How exactly the "Nu, pogodi!" series has retained any following at all in the age of universal cassette access remains a mystery. It would seem a foregone conclusion that if you take a Roadrunner cartoon-- *any* Roadrunner cartoon-- and show it to a devotee of the "Nu, pogodi!" films, some sort of Dramatic Epiphany will take place before your eyes ("So *this* is what they were trying to do!").
But perhaps we're actually talking about two different phenomena altogether. For although both series feature exactly the same continuing "plot" throughout all episodes (big bad animal chases smaller, cleverer/luckier good animal), the difference in the execution of this concept could not be more marked: the Pogodi series is amateurishly drawn, animated in haphazard and ill-connected sequences, and moves at a pace that could only engage a very early pre-schooler. Which may be the key to its puzzling popularity, one thinks-- hey, who doesn't remember one's early cartoons fondly?-- until one recalls that Soviets of *all ages* loved (as do many Russians *now*) this meandering, lumpy and almost entirely wit-free series. The considerable acting skills of Anatolii Papanov-- a genuine star of the Soviet cinema-- are squandered altogether on the wolf's voice, as the character is never given a clever line to deliver.
Again, pick a Roadrunner cartoon, *any* Roadrunner cartoon: within 30 seconds the viewer is involved with and amused by Wile E. Coyote in ways that the well-intentioned creators of "Nu, pogodi!" simply could not conceive of. The Soviet series is not a *bad* cartoon, in the sense that it is actively harmful. It is simply inert.
But perhaps we're actually talking about two different phenomena altogether. For although both series feature exactly the same continuing "plot" throughout all episodes (big bad animal chases smaller, cleverer/luckier good animal), the difference in the execution of this concept could not be more marked: the Pogodi series is amateurishly drawn, animated in haphazard and ill-connected sequences, and moves at a pace that could only engage a very early pre-schooler. Which may be the key to its puzzling popularity, one thinks-- hey, who doesn't remember one's early cartoons fondly?-- until one recalls that Soviets of *all ages* loved (as do many Russians *now*) this meandering, lumpy and almost entirely wit-free series. The considerable acting skills of Anatolii Papanov-- a genuine star of the Soviet cinema-- are squandered altogether on the wolf's voice, as the character is never given a clever line to deliver.
Again, pick a Roadrunner cartoon, *any* Roadrunner cartoon: within 30 seconds the viewer is involved with and amused by Wile E. Coyote in ways that the well-intentioned creators of "Nu, pogodi!" simply could not conceive of. The Soviet series is not a *bad* cartoon, in the sense that it is actively harmful. It is simply inert.