Nu, Pogodi is likely the most popular cartoon ever made by the Soviet film studio Soyuzmultfilm. The cartoon is sort of a cross between Tom and Jerry and the Coyote/Road Runner series. There isn’t much dialog, but there are a lot of visual representations of life in the Soviet Union, which makes these cartoons especially interesting.
There are two main characters: the wolf and the bunny. The wolf is the more developed character. He spends his time trying to catch the bunny. He rides a motorcycle, smokes, litters, has unkempt hair, and routinely breaks laws. The wolf was supposed to be a caricature of what was considered negative in Soviet life. The bunny is less developed, and is usually portrayed as simply avoiding the wolf’s schemes. Unfortunately, due to the nature of communism, only 20 episodes were produced over a span of around 30 years.
Because there is hardly any spoken dialog, the cartoons are easy to follow. “Nu, Pogodi” means “I’ll get you yet”, or, “just you wait,” and is usually uttered by the wolf at the end of each episode.
Continue reading ‘Soviet cartoons’
I’m big on nostalgia. Probably more than anyone else I know, especially my wife. I think it’s because she didn’t have cable television growing up. I’ll talk about all the cool shows I used to watch on Nickelodeon and she won’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about. So while I was watching shows like Danger Mouse, Mr. Wizard’s World, Today’s Special, and The Mysterious Cities of Gold, she was watching shows like. . .well I don’t really know what kinds of shows she was watching. There actually were a few good shows on the networks, but without Nickelodeon she was missing out on much of the experience.
While watching those totally awesome shows, we all inevitably sit through the commercials. There are a few commercials I remember vividly, but most are locked away in some deep crevice of my brain, only to come back again when I review a familiar 30 second clip. For those of us who grew up in that era, I’m sure you remember the Dig ‘Em Frog, the Kool-Aid Man, and the tons of gimmicky cereal ads.
I had commercial nostalgia years before the internet came on the scene. In my family we had a lot of movies on VHS that we had recorded over the years. I used to play them on the VCR and and fast-forward through the movies so I could watch any commercials I might have remembered. But today, thanks to YouTube, old commercials are at our fingertips. Below are several commercials that I remember fondly.
Continue reading ’80s commercial nostalgia’
