Counter-clockwise, starting from the top left: Canan, Necati, Shakir, Remzi, and Kadriye.
King Shakir, known in Turkish as Kral Şakir, is an animated series produced exclusively for Turkey's version of Cartoon Network by Grafi2000. It was created by Varol Yaşaroğlu and premiered in May 2016 after a sneak peek in April of that year.
It stars Shakir, a lion kid, and his elephantine uncle, Necati, as they get themselves - and often the rest of Shakir's family - into all sorts of wonky, weird shenanigans.
Besides the main series, a number of movies based on the series have premiered in Turkish cinemas and on Turkish streaming services. One such film, King Shakir: Recycle, was released on Disney+ in Turkey and internationally, including in the United States.
Many of the episodes have been made available on the series' official YouTube channel
, with much of them having been subtitled in English. A separate channel was founded in 2023 to upload English dubbed episodes.
King Shakir contains the following tropes:
- Alien Episode:
- The second episode, "Filmmakers", has Necati bring a real alien into a film that Shakir is making.
- The movie King Shakir: Recycle has aliens getting angry at the Earthlings for dumping their trash into outer space, causing it to land on alien planets.
- All-CGI Cartoon: The movies are animated in CGI, while the show itself is animated in 2D.
- Amateur Film-Making Plot: "Filmmakers" has Shakir attempting to produce a sci-fi film. Necati brings in a real alien that was fixing his spaceship, only for the alien to get caught up with some distress that involves him being separated from his girlfriend.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Necati, an anthropomorphic elephant, is purple.
- Anthropomorphic Food:
- The fourth episode, "Food Fight", has an anthropomorphic hot dog and lahmajoun (a Turkish delicacy) fighting against evil vegetables.
- In "April Fools", evil suckers want to pull an April Fools prank by placing smelly fish everywhere.
- April Fools' Plot: The aptly-named "April Fools" is about Shakir, Necati, and Remzi pranking everyone on April Fools Day. Then, they discover an invisible door that leads to the hideout of a bunch of evil candy suckers who want to go to Shakir's neighborhood and pour smelly fish on everything.
- Argument of Contradictions:
- In "Filmmakers", Shakir says he can make a good movie, but his father disagrees with him, simply saying "You can't." Shakir retorts with "I can!", and they keep going back and forth while Kadriye and Necati are talking.
- In "Parallel Universes", Shakir and Necati get in an argument over Shakir's new game console, each stating constantly "I am the first!" to play the game. Their argument also has them tugging on the console to see who gets it, resulting in it flying up to the ceiling and falling on a table, breaking.
- Big Red Button: In "Filmmakers", Remzi is warned not to press the red button in a spaceship, since red buttons are always trouble. He does anyway, resulting in a pencil-looking missile being shot from the spaceship and destroying Uranus.
- Company Cross References: A poster for Grafi2000's previous series, Fırıldak Ailesi, appears at one point in King Shakir: Let the Game Begin.
- Cassandra Truth: In "April Fools", nobody believes Shakir, Necati, and Remzi about the evil suckers planning to prank the neighborhood since they had been pulling April Fools jokes earlier. Sure enough, they don't realize they were 100% not joking until when the suckers actually go through with their prank.
- Dub Name Change: The series is called Laith the King in Arabic, and the character names are changed to match. Shakir becomes Laith; his sister Canan is Rizan; his father Remzi is Durgham; his mother Kadriye is Elanod; and Remzi's adoptive turtle father Peyami is Abo-El Sabaa.
- Everyone Knows Morse: In "Trash Room", Remzi is given a device to tap a Morse message to his house. Aylin, Canan's friend and a visitor to Remzi's house, just happens to have learned Morse and picks up the message he gives, giving her and Canan the chance to clean Shakir's room since the message is to clean his room to get them out of the dimension they're in.
- Good News, Bad News: A spoof of the "Bad News, Worse News" variant is in "Parallel Universes", where Mr. Meerkat tells Canan that his parallel universes gadget isn't working, and that he had been wearing his smart-looking glasses earlier, so it's impossible for him to have made a mistake. Canan gives bad news and worse news (Mr. Meerkat asks what happened to the good news, and Canan says there isn't any), the bad news being that Mr. Meerkat has Shakir's game console instead, and the worse news being that he's been wearing silly-looking glasses and hasn't even realized it yet. He takes more offense to the second thing she mentions, looking in a mirror and screaming at how doofy he looks.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: The very Turkish-sounding theme song has no lyrics.
- Interspecies Romance: Shakir's parents are Remzi, a lion, and Kadriye, a cat. The fact that they got married and started a family indicates they're in love with each other.
- Kid Hero: An official promotional poster shows the protagonist Shakir to have been a baby in 2009, which would place him at around 10 years old when the poster released in 2019 and seven when the series itself premiered. He's the first to solve any conflicts that go on in his town.
- King of Beasts: Shakir, a lion, is referred to as a "king" in the title.
- I've Heard of That — What Is It?: In "Very Remote Shopping Mall", Shakir realizes the numbers on the doors are coordinates and tells his dad. His dad's response is "Well, awesome! ...what are coordinates? Don't tell me weird things!"
- The Magic Touch: In "Golden Day", Katriye and her friends touch a magic coin and turn into gold. Canan, who was reading a book on Classical Mythology earlier, recognizes the connection between the coin and King Midas.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: In King Shakir: Cumburlop!, Remzi is turned into a crab with a lion's head; meanwhile, Necati is turned into an octopus with an elephant's head.
- No Mouth: Necati's mouth is obscured by his mustache.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The boy Shakir wears a blue jacket. His sister, Canan, wears a pink dress and bow.
- Production Throwback: A poster for Varol Yaşaroğlu's previous series, Fırıldak Ailesi, can be seen at one point in King Shakir: Let the Game Begin.
- Quarter Hour Short: The episodes are about 10-13 minutes long.
- Sphere Eyes: Many of the characters have the overlapping variant.
- Tempting Fate: In "Parallel Universes", Shakir's game console finds itself up in the ceiling, and his dad responds "At least it isn't broken." Afterwards, it falls on a table and breaks.
- Time Dilation: In "Very Remote Shopping Mall", the bus taking Shakir and his party to Door World goes at the speed of light, and Necati sticks his head out the window for a few seconds. When they arrive, Remzi notices that half of Necati's face has aged to the age of a senior citizen, with half of his mustache and one of his eyebrows being white.
- Toothy Bird: Kursat the vulture has two buck teeth in his beak.
- Two-Faced: This happens to Necati in "Very Remote Shopping Mall" when he sticks his head out of the window of a bus while it's driving in hyperspeed, causing one half of his face to become like a senior citizen's while the other half remains unchanged.
- Vile Vulture: Kursat, one of the show's villains, is a vulture who resorts to things such as cheating to get his way.
- Visible Invisibility: The invisible door in "April Fools" has a transparent outline that is visible to the viewers, but it's clear in-universe that nobody can actually see it.
