Western Animation / Colargol

Left to right: Hector, Colargol, Raven 12

A Franco-Polish-co-produced stop-motion animated preschool series about a precocious bear cub who lives in the Pretty Wood and has various adventures with his two best friends, Raven 12 and Hector the rat. It originated as a series of stories crafted by Olga Pouchine, a Russian woman living in France, which she told to her son. Eventually, these were developed into a series of musical dramas for children on LP records. In 1967, independent French producer Albert Barillé financed the TV series, the realization of which he entrusted to Tadeusz Wilkosz of the Semafor Film Studio Poland animation studio in Lodz, Poland. Both the recordings and the animated series feature various musical numbers.

The series contains 53 13-minute episodes, which can be divided into some eight story arcs, as follows:

• Colargol and the Circus (1-7). Colargol wishes above all to sing, but has no talent for it. The birds take pity on him and take him to their King, who gives Colargol a magic whistle that makes him a great singer. But his father insists that bears are not made for singing and Colargol doesn't have a chance to demonstrate his skills to the other inhabitants of the Pretty Wood. So, when Mr. Pimoulu, the circus manager, scouts him out, Colargol jumps at the chance to join his circus and see the world. His parents resignedly let him go and Colargol quickly becomes a sensation. However, he inevitably becomes homesick, but Mr. Pimoulu won't let him go and locks him in a cage. Colargol will need help to get out of this situation. Birds relay info on Colargol's situation between the circus and the Pretty Wood. When the circus travels near to Colargol's home, his friends waylay it toward the wood, attack the circus caravan, and set Colargol free.

• Colargol at Sea (8-13). It is the end of the school year and Colargol has not learned to swim. Teacher Wolf threatens him that if he doesn't learn in time for the upcoming end-of-year swim display, he will fail the year. Some frogs take pity on Colargol and give him a crash course in swimming; he ends up learning a little too well, and after the swim show, swims into a river and out into the ocean. After an enjoyable period of free swimming, he ends up on a ship bound for the North Pole to hunt animals. The sailors press Colargol into service as a deckhand. On the ship, he meets a stowaway, Hector the Space Rat, who helps him escape, along with Raven 12, who has come looking for Colargol. They end up hiding out with a polar bear and his granddaughter Nordine, to whom Colargol takes a liking. They wage war against the ship's crew and having successfully fought them off, Colargol and his friends are taken back to the Pretty Wood by a whale. Colargol arrives home just in time for the new school year.

• Colargol in Outer Space (14-21): The rat Hector, a veteran astronaut, has settled in the Pretty Wood. Colargol wishes to fly to space and they make attempts to create flying machines. Then Teacher Wolf invites Hector to school to be a guest speaker about space and tells the children that animals were in space before humans. At the end of the class, Colargol asks why his and his friends' recent experiments at achieving flight have failed to take them to space, and Teacher Wolf gruffly denies him an answer. In reaction to this, the animals of the Pretty Wood try to build a rocket. When this crashes on its maiden flight, Hector calls his contacts in the space agencies and gets a real rocket sent to the Pretty Wood, as well as a control center set up. Colargol, Hector and Raven 12 blast off for a journey into space that will take them to various strange and wonderful celestial worlds.

• Raven's Wedding (22-27): Raven 12 is getting married to Miss Magpie and Colargol is to be best boy. Our heroes' friends whom they met at the North Pole are going to attend as well and Colargol is looking forward to seeing Nordine again and giving her a necklace made of moon rocks that he had collected during the recent space trip. Preparations for the festivities are in full swing, but will everything go smoothly? After going to look at the pretty flowers, Nordine gets lost in the Pretty Wood and ends up kidnapped by the Pimoulus for their circus and made to learn exhibition roller skating. Eventually, they find her, release her, and the Pimoulu’s horse deserts them, forcing them to pull the circus caravan themselves, but another problem occurs where the whale that brought the visitors from the North Pole is pushing water out of the Pretty Wood's pond, flooding the area around it. In the end, though, everything works out. The wedding takes place, a splendid reception follows, and the newlyweds leave on their honeymoon.

• The Lost Whistle (28-33): It is winter in the Pretty Wood and Colargol's family is hibernating. Colargol wakes up and ends up going to the pond where a squirrel is stuck on the ice. He rushes to her rescue and manages to save her, but ends up coughing up the whistle given to him by the King of the Birds, which sinks into the pond. Colargol himself ends up sinking underwater and spending the rest of the winter with the creatures he finds there. He comes out just in time to perform at the spring concert, but not having his whistle, he sings terribly. In disgrace, Colargol decides to leave the Pretty Wood. After walking for some time, he meets a traveling companion who takes him to Jollywood, where a rock festival is taking place. While they are there, an arsonist causes damage to the grandstands. Colargol is framed and thrown in jail. His friends, who have been looking for Colargol, find the real culprit and have Colargol released. They take him back to the Pretty Wood, where the magic whistle has been found, enabling Colargol to perform again.

• Colargol in the Wild West (34-40): While playing Cowboys and Indians with his friends, Colargol finds himself, Raven 12 and Hector transported to the Wild West, in a dream where they meet Colargol's Uncle Grizzly, save an Indian princess from the wolf Kid Blacky's gang, and participate in a rodeo in Golden City.

• The Magic Suitcase (41-51): Kid Blacky, the wolf who was the antagonist in Colargol's Wild West dream, kidnaps Hector because the latter has his uncle’s secret for growing golden flowers, and wants Hector to share the secret with him to help him get rich. Mr. Zowl, the inventor, creates a suitcase that can transform into a variety of land, sea and air vehicles. In it, Colargol and Raven 12 follow Kid Blacky and Hector on a round-the-world wild goose chase, visiting many different places and having various adventures, all the while meeting lookalikes of Hector who are supposedly related to him. In the end, they come home and confront Kid Blacky, who has returned with Hector. The former is disappointed to learn that Hector's flowers are just golden-colored and do not grow actual gold.

• A Christmas Story (52-53): Winter has come again to the Pretty Wood. Christmas is approaching and the inhabitants are preparing a great celebration to which their friends from around the world have been invited. They are also giving gifts to some who are not so fortunate. However, the evil fairy Carabosse comes down to Earth and wants in on the action, attempting to steal the entire holiday feast. The wizard Merlin comes down from his planet, overpowers Carabosse's magic, and takes her back to her planet; our friends have their beautiful celebration and leave us on a happy note.

The series has been released in many countries in various dubbed versions. It received two dubs into English, in the UK, where it was re-named Barnaby Bear (not to be confused with this Barnaby, the premise of which is not altogether different), and in Canada, where it was titled Jeremy Bear. The former spliced together certain episodes while the latter retained the original number and sequence.

The arcs about the Wild West, the space trip and the magic suitcase were released as feature-length films in Poland in 1976, 1978 and 1979 respectively.

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This work provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: Colargol, Raven 12…and Hector. Justified in that Hector is based on an actual rat of that name, France's first space passenger.
• All Just a Dream: The arc about Colargol's adventure in the Wild West turns out to be a dream that Colargol has after falling down on the ground while playing Cowboys and Indians with his friends.
• All-Natural Gem Polish: The moon rocks that Colargol finds and brings home as a necklace for his childhood sweetheart are not quite this, but are still prettier and more crystalline than anything ever brought back from the Moon.
• The Alleged Car: The rickety jalopy that takes Raven 12 and Miss Magpie to their honeymoon.
  • The rocket that the residents of the Pretty Wood attempt to construct alone is a dismal failure.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The old locomotive that gets Colargol, Hector and Raven 12 to Golden City in the wild west arc and that evidently dies at the end of this, its last ride; also the Eiffel Tower when they visit Paris on their round-the-world journey in the magic suitcase to find Hector.
• Ash Face: The circus manager's wife, when her gun discharges backward toward her face.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Zig-zagged. During their space trip, they are shown both wearing spacesuits and without them at different times, with no apparent consistency.
• Bittersweet Ending: At the end of the arc about Raven 12's wedding, the festivities have successfully taken place and the threat posed again by the Pimoulu Circus has been averted. However, the friends from the North Pole have to return home, meaning that Colargol is separated again from Nordine, and we don't know when he will get to see her again.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Colargol is able to sing like a star, swim in the ocean and fly into space, but school is not his strong point. He lampshades this in the (French) version of his theme song that he sings while in the circus, describing himself as being "Mauvais élève a l'école / Mais premier au music-hall" (Poor student at school / But the top star at the music hall). This trait seems to get ironed out during the series, and by its end Colargol seems to be as well-adjusted in school as his classmates.
• Cheerful Child: Colargol himself, when he's not in a scrape. His schoolmates as well.
• Circus Episode: In the first arc, one episode is dedicated to a circus performance at which Colargol sings and does acrobatics, achieving the stardom he had craved for.
• Circus of Fear: The Pimoulu Circus becomes this for Colargol after the owner won't let him quit and keeps him in a cage between performances and makes him wear a ball and chain at all times. It affects Colargol's performances, having him cry and sing out of rhythm, but Mr. Pimoulu apparently doesn't care.
• Creator Provincialism: The French dub makes it clear that the Pretty Wood is in France and even in other dubs, such visual elements as French flags make this hard to mask. Why the astronaut rat is called Hector would basically only have been known to French children, as France had sent a rat of that name into space. In general, the show has a decidedly European flavor, and was animated in Poland. A detail which will fly over the heads of the uninitiated and of all but a careful observer hints at this: during the outer space arc, Colargol and his friends land on a planet of toys. On it are toy soldiers whose hats have square crowns like the Czapkas of Polish soldiers.
• Defictionalization: An in-universe example. Kid Blacky, the wolf antagonist in the Wild West dream sequence reappears as an actual antagonist when he kidnaps Hector in order to get his secret of the golden tulips.
• Dub Name Change: The show has been dubbed into a variety of languages, of which some have retained the apparently unique name Colargol and some have not. The British and North American English language dubs have renamed the title character Barnaby and Jeremy, respectively. In Japan, he was known as Koraru. In Finland, he was Pikku-Nalle. And in South Africa, he was Lollapot.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: The evil fairy Carabosse^note Simply called the Wicked Witch in the Canadian dub is hideous. She has a nose crooked to one side, a pointy chin and a mop of spiky green hair.
• Expy: Some of the characters in "Golden City", the town in the Wild West arc, are clearly the same figures as characters from the Pretty Wood; e.g. the sheriff is identical to Mr. Zowl. The emcee at the rodeo is the same as Teacher Wolf.
  • Kid Blacky appears to be modeled after the Big Bad Wolf and looks very different from Teacher Wolf, who is gray and more dog-like.
• Fantastic Naming Convention: Apparently, it's common for birds in and around the Pretty Wood to simply go by their species name and a number.
• Foreshadowing: The end of the episode where Colargol is propelled to stardom gives hints that his joining the circus was a mistake and that its owners only want to use Colargol: as the circus leaves the town, the crowd cheers for him, but Mrs. Pimoulu orders him back into the caravan on the pretext that he will catch cold.
• Free-Range Children: Exaggerated with Colargol. He takes off anywhere he wants, even to outer space, sometimes even without letting his parents know. His parents, although clearly missing Colargol on his journeys, seem largely reconciled to the fact. In the episode about the swim display, when Teacher Wolf sees Colargol swimming out of the pond toward the sea, he gets upset and asks aloud what his parents will say, but Colargol's father answers: "He has our permission. It's the summer vacation!"
• Funny Animals: Especially various supporting characters, but the main characters have their moments as well. On the whole, though, humorous moments tend to be brief and understated.
• Furry Confusion: Most animals in the series talk and live like humans, while remaining close to their woodland lifestyle. Even the circus animals are portrayed as artistes rather than trained beasts. However, there are several instances of beasts of burden such as horses or elephants that serve the same purpose as in real life, and in the Christmas arc, a little stray dog also ends up as the pet of an old moose.
• Ghibli Hills: The Pretty Wood appears to be like this in some scenes.
• Great White Hunter: The crew of the ship bound for the North Pole wants to hunt there and they capture Colargol and make him serve as a deckhand.
• Hammerspace: The models for many of the animals' woodland homes and, in particular, the spaceships in the space sequence, are significantly more spacious on the inside than on the outside. Furthermore, the arc about the magic suitcase features Colargol and Raven 12 traveling around the world in a suitcase that can literally transform into a variety of vehicles, yet can collapse into an easily portable suitcase.
• Henpecked Husband: Raven 12's home life is shown to be like this after he marries Miss Magpie. Little is made of it and it seems to be mainly played for laughs, perhaps as a bit of a Parental Bonus.
• Historical Domain Character: Hector the space rat. He actually existed, being the first animal that France sent into space (he came back safely to Earth). Of course, the real Hector was just a space passenger, whereas in this universe he is made anthropomorphic and a seasoned astronaut.
• Interspecies Romance: Raven 12 marries Miss Magpie. Colargol himself is childhood sweethearts with Nordine, a polar bear cub (though in Real Life, brown and polar bears are closely related and can interbreed to produce fertile offspring).
• Jerkass Has a Point: When the animals of the Pretty Wood attack the Pimoulu circus and release Colargol, Mr. Pimoulu tries to argue that they have a contract (which Colargol's father had signed on his behalf). No one cares. This fact will probably not make anyone sympathise with him much, especially after he kept Colargol in a cage, but technically, he does have a point. (Of course, we don't know exactly what the contract stipulated. This point raises questions such as whether a contract signed on a minor's behalf is enforceable and whether Mr. Pimoulu did not break some contractual provisions himself when he imprisoned Colargol).
• Kid-Appeal Character: Colargol himself is a cute bear cub who exhibits the characteristics of a playful, precocious schoolboy.
• Limited Animation: Some occasional characters (e.g. some birds, an Indian sorcerer) are flat-animated and superimposed over the main three-dimensional stop-motion animation. The former are rather simplistic, but the elaborate main stop-motion animation completely averts this trope.
• Magic Versus Science: The evil fairy Carabosse lives in space and has a Freudian Excuse for wanting to destroy the little robot bear from the planet of toys – she loves flowers, but on a planet which she wanted to occupy, some monster machines came along and ate up all the flowers. When she comes to Earth to take the Pretty Wood's Christmas feast for herself, they try to fight her off with conventional means, but her magic is too powerful and Merlin has to come down from his planet and overpower Carabosse with his own magic.
• Misplaced Wildlife: The French dub as a minimum is explicitly set in France. Therefore, the skunk in the Christmas arc does not belong there, unless she was an immigrant from North America.
• Never Say "Die": In the wild west arc, the aged locomotive that takes our friends to Golden City is shown expiring at the end of the journey; while it tells them that it has come to its end, it doesn't straight-out tell them it is dying (at least in the French dub).
• The Owl-Knowing One: Mr. Zowl (M. Zibou in the French dub) is a polymath, if an imperfect one.
• Police Are Useless: The bumbling sheriff of Golden City in the Wild West arc.
• Power Trio: Colargol, Raven 12 and Hector together form an adventurous band of brothers.
• Satellite Love Interest: Miss Magpie, who is only included in the series so that Raven 12 can have someone to marry.
• Schoolmarm: Teacher Wolf is a male example. He runs the open-air school of the Pretty Wood. He is serious and Colargol learns early on that he can be quite gruff when faced with laziness or incompetence; however, he is seen to be a capable teacher and in fact to care about Colargol, to whose peripatetic ways he eventually gets accustomed.
• Smelly Skunk: One of the underprivileged animals that Colargol and his friends help in the Christmas arc is a skunk with whom no one associates because of her smell. They solve the problem by giving her a Christmas present of perfume.
• Weird Moon: During their space trip, Colargol, Raven 12 and Hector visit the Moon twice. The first time, it is spherical and is covered with crystaline rocks. On their way back, they land on the moon again, but now it is in the descending phase. This time, it looks like a crescent hanging in the sky and is not much bigger than the three of them. Their space capsule is on a part of the surface that disappears as the crescent decreases, and the spaceship disappears together with it! So that they don't disappear themselves, they jump off the Moon and land on a rainbow, down which they slide back to the Pretty Wood.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the arc about Colargol's lost whistle, Colargol ends up under water in the Pretty Wood's pond while searching for it during the winter; he can walk around the bottom and communicate with the under-water creatures. He ends up finding an underwater/underground cavern populated by some kind of small animals, with which he stays until the spring.
• Took a Level in Badass: Colargol goes from a bad student who cannot even sing to a famous singer and world- and space-traveling adventurer.