – 3 March 2007), also known by his pen name Cava, was an Italian cartoonist. His most famous work is his series of short animated cartoons, '' La Linea'' ("The Line"). Early life, family and education Cavandol ...

's '' La Linea''. After British children's company

HIT Entertainment HIT Entertainment Limited (stylised as HiT) was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sophie Turn ...

purchased Pingu BV in 2001, they produced a revival run of Pingu for two additional series in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

through their in-house studio Hot Animation, which aired on

CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content targeted for children aged six year ...

from 1August 2003 to 3March 2006. It was nominated for a

BAFTA award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs or BAFTA Awards, is an annual film award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to f ...

in 2005. The characters were jointly voiced by

David Sant David Sant is a Spanish mime artist, acrobat, puppeteer, stuntman, director, actor and writer. Early life David Sant was born in Spain. Career Sant moved to the UK in the early nineties, where he began performing as a mime artist, acrobat, ...

and Marcello Magni. A computer-animated revival series with two seasons produced in Japan for

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

, entitled ''

Pingu in the City is an animated children's television series co-produced by Mattel Creations, NHK, NHK Enterprises, and Polygon Pictures. It is a spin-off/continuation of the stop-motion television series ''Pingu''. The series first aired on NHK Educational TV i ...

'', aired from 7October 2017 to 30March 2019. A third revival series, being animated in stop-motion like the original, is currently under development at

Mattel Television Mattel Television is the television production division of American toy and entertainment company Mattel, originally founded on March 31, 2016 as the successor to Mattel's earlier entertainment division, ''Mattel Playground Productions'', under t ...

and

Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited, known simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those fe ...

. The IP rights to Pingu are currently held by an entity owned by HIT/Mattel named Joker, Inc., which is usually called through its trade name "The Pygos Group" on copyright and trademark notices related to the ''Pingu'' property.

Storyline

The program is set in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

and focuses around penguin families living and working in

igloo An igloo (Inuit languages: , Inuktitut syllabics (plural: )), also known as a snow house or snow hut, is a type of shelter built of suitable snow. Although igloos are often associated with all Inuit, they were traditionally used only by the ...

s. 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, and his love interest, Pingi.

Production history

In 1984, Erika Brueggemann was working at

Schweizer Fernsehen Schweizer Fernsehen (SF; "Swiss Television") was the German-language division of SRG SSR, in charge of production and distribution of television programmes in Switzerland for German-speaking Switzerland. It had its head office in Zürich.

(the German-speaking division of

SRG SSR The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (; ; ; ; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-pro ...

) when she was introduced to animator

. Gutmann pitched a

clay animation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...

show starring

sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

s who crawled around in a funny way. Erika Brueggemann liked the idea of a clay cartoon character, but she preferred the clay penguins that Gutmann had made. She suggested that the main character should walk upright like a human and asked, "Why not a penguin?" Brueggemann's colleague, Guido Steiger, agreed with her idea. Gutmann was not immediately convinced, since he had already created many sea lion characters out of

plasticine Plasticine is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. Though originally a brand name for the British version of the product, it is now applied generically in English as a product category ...

, but he eventually pushed forward with the penguin idea too. According to Erika Brueggemann, she gave "countless demonstrations on my part about how 'my' penguin had to move and act". From this framework, Brueggemann, Gutmann and their team created a seven-minute pilot, "Pingu: Eine Geschichte Für Kinder Im Vorschulalter", which was finished in 1986. The pilot was screened at the 1987

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, where it won the Kleiner Baer award. Its positive reception persuaded the director of Schweizer Fernsehen, , to commission an entire series of ''Pingu'' cartoons. The series began production in 1988 and started airing on

from 1990–2000, originally consisting of 104 five-minute episodes and one special 25-minute episode. The original stories were written by Brueggemann and Guido Steiger, and some of the later stories were written by Silvio Mazzola. These episodes were animated at Trickfilmstudio in

Russikon Russikon is a municipality in the district of Pfäffikon in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. History Russikon is first mentioned in 775 as ''Ruadgisinchova''. In 1247 it was mentioned as ''Rusinchon''. Geography Russikon has an area of . ...

, Switzerland. In the styling of voices, a retroscript was chosen, and all voices were performed by Italian voice actor

without a script, using a language of noises he had already developed and used for

's '' La Linea''. This feature enabled people of diverse linguistic backgrounds to follow the story. In 1993,

David Hasselhoff David Michael Hasselhoff (born July 17, 1952), nicknamed "The Hoff", is an American actor, singer, and television personality. He has set a Guinness World Record as the most watched man on TV. Hasselhoff first gained recognition on the soap ...

released a single titled "Pingu Dance", a

rap Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates " rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backin ...

song (in Switzerland only) based on the ''Pingu'' shorts and featuring samples of Penguinese. A portion of the song is used as the theme to ''Pingu'' in the third and fourth series, as well as the re-dubs of the first two series. It was also heard in the re-dubbed version of the episode "Pingu Looks After the Egg" (retitled "Pingu Helps with Incubating"), replacing the " Woodpeckers from Space" song from the original version. A special 25-minute episode, ''

Pingu at the Wedding Party ''Pingu at the Wedding Party'' (German: Pingu: d'familie am Hochziitsfäscht; also known as ''Pingu:'' ''A Very Special Wedding'') is a 1997 Swiss television film produced by Pingu Filmstudio in cooperation with UNICEF featuring the Swiss characte ...

'', was also produced in 1997 and introduced a family of green penguins.

HIT Entertainment buyout

On 29October 2001,

bought the rights to the series, including the original 104 episodes and the wedding special, for £15.9 million. HIT later revived the show and produced a further 52 episodes from 2003–2006. 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. The HIT Entertainment episodes were made by a completely new team at HOT Animation, but co-creator Erika Brueggemann still traveled to the company's headquarters in the United Kingdom to check on production. At the time, she said, "Last year a production company from England bought everything... I traveled to Manchester last summer and met their highly motivated team who worked with great commitment, humor and responsibility towards children. I think Pingu is in good hands now." Contrary to some sources, there was never any CGI used in these later episodes. When HIT Entertainment bought the rights,

was replaced with new voice actors Marcello Magni and

. Magni and Sant, Italian and Spanish actors based in London, both had mime and clowning backgrounds and were already aware of the clown language

, on which the penguin language was based. In February 2012,

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company headquartered in El Segundo, California. Founded in Los Angeles by Harold Matson and the husband-and-wife duo of Ruth Handler, ...

acquired Pingu through its purchase of HIT Entertainment which was rebranded to

shortly after.

Japanese popularity and ''Pingu in the City''

From its debut in the country in 1992, ''Pingu'' became well known in Japan. According to writer Silvio Mazzola in 1996, ''Pingu'' was most popular with high-school girls, with over 90% of Japanese girls aged 13–17 knowing about it. In 2020, an exhibition event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the original "Hugo" animation was held in Tokyo. ''Pingu'' currently airs as part of NHK's children's program ''Nyanchu's World'', and also on

Cartoon Network Japan Cartoon Network is a pan-Asian television channel that primarily broadcasts animated series. Operated by Warner Bros. Discovery under its International division, the channel is broadcast from its headquarters in Singapore and Jakarta, Indonesia to ...

. Various merchandise exclusive to the country has been created, including tie-in toys with

KFC KFC Corporation, doing business as KFC (an abbreviation of Kentucky Fried Chicken), is an American fast food restaurant chain specializing in fried chicken and chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, it is the world's se ...

and

Mister Donut Mister Donut is an international chain of doughnut stores, operating mostly in Asia. It was founded in the United States in 1956 by Harry Winokur. Primary offerings include doughnuts, coffee, muffins and pastries. After being acquired by Allied ...

, as well as various video games. A Japanese-produced reboot of the series, titled was announced in 2017. It premiered on

NHK-E , abbreviated on-screen as NHK E, is the second television service of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). It is a sister service of NHK General TV, showing programs of a more educational, documentaries, cultural, children's or intellectual n ...

on 7October 2017. Unlike its previous series, it is

computer-animated Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Modern c ...

, and features Pingu and his family moving to a big city. Each episode involves Pingu attempting to help out anyone there with their jobs, although he usually messes it up. The series was produced by

Polygon Pictures is a Japanese 3DCG animation studio. History Polygon has animated a wide variety of content, from commercials for Shiseido featuring the studio's original penguin characters , to the 3D CG anime television series ''Digital Tokoro-san'' and ...

in the same style of the original stop motion series through computer animation. It was directed by Naomi Iwata and written by both Kimiko Ueno and Shigenori Tanabe, with music done by Ken Arai. It features voices by

Ryota Iwasaki is a Japanese actor from Osaka Prefecture, affiliated with Atomic Monkey. He is known for starring as Nurude Sasara in ''Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle: Rhyme Anima'', Han Shinwoo in ''Noblesse (manhwa), Noblesse'', the younger Sakata brothe ...

and Fumiya Tanaka, in a similar style to Carlo Bonomi, David Sant, and Marcello Magni.

Second revival

On 21October 2024, it was announced that a remake of the series was being co-developed by

and

Reception

''Pingu'' has received mostly positive reviews.

Common Sense Media Common Sense Media (CSM) is an American nonprofit organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children.

gave it 4 out of 5 stars, stating: "Parents need to know that this claymation series is funny, endearing, and entertaining. Although tis appropriate for all ages, the plots might be difficult for the youngest viewers to follow". According to a 2008 ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'' article, the series is "an international sensation", but still remains obscure among American audiences.

Notes

References

External links