From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pingu is a Swiss animated series aimed at children. It features a family of penguins who lived at the South Pole, and primarily focuses on the antics of the son, Pingu, and his friend Robby the Seal. There are also lots of family-based episodes, featuring the mother and father and (after she was hatched) his baby sister Pinga, as well as several other minor characters.

Contents 1 History 2 Episode List 3 Commercial VHS and DVD releases 4 Trivia 5 See also 6 External links

Four series consisting of 103 episodes in total of the show were made from 1986 onwards. The series was directed and animated by Otmar Gutmann, and written by Dani Gilbert, for Zee TV including BBC Television(Trickfilmstudio) using claymation techniques.

Each episode was five minutes long, however a special one-off 20 minute episode ("Pingu at the Wedding Party") was also produced, which introduced a family of green penguins and a killer vacuum cleaner.

One of the features that made Pingu an international success was the fact that there was no dialogue as such. All dialogue was given in a kind of "penguin language" ("Pinguish" or "Penguinese"), performed (without script) by Carlo Bonomi.

In 2004, Hit Entertainment bought the UK rights to the series (including the original 103 episodes), and produced a further 52 episodes which were animated at Hot Animation, and were broadcast in the same year. These feature new voice actors Marcello Magni and David Sant, as Bonomi, now in his sixties, was considered too old.^{[citation needed]}

Main article: List of Pingu episodes

Main article: List of Pingu DVD and VHS releases

• Although Pingu was set in Antarctica, he and his family lived in an igloo, which are only found in the Arctic as the traditional (no longer used) dwellings of the native Inuit people.

• In 1989, David Hasselhoff released (in Switzerland only) the single "Pingu Dance"[1], a rap song based on the Pingu shorts and featuring a number of samples of Pinguish. A portion of this song is used as the theme to Pingu on the PBS Kids Sprout channel in the United States.

• In 2006, Pingu was featured in a specially-made music video for Eskimo Disco's first single, 7-11.

• The episode "Pingu WC episode"/"Pingu's Lavatory Story" was banned in some countries because it contains graphic references of urination.

• The episode "Pingu's Dream" was also banned in some countries because it showed a giant Leopard Seal trying to capture Pingu.

• In a Swedish Talk Show, interviewee Madonna criticised Pingu as a bad influence on talk show host Kristian Luuk's daughter, because she considers watching TV bad for children's health.

• On the episode Pingu is jealous (Episode 6,Series 1),a flag on top of his house almost resembles the Flag of Dominican Republic execept it has a penguin on the center of the flag.

• Some Episodes of Pingu were released as a Bonus Features on DVDs of Fraggle Rock.

• Pingu theme tune (help·info)
• Pingu theme tune - Pingu Dance version (help·info)

• Official Site
• Offical Japanese Site
• Pingu at the Internet Movie Database
• Eskimo Disco music video with Pingu