A couple of months ago I got very, very happy when I identified “that cartoon of a little girl in a yellow dress, in very environmentalist adventures” as the Dot films.
Now I’m trying to identify another cartoon, but this one’s proving much tougher. If anyone could lend a hand, I’d be most grateful.
The title I recall is “Jonas e a Baleia”, which translates to “Jonah and the Whale”. I have no idea if it’s an English, American, Australian, or even Brazilian or Something-Else-Altogetherian cartoon (since it was, as I recall, dubbed into Portuguese/Brazilian when I watched it). I vividly recall a kid - Jonah - and his imaginary green whale friend. I remember him riding the whale’s back. I remember very funky dreamlike sequences; scenes in a church, scenes where the whale becomes an inert island…
And don’t hold me to it, but I think - I think - the whale had a female name.
Does this ring a bell? I’d very much like to at least identify this. I’m not even sure if it was a series or a film…
EDIT - Isn’t it always this way? Minutes after I post, I find out: Josephina the Whale, aka Kujira no Josephina. Cheers!
EDIT2 - Wouldn’t surprise me to find out that it turned out to be a crappy film, isn’t it always this way.
Dot and the Kangaroo? My sisters and I loved that film when we were kids! Though Lisa always had to hide under the table when it got to the bit about the bunyip…
I was also traumatised by the bunyip. And the Banksia Men. And the Bottersnikes. And then my wife was traumatised, as an adult, by the very concept of the Magic Pudding, because if you think about it the Pudding is basically the most fucked-up golem ever.
My conclusion is that, since Australia is so full of astoundingly toxic things, the guiding aim of its childrens’ literature is to make children terrified of everything.
The funny thing is, I had 4 or 5 Dot films - but not Dot and the Kangaroo, which I saw for the first time a couple of months ago. Dot and the Koala; Dot and the Keeto; Dot and the Whale; Dot and the Smugglers; Around the World with Dot; all of those yes, but not Dot and the Kangaroo.
I still like the films, though they’re obviously 100% for kids (you can say, of some cartoons, that they can be enjoyed by children and adults; the Dot films are completely aimed for the younger audience). Pity that the quality of the drawing declined too sharply too soon. THe kangaroo in Dot and the Kangaroo was beautiful; subsequent kangaroos seem a parody of themselves.
EDIT - Well, looks like I’m completely out of luck… Josephina was an anime from the 70’s, and the studio misplaced their copies. It was therefore never released on VHS or DVD or anything. Privately-recorded tapes are all that exist, and only a handful, and mostly in italian.
What makes me want to kick myself is that I had a huge VHS collection of these films. I gave them away when I thought that, at 17, I’d “outgrown that kid’s stuff”. Stupid, stupid.
Sounds like something I would have enjoyed. I love surreal dream sequences and such.
Yeah, that sucks, don’t it? I’ve often gotten rid of things I wish I had saved. You often don’t appreciate things until you don’t have them anymore.
Why is it that some of the best productions (short films, movies, tv shows, etc.) are so carelessly catalogued or stored after production is completed? Indeed, when people put so much effort into them?
Some lost films, however, have been rediscovered, such as The Thomas Edison production company version of Frankenstein (1910):
