Character history. Secrets of Soviet cartoons. What were the mice from Cat Leopold called? Similarities and differences with similar characters. "Tom and Jerry"

We invite you to learn interesting facts from the history of creation about Winnie the Pooh, as well as details about the characters of the cartoon "Cat Leopold", which remained behind the scenes. the site will share interesting stories about these legendary cartoons.

What could be Winnie the Pooh?

At the beginning of work on the animated film, this funny teddy bear looked very different. He had much more wool, and the eyes of the hero of the planned cartoon were planned at all in different sizes. Piglet could also appear on TV screens in a completely different way - the initial outlines of this friend of Winnie the Pooh were more like a sausage.

But the animators did their best. And thanks to them, the characters of the legendary cartoon turned out the way we used to see them over decades of viewing.

Why was the cat called Leopold and what are the names of the mice?

The creators of the cartoon wanted the main character of their picture to have a memorable name. Therefore, it is generally accepted that they were inspired by the name of a colonel from the Elusive Avengers, whose name was Leopold Kudasov.

The mice that constantly played pranks, and at the end of each episode asked for forgiveness from the cat Leopold, also have names. True, they do not appear in the cartoon at all. However, the dark gray plump mouse is called Motya, and the light gray skinny one is Mitya.

If you are interested in cartoons, we suggest watching. You will be able to see new exciting adventures of a mischievous girl and her comrades.

Director of Leopold the Cat and other projects,” she wrote.

According to Russian media, the cartoonist died on January 31 at about 11 am in Solingen, where he spent his last days. At the moment, the cause of Reznikov's death is not known.

Anatoly Reznikov was born in 1940 in the Polish city of Bialystok, but his childhood and youth were spent in Tbilisi. In 1958, he graduated from the Tbilisi School of Painting, after which he ended up at the Moscow Central Documentary Film Studio, where he began to get involved in animation and enrolled in advanced training courses to learn hand-drawn animation. In parallel with this, until 1968 he studied at the Faculty of Industrial Aesthetics of the Moscow State Art University (former Stroganov School) as an artist-designer.

Since 1970, he began working as an animator on television - in the Creative Association "Screen", on the basis of which the "Multtelefilm" studio was then created.

His first works as a director were made in the genre of volumetric animation: from 1971 to 1974, four musical fairy tales "Straw Goby", "Beetle - Crooked Hill", "A Car with a Tail" and "Morning Music" were released.

Reznikov was one of the founders and pioneers of "comic book" animation on television.

Some comics of his own composition subsequently formed the basis of his animated work. The most famous of them were "House for the Leopard" (1979), "Blot" (1980) and a parody of the western "One Cowboy, Two Cowboy" (1981).

The last film gained particular popularity due to the participation of actor Andrei Mironov in it, who gave his voice to all the characters in the tape. In the manner of a comic book, short sketches on the theme of the Olympic Games were also made, which Reznikov worked on in 1980 together with screenwriter Arkady Khait.

Reznikov's most famous creation is a series of films about the adventures of the cat Leopold based on scripts.

In addition to works for children, he also created several short sketches for a more adult audience - in particular, the humorous tape "Imp with a Fluffy Tail" based on the novel by the famous American writer O. Henry "Leader of the Redskins".

During his creative career, Reznikov has released more than 40 works. He continued to engage in animation until the first half of the 90s, but after that a long break followed, which lasted for as much as 22 years.

However, in 2015 he returned to his calling. At the beginning of 2016, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the director, the premiere of the new animated series "The New Adventures of Leopold the Cat" took place.

Director-animator, Honored Art Worker of Russia Anatoly Reznikov

According to the memoirs of Reznikov himself, his passion for animation arose mainly after watching the Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

“I didn’t come to the cinema, but I arrived. On a trolleybus that ran from Revolution Square to Likhov Lane, where the documentary film studio was located, I was hired there. My love for animation arose in the late forties and early fifties, the director recalled. - I lived and grew up in Tbilisi, after the war there were so-called trophy films, and I saw the full-length film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The film simply stunned me, I could not believe that this was a cartoon movie, and not a natural one, this childhood impression was so strong that even now, after watching thousands of animated films, I still consider Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a masterpiece.

“I learned from one of my colleagues that an animation studio is being created on television, or rather, it was not yet a studio, but an animation association at the feature film studio of the Ekran Creative Association. The "studio" at that time consisted of a director, an editor and four artists. I made my first film there,” said Reznikov. —

In 1975, I met the wonderful screenwriter Arkady Khait and suggested to him the idea of ​​a film about the adventures of Leopold the cat and two cocky mice; the name of the cat, however, we came up with already in the process of working on the first script.

He noted that the very first series of the cartoon instantly became a popular hit.

“The first film, Revenge of the Cat Leopold, immediately became popular. The phrase: "Guys, let's live together!" Andrey Mironov and Gennady Khazanov spoke, and now only Alexander Kalyagin, said Reznikov. - And the mice, by the way, are called Mitya and Motya, as it is written in the script. Mitya says: “A tail for a tail!”, And Motya replies: “A tooth for a tooth!”.

More than one generation has grown up on the creations of Soviet animators. The best of the old domestic cartoons are also appreciated by modern children - for the decent quality of animation (although in those days they didn’t know such a word!), For interesting stories, for high-quality voice acting.

And every Soviet cartoon has its own secret.

Well, hare, wait!

According to the original plan, this sacramental phrase was supposed to be spoken by none other than Vladimir Vysotsky. However, in his performance, the wolf turned out to be too ferocious. It was decided that Anatoly Papanov's comic intonations were needed here.

It turned out so well that the wolf from "Well, wait a minute!" now it is difficult to imagine speaking in a different voice. Papanov himself, as often happens, was angered by the popularity of this role. He said that the wolf gnawed through his acting biography.

Soviet children, and adults too, were completely delighted with the animated series - but in Finland it was banned! Because the hare, it turns out, is depicted in the film as too cruel, and through his fault the poor wolf constantly finds himself in dangerous situations. The fact that the poor wolf now and then tries to eat a "cruel" hare did not bother anyone for some reason.

Frame of the cartoon "Well, wait a minute!"

But in Poland, the cartoon was appreciated. In 2010, there was even a collector's coin with the characters "Just you wait!".

The Adventures of Leopold the Cat

Frame of the cartoon "Leopold"

In honor of this cartoon, a special coin was also issued - and also not here, but already on the Cook Islands. The coin is silver, with a denomination of two dollars, and cartoon characters are depicted on it - Leopold the cat and mice: white Mitya and gray Motya. Yes, that's what they are called. True, only in the script for the cartoon; in the picture itself, the hooligan rodents remain nameless.

Frame of the cartoon "Leopold"

Attentive viewers could not help but notice that the first two episodes of the cartoon are different from the next. And all because they were made using the technique of shifting: fragments of the bodies of the characters and elements of the scenery were first cut out of colored paper, and then moved a tiny distance after each frame. The subsequent series are already drawn cartoons.

Frame of the cartoon "Leopold"

Falling last year's snow

Initially, the name of this cartoon sounded like “Spruce-sticks, thick forest” - at least if you believe the word of the composer Grigory Gladkov, who wrote the music for it. And the narrator's text was read by Liya Akhedzhakova. And I read great.

However, Alexander Tatarsky (oh, those storytellers!) did not approve of her reading for reasons unknown to us. So both the narrator and the main character were voiced by the same person - Stanislav Sadalsky. Which, alas, is not even listed in the credits: shortly before the release of the cartoon on the screens, the actor, oh horror, was seen in the company of a foreigner, and they decided to punish him in this way.

Frame of the cartoon "Last year's snow was falling"

By the way, the phrase "Oh, these storytellers" has a long history: it was first used by Vladimir Odoevsky in the story "The Living Dead", then it was used by Dostoevsky as an epigraph to "Poor People" - and only after that it got into the cartoon.

Hedgehog in the fog

This ingenious, without exaggeration, cartoon was officially recognized as the best in the world at the Tokyo Animation Festival in 2003.

Meanwhile, it was created in those years when modern animation technologies had not yet been invented. So, in order to achieve the effect of fog, they used an ordinary tracing paper for drawings - they slowly raised it above the drawing. And in order to achieve realism at the moment when the hedgehog falls into the river, real water was filmed on camera.

Frame of the cartoon "Hedgehog in the Fog"

The director of the cartoon, Yuri Norshtein, argued that a specific prototype was needed to create a lively, bulging character. For the Hedgehog-out-of-the-fog, this was the writer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya.

Frame of the cartoon "Hedgehog in the Fog"

Winnie the Pooh and all

Before the Winnie the Pooh and Piglet we know were created, a lot of paper was ruined by artists. It's scary to imagine how many cubs and pigs went into the trash!

So, one of the first Poohs was desperately furry, his eyes were of different sizes, and his ears looked as if Christopher Robin nibbled them daily. And Piglet, as befits a normal piglet, was very, very well-fed. And only later came into the world a nice brown Winnie and a thin-necked squeaky Piglet.

Frame of the cartoon "Winnie the Pooh"

By the way, when voicing the latter, Iya Savina took Bella Akhmadulina's speech as a model - more precisely, her manner of reading poetry. And Winnie the Pooh was voiced like this: Evgeny Leonov was recorded on tape, and then released in a fast version.

flying ship

The text of Vodyany's song ("Oh, my life is a tin!"), poet Yuri Entin wrote while lying in the bathroom. Apparently, as an artist, he needed the appropriate environment in order to imagine the train of thought of the one whose girlfriends are leeches and frogs. Or maybe it just happened.

Entin, by his own admission, spent ten minutes writing the text. But the composer, Maxim Dunaevsky, had to tinker with the song - Entin constantly demanded that he remake the music. How true all this is, we do not know, but one way or another, and the song quickly became mega-popular. Like all cartoons.

Frame of the cartoon "Flying Ship"

It was assumed that there would be only one Baba Yaga in the cartoon. Antin even wrote lyrics for her:

You know me so little

You see me as an enemy.

And I, firstly, just a woman,

And only secondly - Yaga!

And then I decided that it would be more fun to create a whole choir from her kind. So the masterpiece ditties of Grandmothers-Hedgehogs were born.

Frame of the cartoon "Flying Ship"

In honor of this cartoon, which, undoubtedly, Soviet children adored and today's kids watch with pleasure, a special coin was issued. True, not here, but on the Cook Islands. The coin was silver, its denomination was two dollars (moreover, it can be bought from collectors for as much as $140). But the heroes of your favorite cartoon are depicted on it - Leopold the cat and mice. What were the names of the mice in Leopold the Cat? After all, all viewers know that they are, and their names are left behind the scenes.

Character history

"The Adventures of Leopold the Cat" is a Soviet cartoon that is familiar to several generations of girls, boys and their parents. In short, this is a story about the adventures of a very intelligent ginger cat and two restless mice who are always trying to cause trouble to the cat.

The animated series consists of eleven episodes. Arkady Khait and Anatoly Reznikov became the screen parents of the cartoon about friendship and peaceful coexistence. The debut series was released 43 years ago, in 1975.

A rather simple storyline of the cartoon won the hearts of Soviet kids. Each episode described instructive episodes from the life of a kind cat.

Similarities and differences with similar characters. "Tom and Jerry"

Cartoon fans could note the similarity of Soviet mice with Jerry the mouse from the American animated series Tom and Jerry. And our, Soviet mice, and foreign mice are equally dirty to cats. In the same way, they run away from them, inventing new pranks and dirty tricks on the go.

Here it is necessary to clarify that there are certain differences in the characters of the compared mice. Mouse Jerry in each episode takes revenge on Tom because the gray cat wants to eat it. Our mice (what are the names of the mice from the cartoon "Leopold the Cat" we will find out a little later) constantly provoke Leopold. They call him to a quarrel and all the time call him a "mean coward."

Similarities and differences with similar characters. Mr. Grabovsky

Before we find out what the names of the mice from the cartoon "Leopold the Cat" were, let's look at the similarities of the characters with another foreign work. We can say with confidence that the main pests of the good red cat Leopold look like mice from another wonderful Hungarian-German-Canadian cartoon "Cat Trap". He came out a few years later - in 1986, but also managed to win a large audience of viewers. Our mice also like to dress up in clothes, and the gray mouse appears in several episodes in a cap. But the similarity ends there. Because ours - white and gray mice - are outrageous with experience, and the heroes of the cartoon "Cat Trap", led by a mouse - an agent of the organization "Intermysh" Nick Grabovsky - are trying to save their mouse family, which cats are trying to destroy.

The central character of this animated series is a decent and very well-mannered cat with a rather aesthetic name Leopold. He is always very neatly dressed, he has a magnificent bow around his neck. The cat walks around the house in slippers, always speaks very simply, but beautifully. Unlike the wolf from "Well, wait a minute!", he does not drink, does not smoke, speaks quietly and modestly. Leopold is clean and hospitable.

He always solves problems peacefully, calling on the white and gray mice to live together and not harm each other. The cat is good-natured and peaceful, he forgives offensive mouse pranks, even comes to the rescue of cocky mice.

By the way, what was the name of the mice from "Leopold the Cat" was of interest not only to the smallest, but also to older fans of the cartoon. Some viewers found the cat somewhat weak-willed, because often the intrigues of the mice were very offensive. The creators of this project, in an attempt to stand up for the cute cat, came up with a series in which he receives the medicine "Ozverin" in order to be able to rebuff the little tailed offenders. But his character is such that he does not give the opportunity to be rude, so the harmful mice remain intact. Viewers understand that any heart can be melted with patience and a good attitude.

Harmful mice

The antipodes of such a positive cat in this cartoon are two mice. And yet, what were the names of the mice from Leopold the Cat - Gray and White or Fat and Thin? This is a really interesting question. So, the white mouse is called Mitya, and the gray one is Motya. Yes, those are the names of mice. True, they remained only in the script for the cartoon. In the television picture, the tailed uglies remained nameless.

Now we know the name of the mice from Leopold the Cat. And although these names are cartoonish, for some reason they somehow did not take root in the cartoon itself. The mice continued to be called that - by the color of the fur or by the physique.

From intrigues to apologies

What are the names of the mice from "Cat Leopold", we now know. It is Mitya and Motya who, throughout all the series of the cartoon, are the real hooligans (albeit small ones), who have a lot of different dirty tricks in store. And yet, they are very cute. Little viewers, perhaps, are still sure that mice can improve and become kinder. Yes, and the phrases of Mitya and Moti have long become winged. Who does not remember: "We are the mice ..." and "Leopold, come out, you vile coward!"?

For some reason, fluffy hooligans are opposed to a cute red cat, taking his modesty, decency and good manners for ordinary cowardice. In each series, the mice try to annoy Leopold, but in the end they always repent and ask for forgiveness.

Is cartoon useful?

Those viewers who watched the cartoon very carefully, could not help but pay attention to the fact that the first two series of the cartoon are strikingly different from the rest. All this is due to the fact that they were made using the shifting technique: elements of the scenery and fragments of the bodies of adventure heroes were first cut out of colored paper, and then gradually moved a microscopic distance after each frame, placing them on glass first. This is how the animation effect came about. But from the third series there were already drawn cartoons.

In the Soviet Union in the seventies the idea of ​​world peace was proclaimed. And such an animated series just corresponded to it. The first series that the audience saw was called "Revenge of the Cat Leopold", and the second - "Leopold and the Goldfish". The name of the mice from "Cat Leopold" never appeared "on the air" - neither in these series, nor in the rest .

Although there was clearly a classic moral connotation in this cartoon, the artistic council of the Soyuz studio did not immediately approve this project. In 1975, the premiere of the cartoon took place, after which it was banned, formulating pacifist sentiments and anti-Soviet views.

The chairman of the artistic council, Zhdanova, was somewhat embarrassed that the cat could not deal with small rodents in any way. But the creators decided not to abandon the project and were absolutely right. Since the eighties of the last century, an unusual story about an intellectual cat and hooligan mice was broadcast on the country's leading channels. The audience was delighted with the new characters: the kids watched with interest how the relationship between the cat and mice was developing, and the parents were grateful for such a project that voiced the educational foundations. The resulting success motivated the authors to visualize new ideas.

For twelve years - from 1975 to 1987 - eleven cartoons were released about the adventures of sworn friends. They told about the search for treasure, buying a TV, Leopold's birthday, his walk, about the summer spent in the company of mice, about buying a car, going to the clinic, interviewing a cat and flying in a dream and in reality.

A few years later, the Soyuz studio released four more series about the new adventures of their favorite characters. In the new season there was a high-quality image, but the semantic load remained exactly the same. It was called "The Return of the Cat Leopold".

It is impossible to ignore the sound of the animated series. All this is rather curious. The first series was voiced by Andrey Mironov. They began to negotiate with him about the voice acting of the second series, but he suddenly fell ill. Therefore, Gennady Khazanov worked on the voice acting of the second series. From the third series to the end, Alexander Kalyagin gave his voice to the characters. But in the "Interview with the Cat Leopold" Mironov's voice sounded again.

Now that it has become known what the mice were called from Leopold the Cat, perhaps today's kids will be watching this kind and interesting cartoon with even greater interest, just like their parents once did, experiencing all the adventures of his heroes.

"The Adventures of Leopold the Cat" is an animated series about the kind cat Leopold, who is taken out by two hooligan mice. Filming began in 1975 and ended in 1993.

Anatoly Reznikov is the director of one of the most popular animated series for children about the adventures of the cat Leopold. "The Adventures of Leopold the Cat" is a very kind, funny animated series in which 11 different episodes were filmed. This wonderful series was created by playwright Arkady Khait, artist Vyacheslav Nazaruk. For this work, the authors even received (!!!) the State Prize of the USSR.

Leopold is the main character who lives on the street. Murlykin. He is an ordinary cat, distinguished by his innate intelligence - he does not smoke or drink, does not raise his voice, and endures all the antics of mice. Leopold is a cat who does not want to quarrel with anyone. Leopold's words: "Guys, let's live together!" - This is a phrase that has long entered our everyday life. Yes, and Leopold taught mice hooligans friendship!

Mice-hooligans ... They are annoyed by a kind cat. They call him a "mean coward", they constantly find a reason to spoil something, but still repent ... In the series "Revenge of the Cat Leopold", the gray one walks in a cap, and the white one has a disgusting squeaky voice. In the series - "Leopold and the Goldfish", gray already without his headdress. From episodes 3 to 10, gray is already distinguished by its fullness, low voice, and white is thin, squeaky. In the first two series, gray is in command, but already from the third series, white breaks into the lead, and gray obeys him.

“Revenge of the Cat Leopold”, “Leopold and the Goldfish” were made using the transfer technique, i.e. characters, scenery were drawn on cut-out pieces of paper, and subsequently rearranged under glass. And all the rest are created by the technique of hand-drawn animation.
"Revenge of the Cat Leopold" was released after 1981. "Leopold and the Goldfish", which was created at the same time as the first, appeared in 1978.
Series of animated series:
1. 1975 - Revenge of the cat Leopold
2. 1975 - Leopold and the goldfish
3. 1981 - Treasure of the cat Leopold
4. 1981 - Leopold the Cat TV
5. 1982 - Walk the cat Leopold
6. 1982 - Leopold's birthday
7. 1983 - Summer of Leopold the Cat
8. 1984 - Cat Leopold in a dream and in reality
9. 1984 - Interview with the cat Leopold
10. 1986 - Polyclinic of the cat Leopold
11. 1987 - Car of the cat Leopold