Underplayed Gems

The Moomins (1977)

The Moomins poster
Original title
Opowiadania Muminków
Directed by
Lucjan Dembiński
Genre
children's television series
Country
Poland
Length
2 seasons, 104 episodes
Rated
S
Rating
7.4 of 10 from 9 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This stop motion animated series follows the Moomin family and their friends in Moominvalley. They have small adventures and learn about friendship and nature.

gentlewhimsicalcalmnostalgiccozysimpleplayfultender

What happens

The Moomins (Polish: Opowiadania Muminków, lit. 'Moomins' Short Stories', German: Die Mumins) is a stop motion animated children's television series. It is based on the Moomin series of books by Finnish writer Tove Jansson. It was produced by Se-ma-for and Jupiter Film between 1977 and 1982 for Polish, Austrian and German television. The original broadcast in Poland premiered on November 19, 1978. The series was later sold to other countries including the UK. The British version was adapted by Anne Wood at FilmFair for ITV Central and broadcast in the UK. Series 1 was first shown on Monday 24 January 1983 at 4:15 pm and series 2 on Monday 7 January 1985 at 4.15pm on Children's ITV, and series 2 was repeated in 1986. The series was last repeated in its entirety in 1988. The series was also U.S. aired on Broadcast syndication in October 1983 to June 1987 and later shown on PBS in August 1985 to December 1994. It was narrated by British actor Richard Murdoch. This series was the fourth series to be made based on the Moomin books. Two more were subsequently made. It is one of the two best-known Moomin series (along with the Japanese-made anime version Moomin (1990)). The 1977–1982 stop-motion version has been criticised for being scary in places and rather dark in tone for the young audience at which it was aimed. It is, in contrast to the 1990s series, widely believed to be the most faithful TV adaptation of Tove Jansson's stories, and much closer to her vision. Tove herself had a great deal of involvement during the series' production and was very happy with it (as revealed in an interview with Anne Wood in Simon Sheridan's 2007 book The A to Z of Classic Children's Television). The scripts for each episode were translated from Polish into Swedish and sent to Tove and Lars Jansson, who, if they felt that anything needed to be changed, corrected the script, expanding or rewriting it; afterwards, the scripts were sent back and only then did production of the particular episode begin. In 2010, an HD version of the series was released. It was later followed by a new US-produced English dub in 2017. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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