Advertising / Cartoons on Children's Rights

Children have the right to insert some caption text.

"Children have the right to [insert reason here]"

-–The message at the end of each animated short.

Cartoons on Children's Rights is a collective series of animated public service announcements as part of UNICEF's initiative that aims to inform individuals concerning children's rights, as detailed in their Convention on the Rights of the Child. Originating from a summit held in 1994, the effort of this program sees partnerships with numerous animators, studios, and distributors big and small from all across the globe.

UNICEF has released several of these shorts are available for free on their YouTube channels; UNICEF Ukraine has a playlist cataloguing Spots #1-#27, while UNICEF Georgia has compilations of Spots #1-#19 and #67-#77. Several other Spots are also uploaded on their main channel, though many others currently remain missing. Be advised when watching. Some of them can be very distressing, though many others can be very uplifting as well.

Most titles given are conjectural. Independent contributors are marked with a caret (^)

Tape #1 (1998)

1. RAI: "Soccer"
2. Epidem Zot: "Remote"
3. Nickelodeon, Pixar, and Zolo Inc.: "Look Away"
4. Matinee Entertainment: "Bundle"
5. A. Film: "Abducted"
6. Aboriginal Nations: "Cave"
7. Wang Film Productions: "Warzone"
8. Sunbow Entertainment: "Elevator"
9. Cinar: "Landmine"
10. Hahn Film: "Shadow"
11. HBO Animation: "Art"
12. National Film Board of Canada: "Conditions"
13. Neptuno Films: "Snails"
14. Polish Television: "Privacy"
15. Adelaide Productions: "Loneliness"
16. Fil-Cartoons: "Activities"
17. Disney Institute: "Ignored"
18. Bardel Animation: "Seesaw"
19. DIC Entertainment: "Bee"
20. Fred Wolf Films: "Gun"
21. Children's Television Workshop: "Chicken"
22. Michael Sporn Animation: "Battlefield"
23. MTV Animation: "Thoughts"
24. Urban Design: "Ladder"
25. BRB Internacional S.A.: "Dream"
26. YLE Finland: "Bears"
27. Art & Animation Station: "Environment"
28. Nicobis: "Dirt Drawings"
29. Warner Bros. Animation: "Wrench"

Tape #2 (1999)

30. Migguel Repiso^: "Drawing"
31. TV Futura: "Education"
32. USL-RM: "Castle"
33. Red Rocket Animation: "Mama"
34. Kimerica Clisos: "Prison"
35. ArteVision-USB: "Class"
36. Walt Disney Feature Animation: "Dove"
37. Telemagination: "Sob"
38. Cheeky Monkey: "Reality"
39. Cineanimadores: "Blocks"
40. Yanz Films: "Donkey"
41. Luiz Tellez^: "Puppeteer"
42. Miguel Repiso^: "Walk"
43. LNA Bureau for Digital Arts: "Dogs"
44. Nirmal Sherchan^: "Labor"
45. D'Ocon Films Productions: "Animals"
46. ICAIC (currently missing)
47. Summer Productions: "Trees"
48. UNICEF Animation workshop: "Abuse"
49. Noureddln Zarrinkelk^: "Faceless"
50. Juan Acevedo and Pepe San Martin^: Monochrome Classroom"
51. Mondo TV (currently missing)
52. Muafak Kat: "Notebook"
53. School of Visual Arts: "Cycle"
54. AnimAction: "Approval"
55. Pictoon (currently missing)
56. Nicobis (currently missing)
57. Movim: "Violence"
58. Julio Rojas^ (currently missing)
59. Animacion Boricua: "Protector"
60. les delires production: "Hospital"
61. Red Kite Productions: "Scuffle"
62. Ramm Productions: "Hall"
63. Cineanimadores: "TV Violence"
64. Guy O'Neal^: "Color"
65. AnimAction: "Worm"
66. School of Visual Arts: "Mud Creature" (bonus animation, 1 min. runtime)

Tape #3 (2000)

67. Andrea Princivalli^: "Doodling"
68. Toonz Animation India: "Work"
69. Sharon E. Smith^: "Shapes"
70. Kratky Film: "Bricks"
71. Santoon Productions: "Oriental"
72. Susana Maria Halpine^: "Nutrients"
73. Forever Group^ "Newborn"
74. Lina Ghaibeh^: "Student"
75. Promax: "Flowers"
76. Saf Vranje^: "Argument"
77. Forever Group^: "Playground"
78. Alina Chau: "Frieden: the Tree of Peace" (bonus animation, 5 min. runtime)

Later entries

1. Big Star: "Ball"
2. Imagine Asia: "Shapes"
3. Kapow Pictures: "Aliens"
4. TV Loonland (currently missing)
5. Various cartoons from unknown studios that currently only survive in really low quality and in Spanish, seemingly all from the same series due to sharing a pinwheel-like intro. As many formerly-missing cartoons were released as part of this series as well, it is possible that these are some of the lost ones listed above: 1, 2, 3, 4 (partial).

Other known contributors:

• Cartoon Network (Provided funding to animators in developing countries)
• Pixar (Provided animation for "Look Away")

---

Children have the right to their own list of tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Several animated shorts show how much of an ass parents can be.
• All for Nothing: "Walk" has a young girl walking with her injured brother. As they see a sign that a nearby hospital is 20 kilometers away, they are determined to walk a long journey until they finally reach a hospital. Much to the siblings' dismay, the "hospital" falls over, turning out it was a fake model.
• All Just a Dream:
  • "Child Soldiers" has this Twist Ending. It features a group of kids enjoying several fun activities. However, it turns out to be imagined, revealing that the kids are partaking in an ongoing war.
  • "Guns" tells a story of a child witnessing an armed crime, as he fears during his sleep that his toys becomes living murderers. Fortunately it was just a nightmare as he checks that his toys are perfectly fine. But as he gets ready to go outside, the last thing we hear is a sound of a gunshot.
  • "Reality" shows a fantasy world full of happiness and delight, sadly, it's revealed to be her imagination as she lives in a shabby house with her neglectful father.
  • "Frieden: The Tree Of Peace" spends most of its time in a world where children fly and grow a beautiful tree together. But then, the main character wakes up, and we see she is alone in a house in a wartorn area as armies battle outside, clearly shaken from being brought back to reality.
  • In contrast to the three tear-jerking entries, "Dream" features a baby having a nightmare of being abducted and auctioned off. Fortunately, his mom is there to comfort him, ending it with a positive note.
• Artistic License – Child Labor Laws: Any short concerning child labor would end up this trope. It's justified, since the point is to illustrate just how grueling child labor is and why such laws need to be in place.
• Baby as Payment:
  • "Abducted" features a small boy being offered by a stranger, whom the former accepts, but didn't realize he is being sold for.
  • "Dream" also has a similar concept as "Abducted". Unlike the aforementioned above, it was just a nightmare and the mother comes in to comfort him, making him smile.
• The Blank: "Faceless'' features a girl with literally no face. Luckily, a live-action hand draws a face on the girl, and some hair too.
• Break the Cutie: Being a series of PSAs about children's rights, this is to be expected a lot.
  • "Landmine" ends with a girl who jumps around and accidentally fell onto a landmine, leaving only the explosion in the background. And the worst part? We are greeted with a group of realistic drawings of victims who are severely injured from what a landmine can inflict.◊ Ouch.
  • "Shadow" has a young girl's fate of being in a Pædo Hunt.
  • "Loneliness" features a homeless girl, who tries to get one of the other people to help her, but they all refuse, leaving the girl alone and miserable.
• The Chain of Harm: "Cycle" shows an endless loop of abuse that never stops.
• Children Are Innocent: Hence the importance of protecting their rights.
• Child Soldiers: The kids in the short of the same name are forced to partake in an ongoing war.
• Downer Ending: Most of the entries end with no Happy Ending.
• Drugs Are Bad: "Bee" shows a bee trying to escape in a field full of pills and drugs, as children have rights to a drug-free world.
• Floating Head Syndrome: "Labor" ends with a shot of a tired boy plastered on the Earth.
• Good Parents: Contrary to the Abusive Parents mentioned above, some entries depict parents as protective and caring to their children.
• Juvenile Hell: "Prison" tells the brutal truth, as this one even features a little boy in a prison cell, implying that he hasn't been treated with dignity.
• Meaningful Name: "Frieden" is German for "peace", something the girl in the short of the same name greatly longs for.
• Medium Blending: The collective series come in different varieties of animation styles from traditional to Stop Motion to 3D to Adobe Flash, made by different animators from around the world.
• Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: All of the shorts get their point across without dialogue.
• No Ending: In "Conditions", as the four kids wearing a giant crown approaches to the government explaining the poor conditions in a country and demands to take action, the ad ends visually with Confused Question Marks, indicating how they should accomplish it.
• Pædo Hunt: "Shadow" features a young girl in her pajamas sitting near a man (presumably her father) reading a newspaper in an armchair as she's putting ribbons on her teddy bear. Her mother gives them both goodbye kisses and pretty much immediately, things get unsettling. She tries to walk off, only for the man to slowly trod on her teddy bear and the last shot is his shadow looming over the poor girl as she looks up at him in horror.
• Parental Neglect: Some of them show just how ignorant parents really are or how much they care for themselves instead of their children.
• Public Service Announcement: Concerning children's rights, hence the name.
• Seesaw Catapult: The aptly named "Seesaw" has a toddler playing seesaw by himself, using his plush bear as a substitute for another person, as he accidentally catapults it towards another house.
• Stylistic Suck: Some of the entries such as "Remote", "Cave" and "Worm" intentionally use Limited Animation or oversimplistic handdrawn art styles.
• Token Minority:
  • ''Chickens" features a mother hen and her yellow chicks, but one of them has a side effect of color due to splashing in some paints as an egg. Nonetheless, he is still embraced and accepted by the family.
  • Typically anything involving anti-discrimination, such as "Shapes" or "Aliens".
• War Is Hell: Typically any entry involving children in concern of conflict would ultimately be this trope.
• War Refugees: Speaking of concern of conflict, "Bears" as it states feature two bears escaping from a war-torn town into a brighter and safer flower field.
• Would Hurt a Child: Of course! What would be a PSA regarding children's rights without a few featuring children being harmed, physically or mentally?

---

I wish the dream
would never END.

---