Courland return of the prodigal parrot fairy tale read. Listen to the audiobook "Alexander Kurlyandsky - About the parrot Kesha and other stories (Children's radio)" online
The popular animated trilogy of the eighties, Return of the Prodigal Parrot, features funny stories about a wayward parrot named Kesha.
The first part, created at the dawn of perestroika in 1984, created a real sensation. Soviet animation had never seen such cartoons before - comedic, multi-faceted, with a relevant parody socio-political note: a capricious parrot, a fugitive and a returnee.
Formally aimed at a children's audience, "Return" was wildly popular among the older generation. The cartoon was stolen for quotes. The notorious animation “for adults” - hand-drawn “Wicks”, exposing either drunkenness or parasitism - faded next to “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot”. The tired work morale played out against the subtext, the existence of which was hardly suspected by the creators - director Valentin Aleksandrovich Karavaev and screenwriter Alexander Efimovich Kurlyandsky.
Although, why didn’t you guess? If Karavaev and Kurlyandsky had limited themselves to one issue of “Return”, then one could talk about unintentional luck and stray subtext. But over the course of several years, the same people created two more parts, so consistent and deep that there is no need to talk about “accidents”.
Kurlyandsky and Karavaev probably understood how close the little capricious parrot was to the Soviet audience, how recognizable it was. After all, it was the image, harmoniously voiced by Gennady Khazanov, and the dramaturgy that ensured the success of the cartoon, and not the hackneyed visual technique (the boy Vovka, the owner of the parrot Kesha, is exactly like the Kid from “Carlson”).
Innovation was carried out by Yuri Norshtein, who released the philosophical “Hedgehog in the Fog” back in 1975. Karavaev and Kurlyandsky were able to rise to the level of ideology.
By 1984, the censorship apparatus of the Soviet Union had already been weakened, but not so much that one could not notice how ambiguous The Return was. But the fact of the matter is that this second meaning suited the official ideology. The cartoon wittily denounced the eternal fifth column - the dissident community and its national flavor.
That’s why the obviously provocative title “Return of the Prodigal...” was left. The parody context immediately began to work on the “image.”
From the first glance at Kesha, it became clear that the nationality of the parrot was “biblical”: the eastern type - that’s why it’s a “parrot”, round protruding eyes, a Semitic nose-beak. Parrots are known to live long lives. Kesha was supposed to be perceived as Agasfer, a kind of eternal Parrot.
Keshina’s speech is a media “organ”, a brainless warehouse of television and radio quotes for all occasions. Kesha is dominated not by her mind, but by her character. And quite bad. The cartoon shows in every possible way that Kesha’s owner, the boy Vovka (read, power), dotes on the parrot (the Jew), and Kesha is always dissatisfied with everything.
The first "flight" of the parrot parodies the so-called "internal emigration". The plot develops as follows: Vovka refuses Kesha to accept “spiritual food” - the parrot watches a crime drama on TV - something like “Petrovka, 38”, with chases and shooting.
The boy Vovka does not watch an empty film, but diligently does his homework. And he asks the parrot to turn down the sound. The parrot perceives these requests as an infringement of its rights and freedoms. The turned off TV puts an end to the relationship between Vovka and Kesha. A parrot throws itself from the balcony. This blatant simulation of suicide is meant to highlight the divide. Vovka personifies the state and power, with which Kesha can no longer have any relationship. It was as if he had died for them.
At first, the buffoonish escape frightens Kesha. He understands that he was Vovka’s favorite. In fact, his act is nothing more than hysterical acting. But it is no longer possible to return home. Kesha is lost and cannot find his window.
The dissident parrot is saved by the public, the inhabitants of the yard: a fat cat, a crow, sparrows. Kesha “performs” - reproduces all the verbal garbage that has settled in his head after listening to the “voices”. This is ridiculous, inside-out information that amuses both the cat and the crow.
“I’m flying to Tahiti one day... Haven’t you been to Tahiti?” - this is how Kesha begins her speeches. “Tahiti” should sound like the “promised land” - the historical homeland of Kesha, an exotic place.
A fat cat is a sybarite, a major, a pet of power, the family enemy of all “birds”, and at the same time completely safe due to its satiety and laziness. Dissident gatherings have always known such types - children of the party or scientific elite, sleek and generous pseudo-rebels.
Vorona is a bohemian, a typical intellectual, a lively scavenger with an inexhaustible supply of optimism, like that of former blockade survivors. She has the same answer to all of Kesha’s passages: “Simply lovely!”
When the “cold weather” sets in (the political thaw is over), the cat gives Kesha his merciless but fair verdict: “We haven’t been to Tahiti, we are fed well here too.” These are difficult times for the domestic expat.
Only the sparrow remains with Kesha - a mongrel intellectual, the last faithful listener. Perhaps the parrot and the sparrow are brought together by “Biblicalism,” because in Rus' the sparrow is an established image of a Jew.
The chilled couple prowls the balconies in search of food. Kesha notices Vovka in one of the windows. The prodigal parrot happily returns home, immediately forgetting about his hungry sparrow friend.
While Kesha was dissident, Vovka got a puppy (the future dog of the regime), whose presence the parrot would not have tolerated before. Now Kesha has been temporarily re-educated by the street, pacified. He is even ready to share the place of favorite with a big-eared puppy. The former swagger has faded into the background, servility prevails.
When Vovka again asks to turn down the TV, Kesha immediately fulfills the request, pointing at the puppy: “What am I doing? I’m okay... He can’t hear it!”
The dissident seems to have been tamed and broken.
But there is still gunpowder in the flasks. A new rebellion and escape is brewing. External emigration.
In the second part of "Return of the Prodigal Parrot", Kesha runs to the "West".
Return II, or “It’s me, Keshechka”
The second issue of Return of the Prodigal Parrot (1987) tells the story of the subsequent round of dissident escape. Internal emigration is evolving into external emigration.
This scenario move was fully consistent with the realities of Soviet life in the first half of the seventies, when the Soviet Union reluctantly, as if through clenched teeth, unleashed the fifth column and the fifth column. The grumbling, whining, home-grown Abram Terts-Sinyavsky ibn Kesha runs to the “West.” And even though in the cartoon the “West” turns out to be conventional and symbolic, this does not stop it from being a place of decay and a focus of vice. There, “overseas”, in the homeland of bubble gum and jeans, life will teach Kesha a cruel emigrant lesson in the spirit of “It’s me, Eddie.”
Even in the first issue, the parrot is shown as a morally corrupt type - lazy, capricious, monstrously ambitious. The stage of internal emigration at the “Arbat” garbage dump additionally corrupted Kesha. Under the pressure of circumstances, of course, he returned to Vovka, that is, into the bosom of the Soviet system, but this is a temporary truce. Cash can't be fixed. In the words of house manager Mordyukova, the dissident parrot is still “secretly visiting the synagogue.”
The impetus for change is the notorious “elements of the sweet life,” to which Kesha is internally drawn. In the morning, while walking the dog, he comes to his birthplace, his intellectual “kitchen,” to give a concert to regular spectators, like the good old days: sparrows and crows. Everything is ruined by a fat cat, the damned major - he appears in new jeans, with a player and chewing gum: “Grayness, this is a bubble gum!”
Society is shocked by this display of luxury. They immediately forget about Cash. The garbage intelligentsia shows its superficial insides and lack of spirituality. Western things turn out to be more attractive than the creations of Kesha’s spirit.
The extremely narcissistic Kesha begins to be consumed by envy. He returns home to Vovka and, although he is a male creature, makes a scene according to the female type: “What am I wearing, rags, like Cinderella!” Vovka, that is, the Motherland, with the words “Choose!” generously opens the closet, but Kesha is not interested in the benefits of the domestic light industry. Having burst into tears, Kesha cynically “files for divorce”: “Goodbye, our meeting was a mistake” - and retires to those places where “luxury” is available.
If Keshin’s first escape was a hysterical reaction to the ban and the parrot, albeit with a stretch, could be called a rebel, then the second “emigration” was a calculated act of the consumer. Kesha is ready to sell himself for jeans, a player and a bubble gum.
First of all, having got to the “West”, Kesha puts herself up for auction. A spoiled parrot has inadequate self-esteem and sets a price for himself of a thousand rubles - an exorbitant Soviet sum. Kesha forgets that he is no longer in Vovka’s apartment, that he has entered the territory of market relations. Nobody needs a parrot for a thousand, a hundred, or even ten rubles. Reality quickly knocks down arrogance. Only when Kesha has discounted himself to zero does he find a buyer.
Who is the new owner of Keshin? Outwardly, this is a typical offspring of the Farza of the late eighties. He is fashionably dressed, his apartment is filled with iconic luxury items for the Soviet average person - a video recorder, a table on wheels, etc.
Unlike the blond Slavic Vovka, the new Master looks like a typical pig-like Anglo-Saxon, akin to Private Ryan - a large, cruel youth. He is the Master of the “West” and the wayward feathered Jew Kesha will have a very hard time with him.
The first shots of Kesha’s new life in the “West” should mislead the viewer. Kesha, wearing a new T-shirt with Mickey Mouse, is lying on the sofa with a player, listening to “Modern Talking”, drinking the mysterious drink “Coka”, watching the VCR. It seems that the new capitalist life has been a success...
Everything falls into place during Kesha’s phone call to Vovka. The parrot traditionally lies, like many of his fellow emigrants, who spent their last dollars talking to their homeland, lazily and complacently reported about their financial achievements, their own car, a color TV, Coca-Cola in the refrigerator, so that later with new strength after lying they could return to dirty dishes in a restaurant or driving a vomited taxi...
Kesha is no exception: “I swim in the pool, drink juice, orangeade, I have a lot of friends, a car.” It is important that in conversation he mixes into his voice the characteristic accent of a second-generation emigrant - sophisticated coquetry on the part of the cunning Kesha. This lie to save his pride reconciles him with reality. By the way, Kesha is watching the film “Umbrella Injection” on the VCR. This film was released in the Soviet Union, so Kesha did not benefit much in the sense of “spiritual food”.
But then the Anglo-Saxon returns, the parrot hastily crumples up the conversation and hangs up. It is clear that Kesha is terribly afraid of the Master. It soon becomes clear why. He pushes around the worthless parrot, mocks, humiliates. From a favorite and favorite, Kesha turned into a servant, into a slave. Kesha whines: “Vovka loved me so much, he literally carried me in his arms.”
Alas, capitalism up close turned out to be not so attractive. An epiphany sets in. After another humiliation, Kesha allows herself to raise her voice at the Master. “West” shows its bestial face, the rebel immediately finds himself in a cage. Kesha can only chant: “Freedom for parrots!” Yes, bawling protest songs of the abandoned fatherland: “Let there always be Vovka, let there always be me!”
Coming home from prison is no longer easy. Newfound cinematic experience comes to the rescue. Kesha breaks the cage and constructs an explosive device from “Western” waste. When the door is blown up, Kesha is concussed. He is surrounded by nightmare visions, demonic guises of capitalism, and he comes to his senses already in Vovka’s apartment. The emigration did not pass without a trace - Kesha is in bandages, damaged both physically and mentally. Kesha admits like Limonov’s hero: I felt bad, I was alone.
There were no prerequisites for the parrot to return home. And yet - Kesha is in her homeland. This moment can be perceived as the invasion of a miracle. The creators of the cartoon, of course, could have devoted ten seconds to an additional episode in which the Anglo-Saxon throws the half-dead Kesha into the trash, and there he is picked up by Vovka, who went for a walk with a puppy.
The authors understood that these explanations were unnecessary. Still, Kesha is a collective image of the restless Jewish intelligentsia. Yes, some part of “Keshi” who fled to the West significantly paid for their betrayal, but the rest learned a good lesson and calmed down... until a new escape. Now - to the people.
Return III, or "Flight to the People"
The third and final installment of the adventures of the prodigal parrot (1988) tells the story of going “to the people.” Kesha decides to “Russify”.
In fact, all of Kesha’s previous escapes are a kind of search for the truth, the mythical Belovodye, the promised Tahiti. Kesha conducts her search primarily in the cultural field, namely, consistently aligns herself with certain social trends.
In the first two issues, Kesha was both a dissident and a cosmopolitan. Internal emigration failed, emigration to the “West” disappointed in capitalism. Born in the Union, Kesha failed to become either a giant of spirit or a citizen of the world. But there is another way out. Somewhere nearby, literally nearby, there is another influential cultural tendency - Russian, populist, which says that you don’t need to go far to find the truth - it is nearby, outside the city, in the simplicity, in the purity of agrarian life, in unity with nature.
Events develop as follows. A fat red cat informs the dumpster regulars that he is going to the village for the summer. It is noteworthy that for the second time the cat major acts as a trendsetter in fashion. In the previous episode, he seduced Kesha with jeans and a player.
Stung by envy, Kesha rushes home to demand from Vova his share of “Russianness,” just like the character from the joke of that time - a meticulous telephone Jew who calls the society Memory: “Is it true that the Jews sold Russia, and if so, where can I get my share?..”
It’s impossible to go to the village - Vovka is sick. We see Kesha already in a new “Russian” role. Instead of a T-shirt, he wears something like a woman's peasant underwear. He grumbles at Vovka like an old woman: “Winter is not enough for him to be sick.”
As sad as it may be, in 1988 Vovka, that is, the Soviet Union, was already fundamentally ill. If only Kesha knew that “Vovka” was not destined to recover, that he would last another three years, until August 1991...
Sad events are still ahead, and in the meantime Kesha packs her suitcase and leaves to live in the village, “to her roots.”
It takes a long time for anyone to pick up Kesha on the highway. But suddenly Vasily appears on a tractor - the embodiment of a cliché from feature films about the village. In any case, this is exactly how the urban man in the street imagines Kesha as a villager. Vasily is simple-minded, good-natured, hospitable.
Vasily takes Kesha to the Bright Path state farm. He is polite and invariably addresses his interlocutor as “You,” while the arrogant Kesha tactlessly pokes: “I just want to, with people, like you!” Simple guys like we see everywhere!”
Vasily returns from the museum - in this way he became familiar with the “high”. Kesha sings “Russian Field” - this is his form of merging with Russian identity.
In general, all the cultural codes that Kesha uses to find an approach to Vasily are essentially stereotypes and only create a comic effect. It's hard to imagine something more ridiculous than a parrot (that is, a Jew) in the village. As it turns out later, he is also socially dangerous. Kesha causes nothing but problems and losses.
In the morning, Kesha wakes up in a village house, looking for breakfast, dropping pots, getting dirty in the stove, screaming for Vasily to help. A parrot is not able to find food in the house, even if it is just on the table.
After breakfast, Kesha goes for a walk and gets acquainted with the “farm”: a pig with piglets, a horse, a rooster and chickens. For the parrot, the inhabitants of the yard are the audience. And in the village he does his usual thing, namely, chaotically reproduces the city “culture” - in this case, a mix of Antonov, Pugacheva and a meaningless set of phrases from “Rural Hour”: “Tell me, how many tons of clover from each laying hen will be poured into incubators after threshing the plowed land?
Among living creatures, “art” does not meet with support, rather bewilderment and irritation, except that the horse “neighs” at the performer himself.
Having brought himself to creative exaltation - Kesha impersonates a rock and roll performer - the parrot falls into a well. Vasily, who has returned, saves him and then lends the wet parrot a cap and a quilted jacket.
Kesha internally understands her worthlessness. In many Soviet films, the story of a clumsy neophyte is played out, who, having found himself in a new environment for him, breaks the situation with hard work and breaks out into the drummers. Kesha is also obsessed with the idea of proving his importance and usefulness: “I can, I will prove, I will show! They will find out about me. They'll talk about me!"
But there is no transformation. Kesha turns out to be incapable of peasant labor. (In a good way, to work in general.) He is destructive like Chubais or Gaidar, who a few years later will demonstrate to the country their terrible talents...
Having got into Vasily's tractor, Kesha first destroys buildings in the yard, and then dumps the tractor into the river. At the same time, Vasily shows miracles of tolerance - he just sighs and waves his hand resignedly.
A conscience awakens in the parrot, or rather, not even a conscience, but its acting surrogate, Kesha, brands himself, calls himself a nonentity, a pathetic person, and decides to “die like a man.” (By the way, this is the first and last time that the parrot declares his boyishness, because all his behavior is a rehash of the anecdotal Jewish wife, who, as you know, “everything hurts.”)
Hanging from a light bulb turns into a performance. The pigs, the horse, and Vasily himself watch the process with curiosity. At the same time, no one tries to stop the parrot - there is too much harm from it.
The image of Kesha is completely devoid of drama: Yesenin does not turn out to be a parrot. Vasily sends him home in a parcel.
The inhabitants of the garbage dump welcome the returning cat. He probably didn’t go among the people, but was just a summer resident. But then Kesha appears. He is wearing a quilted jacket and a cap - he, as always, is “in character.” With a crack of the whip, Kesha bursts into a tirade of maddened village prose: “Oh, you! Haven’t you smelled life?! And I’m a whole summer, a whole summer: mowing in the morning, milking in the evening, then the cow farrows, then the chickens rush. And then the cherry blossomed! The beets are sprouting! You plow like a tractor! What if it rains during drying, eh?”, he lights a “goat’s leg”, chokes on “the smoke of the fatherland”, starts coughing...
The first novel by Eduard Limonov.
The film “The Diamond Arm”, where Nonna Viktorovna Mordyukova brilliantly played the role of the house manager.
The main character of the film by American director Steven Spielberg “Saving Private Ryan”.
Kesha, turn it down!
- But I can’t hear!
- And Vovka loved me so much... He carried me right in his arms...
- What do I wear? In rags, in rags! Like Cinderella!
- Tahiti, Tahiti... We haven’t been to any Tahiti. Here too... we are fed well.
- The gray-haired ferryman gives clothes to all the cats...
- Well, after this rain, expect a good calving...
- Rested - in! Sour cream - wow! Pisces - wow!
- Parents' house...
- Freedom for parrots! Yours! Bo! Doo! By! Poo! Ha! Yam! May there always be sun, may there always be sky, may [reached for the kettle, drank] there will always be Vovka, may there always be me!
- How many tons of clover from each laying hen will be poured into the incubators after threshing the plowed land?
- Everyone has summer, sea, sun, air and water - I’m alone in the kingdom of hot concrete and stuffy asphalt! What kind of life is this?!
- What Kesha?! I am Kesha for a hundred years!
- Oh, you! They didn't smell life! And I have a whole summer, a whole summer... In the morning - mowing, in the evening - milking. Now the cow is pigleting, then the chickens are running... and then the cherry trees have sprouted, the beets have begun to spike... You plow, you plow... What if it rains during drying, eh?
- Oh, you dullness! It's Bubblegum!
- What am I, I’m okay. He can't hear it.
- Comrade Lieutenant, reporting... Polishchuk. I chase criminals on a motorcycle.
- Well, as always! At the most interesting point!..
- That's it, it's over! Goodbye forever! Only death will save me from heartache... Good bye, may love, good bye...
- Nice!
- I’m flying to Tahiti one day... Haven’t you been to Tahiti? I arrive, and Major Tomin tells me: “The savings bank was robbed by Mrs. Monika from the culinary college.” “A million, million, million scarlet roses...” disappeared. And I told him: “Shurik, be careful, the criminal is armed.” And he told me: “In the Greek hall, in the Greek hall there is a white mouse.”
- Good bye, may laf! (Good bye, my love!)
Popular Soviet animated film, star project of A. Kurlyandsky and V. Karavaev
Critics often compare the parrot Kesha to Khlestakov. The version is confirmed by the creator of the character himself:
- Valentin Karavaev once in winter saw a parrot, which apparently flew out through the window and now did not know how to return. They began to think: why did he fly out? I got offended and quarreled with the boy. Why? He probably behaved impudently, imitated everyone... And gradually the image of a kind of bird-like Khlestakov arose - a talker, a dreamer, a braggart.
Sometimes in a cartoon they see an adaptation of all Russian classics “in an animal way”: the cat is the feline Oblomov, the crow is the bird Anna Pavlovna Sherer, etc.
The economic crisis of the early 90s delayed the release of the fourth issue of the cartoon for a long time, although the script was written. Kurlyandsky negotiated with German colleagues about creating a 13-episode animated series abroad, but the project was not completed.
Child psychologists use the plot of the cartoon to resolve conflict situations with teenagers.
Parrot Kesha has long become a commercial brand, which is actively promoted by copyright holders and pirates. Thus, video games have been created (for example, “Freedom for Parrots!” and “Kesha in the World of Fairy Tales”), coloring books, etc.
The popularity of the cartoon prompted A. Kurlyandsky to write a book, which included the stories “Have you been to Tahiti?”, “And they feed us well here too!” and “Lovely!”
In 2004, a textbook with characters from the popular cartoon was published. A. Kurlyandsky planned, together with the Lomonosov School, to release a series of 22 books on all basic subjects from 1st to 7th grade.
In the album "Return of the Prodigal Parrot" by the group "Razukrashki"
Well-known and loved by all viewers, despite his absurd character, the parrot Kesha was invented by the writer Alexander Kurlyandsky. Kesha owes his graphic solution to the world-famous animator Anatoly Savchenko (among his cartoon creations, the image of the world-famous Carlson occupies a special place). Director Valentin Karavaev shot the animated series “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot” with the main character, the parrot Kesha, who over the course of three episodes either runs away from his friend Vovka, then, enduring hardships and inconveniences, returns to him again. The adventures of a funny and independent parrot are funny and exciting, and the words and expressions put into his mouth by the unique Gennady Khazanov have long become popular.
You can hear about the adventures of Kesha and his friends in this radio show.
“The idea of the film was suggested to me by director Valentin Karavaev. One winter, on a snow-covered tree, he saw a parrot, which apparently flew out through the window and now did not know how to return - a small colored lump in the snow. They began to think: why did he fly out? I got offended and quarreled with the boy. Why? He probably behaved impudently, imitated everyone... And gradually the image of a kind of bird-like Khlestakov arose - a talker, a dreamer, a braggart. Remember his signature phrase: “Have you been to Tahiti?”
Alexander Kurlyandsky-
1. Have you been to Tahiti? Kesha the parrot, belonging to the breed of large African parrots, which are in no way inferior in intelligence to humans, by the will of fate ended up in Russia.
Because of his cocky character and proud disposition, he finds himself in a whirlpool of different events. He will have to change several owners, make many friends: Kolya the sparrow, Vasily the cat, Klara the crow. In addition, for the sake of his best friend Kolya, he will dare to fly intercontinentally.
The two of them will even have to accomplish a feat!
2. We are well fed here too! One day the cat Vasily receives a letter from his mother, Mura Alekseevna. She accidentally saw him on TV. But Vasily doesn’t remember her at all; he came to his Master as a small kitten.
Vasily thinks deeply: “My dear mother has been found. This doesn’t happen every day!”
He makes a difficult decision for himself and, despite the Master’s dissatisfaction, sets off on a journey to the distant city of Verkhnerechensk.-
3. Lovely! Clara the crow finds a valuable thing in the trash - a gold ring with a diamond. This unprecedented case gives rise to a whole detective story.
The arrest of an innocent man on suspicion of stealing a ring does not allow our heroes to sit with their paws and wings folded. Clara the crow, Kesha the parrot, Vasily the cat, Kolya the sparrow and many others begin their own investigation.
This is a real “animal detective” with a chase, crossing the state border, and, of course, with a happy ending.-Characters and performers:
From the author - Vladimir Levashev
Parrot Kesha - Gennady Khazanov
Cat Vasily - Alexander Pankratov-Cherny
and others - Other distributions:
Cartoons about Kesha
Return of the Prodigal Parrot. Issues 1-3 (1984-1988)
Morning of Kesha Parrot (2003)
Kesha the fisherman. Kesha's courage. Duel. Rabbit from the cabbage garden (2005-2006)
Kesha the parrot and the monster. The Kidnapping of Kesha the Parrot (2006)
Audio tale based on the cartoon “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot”
All distributions of Children's Radio - Request: if you recognize the artists, write in a personal message or on the forum
Not only names, but also any indirect information is welcome. I will be grateful--
“The Return of the Prodigal Parrot” is a famous cartoon about the charismatic parrot Kesha, which has become a recognized classic of Soviet animation and a treasure trove of unforgettable quotes.
Kesha was created by writer Alexander Kurlyandsky, animator director Valentin Karavaev and animator Anatoly Savchenko, and the final and unique charm of the character was given by his voice actor Gennady Khazanov. In 1984 - 1988, three episodes of a cartoon about a parrot were released, built on the same plot basis: Kesha runs away from home, gets into trouble and eventually, disappointed and ashamed, returns to her home. After a long break, in the 2000s, Soyuzmultfilm released several more episodes about the prodigal parrot, but they were created by a different creative team and, unfortunately, could not reproduce the success of the first three stories.
Judging by the interesting metaphors in “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot,” the cartoon, although presented as a children’s cartoon, is much more valuable for an adult audience.
This is, in a good way, an adult cartoon.
Kaleidoscopic thinking(Kesha's rambling speeches, made up of scraps of TV and radio phrases), theme of the Motherland and Western expansion(“Oh, you grayness! This is a bubble-gum! The owner brought it. With this one, what’s it like... - Tahiti? - That’s it”), stereotypes of a successful life(“I live well, I swim in the pool, I drink juice, orangeade... Yes, yes - right without leaving the pool”), cultural defection(“According to your numerous requests, the Weiner brothers will perform the song Modern Talking!”) – the children’s cartoon subtly and satirically presents themes that obviously appeal to adult understanding.
Surprisingly, the funny cartoon also contains a serious central motive - betrayal of a loved one with its unhappy consequences. In all three episodes, the prodigal Kesha does not want to support his owner and friend Vovka: turn down the volume of the TV when he is preparing for a test, look after a sick boy during the holiday season, calmly treat the owner’s inability to dress him, poor man, in the fashionable jeans that are available. from the fat neighbor's cat.
Drawn away from his home by erroneous dreams of a successful life, Kesha hopes for the triumph of his not-so-distant, almost consumer interests, but this is not even close to happening. Having betrayed his home, the parrot finds an unenviable fate: he ends up in a garbage dump, where he gives concerts for a stupid local audience for food, sells himself for free to a pro-Western domestic tyrant, and disgraces his honor at the state farm “Shining Path” to the point of wanting to commit suicide.
Conclusion
Parrot Kesha, although charming and artistic, is essentially an anti-hero, whose selfish, eccentric behavior contradicts serious matters (the studies of the exemplary Vova, the activities of the state farm), which is why the prodigal parrot has to reconsider his views over and over again.
The cartoon “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot”, in general, is an example of positive and bright patriotic art, where the betrayer of his family is portrayed as ridiculous, stupid and humiliated, but peacefully called upon to return to the starting point for re-education.
In 1984.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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An animated series about the adventures of the parrot Kesha, “the hero of our time.” All the action is concentrated in a certain abstract Russian city and its surroundings. Kesha lives in the apartment of schoolboy Vovka, but due to his hot-tempered, arrogant character, he periodically runs away to free bread and certainly gets into trouble, eventually returning to Vovka to confess. The series' humor is based on Kesha's eccentric behavior, recognizable realities (in the beginning - the 1980s, later - the 2000s), as well as on multiple quotes used by the parrot.
List of releases
Our director Valentin Karavaev was once walking down the street and saw a flock of sparrows sitting on the railing. And in the very center there was a parrot who was animatedly “telling” something to them. This made an impression on Karavaev, he began to fantasize: where did this parrot come from, did it get lost or ran away from home. The director shared his ideas with playwright Kurlyandsky, and together they wrote the script. And then I came up with the image of Kesha himself.
According to him, the whole tone of the series was set by Valentin Karavaev, who, however, lost interest in the characters after the first issue and became interested in other projects. Therefore, the second episode was directed by Alexander Davydov. For it he was awarded the Nika Prize, which apparently hurt Karavaev and forced him to return to work on the third issue.
The economic crisis of the early 1990s delayed the release of the fourth issue of the cartoon for a long time, although the script was written. Alexander Kurlyandsky negotiated with German colleagues about creating an animated series of 13 issues abroad, but the project was not completed.
In the 2000s, after Karavaev’s death, Kurlyandsky made an attempt to revive the main character of the series. Work is again underway with Alexander Davydov. The rest of the creative team changes almost completely. All new cartoons have original names. The key remains only the phrase “parrot Kesha.”
In March 2017, the chairman of the artistic council of the Soyuzmultfilm film studio, Tatyana Ilyina, announced plans to create a full-length cartoon “Kesha in Tahiti” in 3D format. The script for it was written by Alexander Kurlyandsky four years earlier. In June of the same year, the chairman of the board of the studio, Yuliana Slashcheva, confirmed this information. Filming should begin in 2018, and the premiere of the film is scheduled for 2020.
Characters
Parrot Kesha
The main character of the cartoon. Voiced by: Gennady Khazanov (first three issues), Igor Khristenko (subsequent issues).
Self-centered, demanding of increased attention, capricious and wayward. My favorite pastime is watching television films and programs of completely different (judging by the vocabulary) topics, from crime series to concert programs:
- The phrases “Sberkassa was robbed”, “Shurik, be careful, the criminal is armed”, “And Major Tomin is telling me” - perhaps a reference to the series “The Investigation is Conducted by Experts”;
- The mention of “Mrs. Monica” is an obvious reference to the TV show “Zucchini” “13 chairs””;
- The phrase “I am a pathetic, insignificant person” is a reference to a line from a character in I. Ilf and E. Petrov’s story “The Golden Calf” - Panikovsky;
- In addition, in his monologues, the parrot mentions the “culinary college” (a cycle of miniatures performed by Gennady Khazanov, told from the perspective of a “culinary college student”), quotes Mikhail Zhvanetsky’s feuilleton “Figure in the Museum” (“In the Greek hall, in the Greek hall... a white mouse "), sports reports by Nikolai Ozerov, weather forecast ("fog in the region"), mentions the names of some television and radio programs ("Rural Hour", "Before 16 and older", "Before and after midnight", "Good morning" etc.). Also quotes popular songs performed by Demis Roussos, Vladimir Vysotsky, Alla Pugacheva, Yuri Antonov and others.
Vovka
Kurlyandsky is called “a man of amazing imagination,” and the cartoon “The Return of the Prodigal Parrot” is a creation “with ageless Soviet humor and irony,” a film that “is worthy of being watched more than a dozen times.”
According to Daria Pechorina, a parrot’s thirst for adventure is nothing more than “an excuse for liberation from a controlling and all-seeing society.” Thus, Kesha is simply trying to free herself from the care of the faithful but boring Vovka.
Notes
- Sergey Kapkov, interview with Anatoly Savchenko. My teacher is curiosity (undefined) . Website of domestic animation "Animator.ru"(July 18, 2004).
- Based on materials from the article by S. Kapkov “New adventures of the parrot Kesha” on the website www.animator.ru
- Parrot Kesha will be filmed in 3D (undefined) . Russian newspaper(March 19, 2017).
- "Soyuzmultfilm" will make a film about Kesha and is going to solve the problem of rights to "Carlson" (undefined) . TASS(June 3, 2017).
- A full-length cartoon about the parrot Kesha will be released in 2020 (undefined) . RIA News(June 3, 2017).
