Classic Nick Wed. 14 – Emily

One of the most unique characteristics about Pinwheel is that it featured many different types of animated shorts. There was stop-motion animation; the most notable were the Building Blocks sequences. Claymation such as Hattytown Tales and Gumby and traditional animation such as Emily, or Émilie as she is known in France, was created by French author and illustrator Domitille de Pressensè the mid-1970s when she was in the forth year of School of Fine Arts. In America we know Émilie as Emily, a French cartoon that aired on Pinwheel.

The stories take place in the daily life of the little girl and are representative of a little girl's life of 5-6 years whose design style is simple and minimalist. The cartoon follows the adventures of Emily, a little girl who wears only red, a red dress, shoes, and hat but at times her gloves are green. She has an brother named Stephen who wears blue overalls and a little sister Beth who’s name varies according to country. Other names for Emily’s sister are Pat and in France her name is Elise. She also has a pet hedgehog named Humphrey in the English version, Arthur in other versions.

Other characters include the series include her cousins Alexander, who wears a green jumper with knee-pads, and Nicholas who wears red shorts and green sweater and her English friends Grégory and Chloe who wears blue as well as William her who wears yellow overalls and Sydney  who has curly hair.

An English studio adapted the cartoon from the books, whose simple but expressive illustrations are focused on 4-7 year olds. These red books were published at G.P  in 1978 and then republished in the Orange and Blue collection from 1985-1987, in the Red and Gold (1989-1992) and finally in the Pocket Jeunesse edition (1994-1999).

The books are also available on CD via Antenna 2 featuring the voice of Jackie Berger. There are not currently any VHS or DVDs of the series available.

Name: Émilie

Origins: United Kingdom, France

Producer: Kid Cartoons

Year Of Production: 1979

Number Of Episodes: 49 X 5 Minutes

Author Bd: Domitille De Pressensé

Realization: Raymond Burlet

Production: Jacques Vercruyssen

Scenery: Domitille De Pressensé

Technical Director: Jean Janssens

Music: Philippe Noel

Animation: Geneviève Antoine, Jean-Claude Deridder, Jacques Iaton,

Nadine Kalaitzic, Patrick Theunen

Theme Song Lyrics

It's me Emily!
Your little friend as nice as can be.
You can always tell that it's me,

'cause I always wear red, you see.

Red dress and a red hat,
But sometimes my gloves are green.

We are friends as nice as can be.
Big brother Stephen and little sister Beth.
And my little hedgehog Humphrey,
Who'll share my adventures with me.

Yipee!