Pingu (Franchise)

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Pingu is a Swiss-British-American media franchise originally created by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann and owned by HIT Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation that began in 1990 with the stop-motion television series Pingu by HIT Entertainment (The Pygos Group), which focuses on a family of anthropomorphic emperor penguins who live in the South Pole with the family's son and title character, Pingu, who goes on unique adventures both big and small with his diverse group of friends. and spends life with his family.

The Pingu franchise consists of two tv series; The original Pingu series from 1990 to 2000 by Swiss company The Pygos Group (originally called Editoy AG), including its 5th and 6th seasons from 2003 to 2006 by British companies HIT Entertainment and HOT Animation and a Japanese revival/continuation of the series, titled Pingu in the City, from 2017 to 2019 by NHK Enterprises and Polygon Pictures, and three animated films by Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, and Animal Logic: Pingu: The Movie (2018), Pingu 2: Lost in the Arctic (2021), and Pingu 3: Take Me Home (2023). A fourth film was recently announced for 2025, as well as a possibility of a fifth film in 2027. It also includes two holiday specials: Scared Pingu-less (2023) and Ice The Halls: a Pingu Christmas (2023), and three television films: Pingu at the Wedding Party (1997), Pingu: The Show Must Go On (2022), and Pingu: Return to the Arctic (2024). The first film was directed by Nick Herbert and Liz Whitaker, while the second and third films were directed by Nick Herbert (and Liz Whitaker as the producer of future Pingu films).

Produced on a total budget of $185 million, the Pingu films have grossed more than $880 million worldwide (including $239 million in the United Kingdom), becoming the 24th highest-grossing animated franchise of all time. Both the two tv series revised critical acclaim. The first and third film received critical praise from critics and audiences while the second received mixed reception.

Pingu’s creation (1984 - 1990)
In 1984, Erika Brueggemann was working at Schweizer Fernsehen when she was introduced to animator Otmar Gutmann. Gutmann pitched a clay animation show starring sea lions who crawled around in a funny way. Erika Brueggemann liked the idea of a clay cartoon character, but she preferred the clay penguins that Gutmann had made. She suggested that the main character should walk upright like a human and asked, "Why not a penguin?".

Brueggemann's colleague, Guido Steiger, agreed with her idea. Otmar Gutmann was not immediately convinced, since he had already created many sea lion characters out of plasticine, but he eventually pushed forward with the penguin idea too. According to Erika Brueggemann, she gave "countless demonstrations on my part about how 'my' penguin had to move and act." From this framework, Brueggemann, Gutmann, and their team created a 7 minute pilot called "Pingu: Eine Geschichte Für Kinder Im Vorschulalter," which was finished and released on May 26, 1986.

The pilot was eventually screened at the 1987 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Kleiner Baer award. The positive reception to this pilot persuaded the director of Schweizer Fernsehen, Ulrich Kündig, to commission an entire series of the Pingu cartoons.

Production began with season 1 in 1988 and was completed in 1990, just in time for the show’s premiere. The original stories were written by Erika Brueggemann and Guido Steiger, and some of the later stories were written by Silvio Mazzola. These episodes were animated at Trickfilmstudio (renamed Pingu Filmstudio during season 3) in Russikon, Switzerland. In the style of voices, a retroscript was chosen, and all voices were performed by Italian voice actor Carlo Bonomi, using a language of noises without a script that he had already developed and used for Osvaldo Cavandoli's La Linea. This feature enables people of diverse linguistic backgrounds to be able to follow the story.

The Original Series (1990 - 2000)
The original series aired for its first season on March 7, 1990 on SF DRS. Pingu became popular outside of Switzerland, particularly in the United Kingdom and Japan, in part due to its lack of a real spoken language: nearly all dialogue is in an invented grammelot "penguin language" referred to as 'Penguinese', consisting of babbling, muttering, and the titular character's characteristic sporadic loud honking noise, which can be popularly recognized as "Noot noot!" or other variants, stated to be "Noo, Noo!" by the defunct Pingu website's trivia page, accompanied by turning his beak into a megaphone-like shape. From its debut in the country in 1992, Pingu became well known in Japan. According to writer Silvio Mazzola in 1996, Pingu was most popular with high-school girls, with over 90% of Japanese girls aged 13–17 knowing about the series.

The original series ended April 9, 2000 with four seasons and 104 episodes, along with a 25-minute wedding tv special in 1997.

HIT Entertainment buyout and Revival series; Seasons 5 & 6 (2000 - 2006)
On October 29, 2001, HIT Entertainment bought the rights to the series, including the original 104 episodes and the wedding special, for £15.9 million. HIT later revived the show, and produced a further 52 episodes and 2 seasons for the series. The series’ revival aired from August 1, 2003 on CBeebies.

These episodes were animated through stop motion like the original, but used resin casts of the original clay puppets, which had deteriorated by this time. The revival episodes were made by a completely new team at HOT Animation, with one of it’s animators, Nick Herbert, taking Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann’s as showrunner but Brueggemann still traveled to the company's headquarters in the United Kingdom to check on production. At the time, she said, "Last year a production company from England bought everything... I traveled to Manchester last summer and met their highly motivated team who worked with great commitment, humor and responsibility towards children. I think Pingu is in good hands now."

Contrary to some sources, there was never any CGI used in these later episodes. When HIT Entertainment bought the rights, Carlo Bonomi was replaced with new voice actors Marcello Magni and David Sant. Magni and Sant, Italian and Spanish actors based in London, both have a mime and clowning background and were already aware of the clown language "Grammelot" of which the penguin language was based on.

After being revived for two more seasons from 2003 to 2006, The original series officially ended on March 3, 2006, with it’s grand total of six seasons and 156 episodes

Development on a Pingu film with DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures (2006 - 2016)
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The film’s production migration to Universal Pictures (2016 - 2017)
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Japanese popularity and Pingu reboot/revival; Pingu in the City (2017 - 2018)
In 2017, a Japanese-produced reboot/continuation of the series, titled Pingu in the City (Japanese: ピングー in ザ・シティ, Hepburn: Pingū in za Shiti), premiered in Japan on NHK-E on October 7, 2017 and. Unlike its previous series, it is computer-animated, and features Pingu and his family moving to a big city. Each episode involves Pingu attempting to help out anyone there with their jobs, although he usually messes it up. The series was produced by Polygon Pictures in the same style of the original stop motion series through computer animation. It was directed by Naomi Iwata and written by both Kimiko Ueno and Shigenori Tanabe, with music done by Ken Arai. It features voices by Ryota Iwasaki and Fumiya Tanaka, in a similar style to Carlo Bonomi, David Sant, and Marcello Magni. The series later aired in the United Kingdom on ITVBe's children's block LittleBe on February 25, 2019 and in the United States NBCUniversal's Peacock in the US on March 15, 2019. The show also was screened at the Chicago International Television Festival and the 2018 Animation Block Party. The show ended on March 30, 2019 with two seasons and 52 episodes.

Pingu: The Movie, the founding of The Pingu Company, and the launch of Universal’s Pingu movie franchise (2018 - present)
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Films
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Television series
The original series aired for four seasons from March 7, 1990 to April 9, 2000 on SF DRS. It was then renewed for two more seasons from August 1, 2003 to March 3, 2006 on CBeebies.

A Japanese reboot/revival of the series, called Pingu in the City, began airing on NHK on October 7, 2017 and ended on March 30, 2019, and later in the United Kingdom on ITVBe's children's block LittleBe on February 25, 2019.

Television specials
In 1997, Pingu had a twenty-five minute TV special entitled Pingu at the Wedding Party (also known as A Very Special Wedding in later releases), introducing a family of green penguins, including Pingj. The special premiered on March 4, 1997 in cooperation with UNICEF. In 2004, the special was restored and released on DVD and VHS in the UK. The DVD also came out in Australia and Switzerland around the same time. In the early 2010s, the special was added to Amazon Prime Video in the UK. In 2019, a year after the release of Pingu: The Movie, the special was added on Peacock.

Pingu’s second and first Halloween special, Scared Pingu-less was released on October 27, 2023 on Peacock. This is Pingu’s first special since Pingu at the Wedding Party in 1997 from 26 years prior.

Almost 2 months after Pingu’s second special, Peacock and The Pingu Company released Pingu’s first christmas holiday special, Ice The Halls: a Pingu Christmas on December 22, 2023.

Television film (s)
In 2022, about a year after the release of Pingu 2: Lost in the Arctic, Peacock and The Pingu Company released a 1-hour streaming movie entitled Pingu: The Show Must Go On, released on September 9, 2022. In this tv movie, Pingu and his friends participate in a Jazz music competition. This streaming movie serves as a segway between the second film and Pingu 3: Take Me Home.

In November 2023, Peacock and The Pingu Company will be releasing Pingu’s second 1-hour streaming movie entitled, Pingu: Return to the Arctic, scheduled for August 2024. This steaming movie will not only serve as a segway between the upcoming Pingu 3: Take Me Home and Pingu 4, but this will also serve as a direct sequel to Pingu 2: Lost in the Arctic.

Box office performance
While the Pingu films are never known for having the best performances on their opening weekends, all manage to box office successes thanks to their international release in the United Kingdom, small production budgets, positive word of mouth, and their critical response.

Pingu: The Movie went on to debut to $7.3 million at the box office on it’s opening weekend, finishing third behind both Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time. Some analysts believe that despite the film's poor opening performance, the film fared well during it’s box office run thanks to positive word-of-mouth and it’s universal praise from critics. The film was a huge box office hit in the U.K. with $82.6 million (£67 million).

Pingu 2: Lost in the Arctic went on to debut to $21.4 million on it’s opening weekend and despite reaching second place behind Free Guy (2021), the film manage to performed better then the first film due to it’s August release date and positive reception with audience and Pingu fans despite it’s mixed reception with critics.

Critical and public response
The first and third Pingu films received critical acclaim while the second film received a mixed reception.

Accolades
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Cast and characters
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Crew
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Other media
In 1993, David Hasselhoff released a single titled "Pingu Dance", a rap song (in Switzerland only) based on the Pingu shorts and featuring samples of Penguinese. A portion of this song is used as the theme to Pingu in international airings, and was also heard in the re-dubbed version of the "Pingu Looks After the Egg (retitled Pingu Helps with Incubating)" episode, replacing the "Woodpeckers from Space" song from the original version.

In 2020, an exhibition event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the original "Hugo" animation was held in Tokyo. Pingu currently airs as part of NHK's children's program Nyanchu's World, and also on Cartoon Network Japan. Several pieces of merchandise exclusive to the country have been created, including tie-in toys with KFC and Mister Donut, as well as various video games.

Comic books
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