Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Classic Nick Wed. – 16– La Linea


La Linea, or “The Line", as it is pronounced in English was an award winning Italian animated series created by cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli which was originally broadcast on the Italian channel RAI between 1971 and 1986, and consists of 90 episodes, each about 2–4 minutes long. The series has aired in more than 40 countries around the world including the United States when it aired on Pinwheel as one of their animated shorts which it was widely known for.

The cartoon features a man, known as "Mr. Linea", who is drawn as a single outline around his silhouette, walking on an infinite line of which he is a part. As Mr. Linea walks along the line he encounters different obstacles that he has trouble overcoming. At that point he would turn to the cartoonist, which is represented as a live-action hand holding a white grease pencil, and mutters something along the lines of a complaint in gibberish.  At this point, the artist will come in and draw something involving the oddity that Mr. Linea would then interact with but he artist was rather sadistic though, as the cartoons always turn out badly for the main character. The mock version of Milanese that resembled gibberish gave the cartoon the possibility to be easily exported without dubbing.

The length of this animated short usually ran in two minutes thirty seconds per episode although some four-minute episodes were also made and was accompanied by a background tune created by Franco Godi.

DVD Releases

A set of three DVDs containing all the episodes was released in Germany in 2003 and re-edited in September 2008. The first volume was released in France, Hungary, Serbia and Scandinavia. A set of two DVDs containing 56 episodes is sold in Quebec since 2008 by Imavision. The complete series was released in Scandinavia in the beginning of 2008 in a 3-disc box set.


In The News

In October 2012 Ford ran a TV ad campaign for its C-MAX hybrid using La Linea.
See Article: 
Ford C-MAX Commercials Launch with La Linea – Video


Mr. Linea also has his own video game


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