La Linea (TV series)

La Linea
La Linea
Genre	Animation
Created by	Osvaldo Cavandoli
Voices of	Carlo Bonomi (most voices), Jeong YeongWung (Korean voice)
Theme music composer	Franco Godi
Country of origin	Italy
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	90
Production
Running time	2-4 minutes
Production company(s)	B. Del Vita (season 1) HDH Film/TV (season 2)
Broadcast
Original channel	RAI
Original run	1971 – 1986

La Linea ("The Line") is an Italian animated series created by the Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli. The series consists of 90 episodes which are about 2–3 minutes long each which were produced originally broadcast in the Italian channel RAI between 1971 - 1986. Over the years the series aired in more than 40 countries around the world. All episodes of the series are available today on DVD version.

Due to its short duration (usually 2 minutes 30 seconds), it has often been used in many networks as an interstitial program.

The tune played in the background of the series was created by Franco Godi.

Even though the episodes are numbered up to 225, there are, in fact, only 90 La Linea episodes. The 1971 series had 8 (4 min) episodes, the 1978 series had 56 (101-156), and the 1986 series had 26 (200-225).

Synopsis

The cartoon features a man (known as "Mr. Linea") drawn as a single outline around his silhouette, walking on an infinite line of which he is a part. The character encounters obstacles and often turns to the cartoonist, represented as a live-action hand holding a white grease pencil, to draw him a solution, with various degrees of success. One recurring obstacle was an abrupt end of the line. The character would often almost fall off the edge into oblivion and get angry with the cartoonist and complain about it. He was voiced by Carlo Bonomi in a mock version of Milanese that resembled gibberish as much as possible, giving the cartoon the possibility to be easily exported without dubbing. The voice resembles Pingu's, the Swiss animated penguin, which was also voiced by Bonomi.

The character's relationship with his cartoonist is very similar to that of Daffy Duck's plight in the Warner Brothers' 1953 cartoon short Duck Amuck where he too is at the mercy of the cartoonist (Chuck Jones). Their reactions to their artists' whims are also very similar in as they both try to work with what is drawn around them, but often end up hurt and losing their tempers.

The first 8 episodes of the series were, in fact, created to publicize Lagostina kitchenware products, and the accompanying narration identified Mr. Linea as "Agostino Lagostina, a sharp little man with a truly expressive nose." After the 8th episode, however, the series broke its association with Lagostina.

It's also worth noting that since these were very short episodes usually aired in between programs and the "lyrics" in the music before and after sounded like "Barum Barum" this show was commonly referred to as such, and typing such into a search engine [Google] helps confirm this and this is the reason why in the European countries it was most likely referred to as "Barum Barum".

Distribution

Television

From 1972 on La Linea was shown on numerous TV stations in Europe as well as in cinema, mostly as interstitial between commercials. La Linea was shown in more than 40 countries over the world. The series won prizes 1972 in Annecy and 1973 in Zagreb.

• In the United States, the cartoons were featured on the children's TV series The Great Space Coaster, although La Linea was given different names by the show's characters, Roy, Goriddle Gorilla, Gary Gnu, and Knock Knock, before the cartoon was played. Not all La Linea cartoons were featured on this show.
• In Canada, the La Linea cartoons aired on Radio-Canada and TV-O.
• From June 30, 2008 until October 31, 2008, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet published all episodes of La Linea as daily episodes on its website(La Linea 1-8, La Linea 101-156, and La Linea 200-225).

DVD releases

A set of three DVDs containing all the episodes was released in Germany in 2003 and re-edited in September 2008. The first volume was released in France, Hungary, Serbia and Scandinavia. A set of two DVDs containing 56 episodes is sold in Quebec since 2008 by Imavision. The complete series was released in Scandinavia in the beginning of 2008 in a 3-disc box set.

Popular culture

• The La Linea style was used in two music videos for Italian disco artist Gigi D'Agostino: 1999's "Bla Bla Bla" and 2000's "The Riddle".
• In 2005, the video for the Jamiroquai song "(Don't) Give Hate a Chance" paid homage to La Linea. The video is an animated commentary on the War on Terrorism and features 3D representations of the familiar La Linea character, as well as the animator's hand and pencil.
• A similar concept was used in the final introduction for the British version of Whose Line is it Anyway?.
• Cavandoli drew La Linea for the last time, just before his death, for use in advertisements of an Icelandic bank called Kaupthing.

Alternative Titles

The show is known by different names around the world, including:

• "Aghaaye Khat" / "آقای خط" (Mr. Line) in Iran
• "Linus på linjen" (Linus on the line) in Sweden
• "Linus linjalla" (Linus on the line) in Finland
• "Badum badum" in Slovenia
• "Badum badum" and sometimes "Złośniczek" in Poland
• "Menő Manó" in Hungary
• "Mar Kav" / "מר קו" (Mr. Line) in Israel
• "Bajram" in Albania
• "Streken" in Norway
• "Stregen" in Denmark
• "Línan" in Iceland
• "Baljum Baljum" in Republic of Macedonia
• "Bay Meraklı" (Mr. Curious) in Turkey
• "Барум Барум" / "Barum Barum" or "Абаракандиши Ди Фјури" / "Abarakandiši Di Fjuri" in Serbia
• "Lineman" in the United States
• "La Linéa" in France
• "A Linha" in Brazil
• "Lijntje" in the Netherlands
• "Abelardo" in Argentina

External links

• La Linea at the Internet Movie Database
• Pictures of La Linea German
• La Linea ("Streken") published by the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet Norwegian; available in Norway only.