All about Cheburashka. He was once a strange, nameless toy
Cheburashka is one of those cartoon characters, which we continue to feel sympathy for, even as adults. We will not retell in detail the work “Crocodile Gena and His Friends” (he is its hero), but let’s find out the following point: why Cheburashka was called Cheburashka.
And who is the author?
There can be no discrepancies in the answer to this question: the character appeared from the pen of the Soviet and Russian writer, screenwriter, author of children's books Eduard Uspensky. This happened in 1966. At the same time, another of his works was published - “Down the Magic River”. Uspensky became popular. To answer the question: “Why was Cheburashka called Cheburashka?” - we'll look a little lower.
The writer’s homeland is the city of Yegoryevsk (Moscow region). After graduating from school, he entered the Moscow Aviation Institute. During the same period, his first literary works appeared in print.
Today, the writer’s place of residence is also the Moscow region. The author's works continue to be published in the Samovar publishing house. We hope that there will be no difficulties in answering the question: “Who wrote Cheburashka?” - readers will not have this material.
The character himself became famous after the cartoon about the crocodile Gena and his friends was released (1969).
The original version of the book introduced readers to a clumsy, unsightly creature. Small ears, brown fur - so in general outline his appearance was described. The appearance good-natured image Cheburashka, which is distinguished by large ears and big eyes, we owe it to the production designer
By the way, in the period of the 1990-2000s, the writer had to participate in disputes regarding authorship on this image. The discussion was about its use in the names of various children's institutions, in different products(this was common practice during the Soviet period).
We remembered who wrote Cheburashka. Next, let's list the character name options.
Animal from hot countries
There is a version that in childhood future writer played with soft toy, apparently not the most best quality. She had a strange appearance: with big ears and equally big eyes. It was impossible to understand exactly which order of animals of the world it belongs to. Then the parents' imagination suggested the animal's name - Cheburashka. Hot countries were chosen as his place of residence. We have given so far one version of why Cheburashka was called Cheburashka.
Summer, girl, fur coat
Explanation of this name fictional character Uspensky himself cites in one of his interviews. A little daughter grew up in a family of acquaintances of the writer. One of the purchases that her parents decided to please her with was a small fur coat. It was in the yard warm summer. The fitting of new clothes took place under Eduard Uspensky. The girl dragged her large fur coat along the floor; it was uncomfortable for her to walk. After she's in Once again tripped and fell, the father said: “I screwed up again!” Uspensky became interested in the meaning of the unusual word. A friend explained to him the meaning of the word “cheburahnutsya.” It means "to fall."
You can also find out about the origin of the word from V.I.’s dictionary. Dalia. It also contains the meaning that we have already given, and such as “crash”, “stretch”. Dahl also mentions the word “Cheburashka”. Various dialects define it as “a saber of a barge strap, it hangs on its tail” or as “a stand-up doll, a doll, it rises to its feet on its own, no matter how it is thrown.” The word also has figurative interpretations.
Book version of the title
In order to understand another option why Cheburashka was called Cheburashka, let's remember the plot of the book itself. So, the favorite food of an animal unknown to science that lived somewhere in the south was oranges. One hot day, he climbed into a box with his favorite fruits found on the shore. I ate well and fell asleep. Then the boarded up box ended up in our country and was delivered to the store. After opening the box, instead of the expected fruit, a plump, furry creature appeared before the store director. Having no idea what to do with it, the director decided to put the animal on a box. The animal could not resist and fell. The director burst out with the phrase: “Ugh, what a Cheburashka!” This is how this name stuck with the character.
Our story about Cheburashka is coming to an end. I would like to supplement it with some interesting facts.
Today, many monuments have been erected to this hero and his friends. sculptural compositions. You can meet them in such populated areas, like the village of Gaspra (Yalta, Crimea), the city of Ramenskoye near Moscow, the city of Khabarovsk, the city of Kremenchug, the city of Dnepr.
Since 2003, Muscovites have held a charity event “Cheburashka’s Birthday” every August weekend. It is aimed at helping orphans.
In Moscow, in kindergarten No. 2550 (Eastern administrative District) in 2008 the opening of the Cheburashka Museum took place. It stores typewriter. It was on it that the story of a character beloved by both children and their parents was created.
Soviet cinema gave the world unusual heroes. While they were working on films for adult audiences famous directors, the animators were thinking about how to surprise the little Octobrists and pioneers. Cartoon creators used plots from books and created authentic stories, which were later embodied on the screen. , the Wolf and the Hare from “Well, wait a minute!”, It would take a long time to list the characters beloved by children. First mythical hero Cheburashka, an unknown creature of unknown origin, became a part of the Soviet animation business.
History of creation
Cheburashka is the name of a character in a book written by a children's author. Based on the work “Gena the Crocodile and His Friends,” the director made a film in 1969. The hero of the book gained fame after the film was released.
Cheburashka is an unusual creature. He has two huge round ears, his body is covered with brown fur and it is not clear whether he is female or masculine this animal has. His appearance was thanks to the production designer, Leonid Shvartsman. After the cartoon was translated for showing in other countries, children in all corners of the planet recognized Cheburashka. In English his name was Topl, in German - Kullerchen or Plumps, Drutten in Swedish and Muksis in Finnish. At the same time, the children did not know who the creator of the character was.
Despite the legend about the appearance of Cheburashka published in the preface, Eduard Uspensky assured readers that it was not a child’s toy at all. In an interview with a Nizhny Novgorod newspaper, the writer admitted that he once watched a friend’s little daughter. The girl constantly fell, dressed in someone else's long fur coat.
Her father, noticing these actions, commented on what was happening with the word “cheburahnaya.” A curious word was etched in Uspensky’s memory. Later, the author learned that in the dictionary “Cheburashka” is a synonym for “vanka-vstanka”, also known as tumbler. Cheburashkas were small wooden floats made by fishermen to lure their catch.
Biography and plot
Based on the preface of Uspensky’s book, it becomes clear: in childhood the author had a defective toy with similar name. She looked like a strange animal with round eyes, large ears, a small body and a short tail. The parents assured the boy that Cheburashka lived in the tropical jungle. The animal feeds on oranges, and one day, after climbing into a fruit box to eat it, the baby fell asleep in it. The box was sealed and taken to a big city grocery store.
Cheburashka's name appeared the moment he was discovered by the store director. The well-fed animal constantly fell - it cheburahed, according to those around it. Due to the fact that he could not sit still without falling, he was given funny nickname. The character of the hero is soft. The baby is sweet and friendly, naive, friendly and curious. The diminutive name describes his nature. The sometimes awkward but charming hero evokes the affection of the audience and characters cartoon.
According to the plot, they are trying to place a strange animal in a zoological garden to live with other animals from the tropics. But the zoo didn’t know which animals to let the unknown creature into. He was passed from hand to hand until Cheburashka was in thrift store. This is where I found him. He worked at a zoo and was lonely. While looking for friends, Gena was posting advertisements and came across Cheburashka. Now the animal duo is looking for company. It will include the lion Chandra, the puppy Tobik and the girl Galya. Negative character The work is the owner of the pet rat Larisa.
Between 1966 and 2008, Eduard Uspensky, in collaboration with production designers, created eight plays about the adventures of Cheburashka and friends. In the 1970s, several children's television and radio programs were broadcast in Sweden. Audio records with fairy tales about Cheburashka and Gena and children's magazines were popular. The characters went abroad along with dolls that a tourist brought from a trip to the Soviet Union. Cheburashka was christened Drutten. In Swedish, this word is translated as “stumble”, “fall”, which was characteristic of the hero.
An interesting nuance: on Soviet television, cartoon characters were dolls, and on Swedish television they were puppets. The characters sang and talked about life, but the dialogue was very different from the authentic ones. Even Cheburashka's song sounded completely different. Today Drutten is a full-fledged character in Swedish animation. Modern children do not know the history of its origin.
In 2001, the Japanese discovered the cartoon character, and in 2003 they bought the rights to distribute this image from Soyuzmultfilm for 20 years. The animated cartoon “Cheburashka Arere” has been broadcast in Tokyo since 2009. In 2010, the character was accompanied by friends from Uspensky’s book. Puppet cartoons on the theme of the hero's adventures began to be shown on TV. Today in Japan the cartoons “Crocodile Gena”, “Shapoklyak Advice”, “Cheburashka and the Circus” are broadcast.
Quotes
Works of Soviet cinema and animation are famous for their quotes that audiences love. Heartfelt humorous remarks sink into the soul and are passed on from mouth to mouth for many years. Phrases from the book, transferred to the cartoon, create a special atmosphere, involving the young audience in the plot.
“A young crocodile of about fifty wants to make friends.”
This quote raises questions: is the age of a crocodile comparable to human years? Can crocodiles want to be friends? Why is the image of a crocodile associated with an adult? Cheburashka asks Gene a reasonable question about age, and little viewers learn that crocodiles can live up to three hundred years.
A series of cartoons about the adventures of Cheburashka has a moralistic background. Recommendations and advice to children are presented with the help of the main characters. Kindness - main value for characters. At the same time, old woman Shapoklyak assures:
“Whoever helps people is just wasting their time. Good deeds You can’t become famous.”
The old woman’s wrongness is clear at first glance, and the kids understand that it is worth helping each other. Good deeds are necessarily connected with the main goal of all children Soviet Union- with enrollment as a pioneer. Gena and Cheburashka are no exception:
“You have to do a lot of good things to get into the Pioneers,” says Gena, motivating Cheburashka, and at the same time the audience on the other side of the screen.
Despite character traits Soviet animation skills, children's films about Cheburashka arouse interest among modern children. They keep curious kids and nostalgic adults glued to their screens.
Tamara Dmitrieva, Vladimir Kenigson, Irina Masing, Vladimir Rautbart, Vladimir Ferapontov
Director: Roman Kachanov
Screenwriters: Eduard Uspensky, Roman Kachanov
Operators: Teodor Bunimovich, Joseph Golomb, Vladimir Sidorov
Composers: Mikhail Ziv, Vladimir Shainsky
Artists: Leonid Shvartsman, Olga Bogolyubova
Year: 1969-1983
Series: 4
Cheburashka! This cute, touching creature with radiant eyes and huge ears is known to everyone! Throughout its existence, Cheburashka managed to become not only a character of four famous cartoons, the hero of many children's educational games, cultural and social projects, numerous parodies, but even made it to the world level, becoming the mascot of the Russian Olympic team.
"Crocodile Gena", "Cheburashka"
Cheburashka owes its birth to the children's writer Eduard Uspensky. It was he who, in 1966, wrote the first book about the adventures of this animal unknown to science. As stated in the preface to the book itself, the name of the hero appeared thanks to Uspensky’s children’s toy: either a bear cub or a hare with giant ears, large yellow eyes and a short tail.
The boy's parents argued in all seriousness that this was an as yet unstudied breed of tropical animal. Therefore, in his work, Eduard Uspensky described Cheburashka precisely as an unknown tropical animal that climbed into a box of oranges, fell asleep there and, as a result, ended up in Big city along with the box. The director of the store that accepted oranges gave him the name “Cheburashka” because the animal, which had eaten too much oranges, could not stand on its feet and constantly fell (Cheburashka).
"Crocodile Gena", "Cheburashka"
And the image of Cheburashka we know today was created by animator Leonid Shvartsman. It worked out with the old woman Shapoklyak too interesting story. As you know, the word “shapoklyak” translated from French means “folding cylinder”.
Therefore, initially Leonid Shvartsman painted Shapoklyak as a thin young lady, in dark clothes, With long nose and a gray tuft of hair on his head. However, something was missing... One day the artist remembered his mother-in-law and drew the old woman Shapoklyak’s mother-in-law’s cheeks and surprised big eyes. Then he added a lace frill, cuffs and a hat - it turned out to be the spitting image of the artist’s mother-in-law.
Cheburashka's song
Blue carriage
The Arts Council was delighted - the old woman Shapoklyak turned out to be wonderful! It was easier with Crocodile Gena. Still, a crocodile, as they say, is a crocodile in Africa. By the way, upon closer examination, scientists recognized Gena’s Crocodile image as not a crocodile at all, but... an alligator!
"Crocodile Gena", "Cheburashka"
Do you know what? The first cartoon “Crocodile Gena” was rejected by the editorial board of Soyuzmultfilm, which was associated with the KGB. In the construction of her friends' house, she saw an analogy with the construction of the CMEA and the cartoon was assigned the third, lowest rental category. Resulting in creative Group the animators did not receive a single award for the film, and the film itself was not recommended for wide release.
When presenting the second cartoon, “Cheburashka,” the editorial board again saw sedition. This series, in their opinion, “defamed the pioneer organization.” The director of the film, Roman Kachanov, urgently had to insert a line into the cartoon: “They take the best as pioneers.”
Despite the fact that after the release of the first cartoon about Cheburashka, the character became very popular among Soviet people, they tried to ban the cartoon.
"Crocodile Gena", "Cheburashka"
One of the newspapers published an “accusatory” article, the headline of which read: “Who will adopt Cheburashka?” It popularly explained that Cheburashka is a homeless child who has no homeland!
Yes, and the crocodile Gena is also not a role model, you see, he is looking for friends through advertisements, and everyone knows that the Soviet people are looking for them in the team! Cheburashka is very popular not only here, but also in Japan. Of course, he looks like a typical Japanese hero: huge eyes, small mouth. The Japanese affectionately call him the “Russian miracle” Chebi.
In addition, Crocodile Gena's song was also translated into Finnish language, as well as in English, Swedish, German, Bulgarian, Polish and other languages. Cartoons by Roman Kachanov “Crocodile Gena”, “Cheburashka” and “Shapoklyak” in different time were released on screens in each of these countries. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens he was chosen as the mascot of the Russian Olympic team.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics, the symbol of the Russian Team, Cheburashka, changed into white winter fur. At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Cheburashka was “dressed” in red fur. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Cheburashka mascot became the owner of blue fur.
Lithuanian children call Cheburashka Kulverstukas, and Swedish children call it Drutten. This is how the hero's name is translated into their native languages. In 2005, in connection with the charity event for orphans “Cheburashka’s Birthday,” Eduard Nikolaevich Uspensky announced that August 20 was considered Cheburashka’s birthday.
Cheburashka is a character invented by children's writer Eduard Uspensky, a cute furry animal with large ears, resembling either a hare or a bear cub.
No matter how ridiculous the animal Cheburashka is, absolutely everyone loves him - both children and adults. Indeed, it is simply impossible not to love a cute, shy and harmless animal with huge and ridiculous ears. Moreover, he wants to protect Cheburashka and protect him from dangers, and this is precisely what he is doing, participating in his difficult fate. main friend- Crocodile Gena.
The history of Cheburashka began in 1966, it was then children's writer Eduard Uspensky first came up with his own hero. How exactly the writer came up with the fantasy of creating such an absurd beast is unknown, but there are several versions. So, according to one of them, in childhood Uspensky had an old defective toy, which his parents called “an animal unknown to science that lives in hot tropical forests.” According to another version, thoughts about a strange animal came to him while visiting friends, whose little daughter was walking around the house in a huge fluffy fur coat, constantly stumbling and falling. Her father commented on her fall as “she screwed up again.”
Be that as it may, there is still a hint that Cheburashka is a tropical beast, because according to the plot of the book and cartoon, he first appears in a box of oranges, which probably arrived from a distant tropical country.
They called him Cheburashka for the same reason as a play on words - the animal could not sit quietly and was “Cheburashka” all the time. The director of the store that received the oranges tried to place the strange animal in the zoo, but they could not find a place for it, it did not fit into any type of animal, and therefore, as a result, the unfortunate Cheburashka ended up on the shelf of a discount store. By the way, this is exactly what is sung in the famous song “I was once a strange, nameless toy that no one would approach in the store...”
However, in future fate turned out to be more favorable towards Cheburashka - he met with Best Friend His Life - Crocodile Gena. It must be said that Gena, who “worked as a crocodile at the zoo,” was endlessly lonely, and it was loneliness that forced him to post advertisements with the words “A young crocodile wants to make friends.”
So the shy, furry creature with huge ears ended up on the threshold of Gena the crocodile’s house with the words “It’s me, Cheburashka.”
As a result, Gena and Cheburashka became great friends, and it was as a couple - Gena and Cheburashka - that Russian children of several generations came to know and love these heroes.
It is not known whether Cheburashka would have expected such a resounding success if it had not been very successful screen image. Cartoons about Cheburashka and Gena were created by the talented director Roman Kachanov, the first cartoon was released in 1969. The production designer was Leonid Shvartsman.
Then “Cheburashka” (1971), “Shapoklyak” (1974) appeared, and later, already in 1983, “Cheburashka goes to school”.
Surprisingly, it was Cheburashka who became very famous hero and outside our country. So, they especially loved it in Japan, where they not only showed soviet cartoons, but they made remakes of them, and also filmed several own projects like "Cheburashka Arere?"
In Sweden, Cheburashka is known and called Drutten (Swedish “drutta” - to fall, stumble), and the plots of their cartoons are completely independent. In general, Cheburashka has appeared in cartoons in many countries - German viewers know him as Kullerchen or Plumps, in Finland Cheburashka is called Muksis, and Lithuanian children know him as Kulverstukas.
In 2008, the Cheburashka Museum even opened in Moscow, among the exhibits of which there is an old typewriter on which Uspensky first created the image of this cute animal. And Cheburashka has already become the mascot of the country’s Olympic team several times.
By the way, in 2005, Eduard Uspensky himself announced that Cheburashka’s official birthday is August 20.
It is known that already in the 2000s, Eduard Uspensky more than once tried to defend his copyright on the image of Cheburashka, but lost several times. At the same time, Leonid Shvartsman also claimed the image of Cheburashka - despite the fact that it was invented by the writer, it was the image of Cheburashka drawn by Shvartsman that was so loved by the audience, and it was thanks to the cartoon that Cheburashka became so popular.
However, whatever the litigation of the creators, millions of Russian children continue to grow up with good cartoons about Cheburashka and his friends.
It is simply impossible not to love the endlessly charming, charmingly defenseless and kind Cheburashka.
It must be said that this simple question (or rather, the answer to it) is not as straightforward as it seems at first glance. funny hero literary works, cartoons, which is also official symbol Russian team at olympic games, at one time became the stumbling block of several legal disputes. We will try to talk about why this happened and who actually invented Cheburashka in our article.
Literary character
On the one hand, this is a bookish image. And the writer Eduard Uspensky came up with it. Yellow eyes (like an eagle owl). Round big head(like a hare). The tail is fluffy and short (like a little bear cub). By the way, in the first issues of the book about Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena, published even before the appearance of the famous cartoon in 1966, the animal looked different. This is how two other artists Alfeevsky and Kalinovsky saw his image. In short, we can say: it’s not similar at all!
Cartoon hero
The bright and unforgettable image of Cheburashka from Soviet cartoon, published in 1969, was created by cartoonist Leonid Shvartsman (real name Israel Aronovich Shvartsman). And after that, in all the other cartoons about Cheburashka, it was this brilliant Soviet artist who created the characters. So the right to the cartoon animal belongs to him.
Origin of the name
According to Uspensky’s fairy tale, an unknown animal, when transported along with oranges, tried to “cheburah”, that is, to fall, simply put. Hence the name - Cheburashka. In Dahl's dictionary, the concept of “cheburahnutsya” is described as: “to crash”, “to stretch out”, “to fall”. And the word “Cheburashka” means: a doll like a Vanya-Vstanka, which, no matter how you throw it, gets on its feet.
Brand division
The trials between Uspensky and Shvartsman began after the collapse of the USSR, in the nineties. The peak occurred in 2004-2007. The artist drew attention to the fact that the image of Cheburashka in the first editions of the books was significantly different from the cartoon character drawn later. And the difference is definitely there. Therefore, it is still reasonable to talk about two different author’s characters: a cartoon hero and a literary hero.
