La Linea

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Television series
German title La Linea
Original title La Linea
Country of production Italy
Year (s) 1971-1986
Production
company		 B. Del Vita (season 1), HDH Film / TV (season 2)
Episodes 90 in 3 seasons
genre animation
idea Osvaldo Cavandoli
music Franco Godi
German-language
first broadcast		 1977 on ARD


La Linea (also called Lui ) is an internationally known male cartoon character by the Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli (1920–2007) since 1969 .

The animated short films shown both on television and in the screening programs show a big-nosed, very emotional, often nagging white line man on a monochrome (mostly blue or green) background. It is constantly confronted with new problems or freed from hopeless situations by its creator, whose drawing hand can occasionally be seen. The entire scenery - including animal, human or representational "adversaries" - usually consists of a continuous line that extends horizontally to the right and left of the picture. A recurring characteristic of the line man, in addition to complaining to his creator, is a very extroverted laugh, during which he first sniffs and then laughs out loud.

Primarily set as a short animated film in the commercial breaks , the " curmudgeon " advanced to a cult figure over the years and became a popular advertising medium for some brand companies.

history

La Linea was invented in 1969 when Cavandoli was looking for a graphic concept for a commercial on behalf of the Italian kitchen appliance manufacturer Lagostina . As a trained cartoonist, he was looking for a new idea that would throw everything overboard: simplicity and straight lines instead of color and details. All that mattered to him was constant action and movement:

“So I stared at the white paper and started scribbling around. My hand with the pen was constantly moving, drawing lines in front of my eyes. When I looked at the lines as a whole, I noticed that the best idea was to reduce everything to a single line and use this one line to express everything I wanted to tell. "

This is how the choleric and yet charming, constantly chatting white line man on a dark background emerged, which at the beginning warmly welcomes its creator. The entertaining adventures that follow follow a recurring motif: the abrupt end of the line. La Linea reacts to this - with the voice of dubbing actor Carlo Bonomi - usually angry and with nagging, only rarely is the "master" politely quoted. The continuation takes place through the graphic intervention by Cavandolis, who can mostly only be seen with his right hand and the crayon, and as a rule intervenes from the right edge of the picture and confronts the male with new tasks. In some episodes, a clown's hand comes into the picture from the left edge of the picture, which negatively changes the drawing.

The cartoon is understandable without language; the words the male says are mostly meaningless gibberish with a few Italian and English words.

reception

Since 1972, La Linea has been filling commercial breaks for many international television companies. The over 100 different episodes were so popular with children and adults that they were shown in cinemas and at film festivals, where Cavandoli won numerous prizes. Since the humor of the cartoons does not require language and is universally understandable, the series also became a worldwide success.

Its popularity finally gave some brand companies the idea of ​​integrating La Linea into their marketing as an advertising medium. In their name the male advertises u. a. for hardware stores, heating devices and ointments. In Germany, La Linea was advertised for the hemorrhoid ointment Faktu Akut for a while . Other companies that La Linea promoted over time were the Polish telecommunications group Polkomtel with its SimPlus brand and the Icelandic Kaupthing bank . In 2012, after years of abstinence, the figure was seen again in a commercial, this time for the Ford C-Max Hybrid .

With La Linea several books and numerous illustrations for magazines appeared. The figure adorns a number of posters and calendars and is exhibited in many museums. In 1978 and 1988 he created animations modified with sexilinea and eroslinea , with which the relationship between man and woman is shown. The Olympic Games series was created in 1992 .

The original episodes are available in full on DVD .

In other media

The style of La Linea has been copied or quoted many times. British comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway? used an opening credits with a similar style at times. In 1999 and 2000, the music videos Bla, Bla, Bla and The Riddle by Gigi D'Agostino , which are stylistically strongly based on the original, but are generally disapproved of as plagiarism, helped La Linea to achieve a new level of awareness . In 2005 the music video for (Don't) Give Hate a Chance by Jamiroquai also paid tribute to La Linea: It contained a computer-animated 3D version of the La Linea figure as well as the hand and pen of the draftsman.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Factu acute ointment advertising hemorrhoids. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Najlepsze reklamy w polskiej historii GSM. In: Komórkomat.pl. August 18, 2017, accessed on July 26, 2020 (pl-PL).
  3. ↑ La Línea - Línan. Retrieved July 26, 2020 .
  4. ↑ La Linea Ford TV Commercial. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .