Talk:Nu, pogodi!

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[edit] HIPPOPOTAMUS

The captain of the ship is not a hippo, but a WALRUS, watch the ship episode again! Myrmeleon formicarius 07:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There is more. If I remember correctly, that episode ends with the walrus throwing the wolf overboard shouting "Nu zayats, nu pogodi!" - normally these final words are the wolf's. I suppose that is a pun on a secondary meaning of the Russian word "zayats" (stowaway)? --Pan Gerwazy 10:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is a pun (that's not the end of the episode, btw, but the end of the intro). But he's not a walrus - walruses have large hard-to-miss tusks coming out of their mouths, and don't have legs. Esn 11:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I will have to have a look again. I do not really remember a hippo, by the way. --Pan Gerwazy 12:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sexual orientation

So what if the Woolf is gay? (And what if he is not?) What is important, is that he IS, for many people, a positive hero, see the wiki article, or just watch the entire series, and get to know more about the USSR (i guess you are not even from Eastern Europe). He is always on the "wrong" side in everything, against the entire system, he is the main character, intelligent, talented, but officially bad. We should not emphasise the word "bad", but rather "officially". The woolf facing the movie tank when looking for the rabbit is telling a lot, just like when the rabbit is marching with his little drum while the woolf is playing the guitar.

An other important thing is that children don't understand it in the way as some adults might do. I know it, i saw these cartoons as a child several times, i loved them, and to me, just like to all the others i know, it was about a little rabbit (a child) running away from the big and scary (grown up) woolf, and i knew it also, by the way, that woolfs do eat rabbits sometimes, if the rabbit doesn't manage to run away. I also didn't always know if the Rabbit was a girl or a boy, but even that didn't matter. For children other things are important, than for grown ups. Seeing them now i do have some funny impressions, but everyone can understand it as he or she wants, that's why it is so wonderful.

And yes, if you want all tales have something like this in them: Little Red Riding Hood and the Woolf, Snow White etc etc... but it depends only on how YOU look at them.

Uff I spoke.

P.S.: About Tom and Jerry compared to Nu pogodi: Tom and Jerry have less personality, in my opinion, they are less human, and even less animal like. In No pogodi the Woolf has real woolf characteristics, the Cat Magician is really like a cat, and the little rabbit is rabbit like. Tom has nearly no cat characteristics, just look at the way he moves for instance. He is catish only when he appears in the beginning of the cartoon in the letter "o". Myrmeleon formicarius 19:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I come from that country and from that generation that was the original audience for this cartoon. Wolf is as NOT gay as it gets. He was everything opposite to gay: masculine, disobedient, hooligan, alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking, bike ridng predator. He was the bad boy role model for my generation. SO, are you telling me my generation is gay? :) Well and Bunny is indeed totally gay. --98.176.24.91 (talk) 05:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OK, may Russian lesbian who enjoed to watch this cartoon in her childhood join to discussion?

OK, may Russian lesbian who enjoed to watch this cartoon in her childhood join to discussion?

(I'm sorry for my really bad English. I hope you'll be able to understand at least half the meaning.)

Wolf wears pink shirt because he's "styliaga" - mod, if you like. Mods were unsuitable role models for Sowiet children.

Hare is male. Though some very young children really thinks sometimes that maybe he's a girl. He's not. (But three or four years ago I've heard on TV that the creators themself had heard about this misconception and even wanted to make sequel about Wolf's intelligent son and Hare's rebellious daughter. I don't know what happend to this idea.)

And I'm sure that cartoon creators didn't mean nothing "gay". There was no sexual subtext. Wolf, being antisocial person, disliked clean and nise Hare, that's the only reason why he chased the boy. Hare impersonated Alla Pugachova just for audience's laughs... But there always are some gay or just slash-minded viewers (and I was slash-minded long before I've heard the word "slash"... and long before I understood my own preferences) who like to think there is something "intriguing" in characters' relationships. And, well, there always was some anecdotes, in my adolenscence at least (I've heard those mostly about Winnie-The-Poo, but some about Wolf and Hare too). So it's strange to assume that russian and even Sowiet viewers never-never-never!saw it that way. I even had read slash about Wolf and Hare on russian slash-site, so I know I'm not the only one who have such strange ideas about children's cartoon. But I'm just playing with this idea - i don't really think they are (or any single one of them is) gay. it's not Sowiet Ai No Kusabi - it's Sowiet Tom and Jerry. Are Tom and Jerry gay?

Well, that's all. Thanks for trying to read this. Your Redcrow.

[edit] New episodes in December 2005?

So is suggesting this article: http://www.cotidianul.ro/index.php?a=6199&shift=1 (in Romanian) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 21:25, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sexual Innuendoes?!

What the hell? Visiting somebody with flowers is considered a sexual innuendo? Americans are completely out of their minds. I'm sorry for making such generalizations, but it seems to me that there are major cultural differences here. I'll change that part slightly to reflect this.. Esn 08:29, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I just saw a clip on Google Video of Nu Pogodi and it DID seem like the wolf might have been intended an analogy for homosexuals and pedophiles (which are the same thing to people... ugh). I came here to see if that was something that had been discussed here. I do have to acknowledge that, it's coming from another culture, but here (Canada) the pink shirt, the effete behaviour, the limp wrist, and the pinky finger sticking up all imply a homosexual, not just an artsy type. The wolf's continuing attempts to get the young hare alone did seem like the cartoon might be trying to compare a wolf trying to eat a young rabbit to a man trying to get a child alone. Like perhaps it was teaching children to be wary of men in pink shirts with limp wrists and their pinkies in the air. That was, in fact, my immediate impression, after only halfway through one skit. (Only three were in the video) Mr. Cat 02:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Th cartoon is from different epoch, 60s. Coincidence. By the way, in Russia, a male homosexual is called goluboy, i.e., "sky blue". `'mikka (t) 03:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm too young to say for sure, but I think a North American cartoon from the 60s with a guy in a pink shirt, a pinkie in the air, and a limp wrist would still be implying he was a homosexual. So I don't think the era itself could be all 05:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, the only thing I can say is that I have not met anyone from the former USSR who interpreted it in that way. We must remember that homosexualism was really not a part of popular culture as it is in the West right now. It was simply a subject that was not familiar to audiences, so why would the creators put it in there, especially since everything had to get past the Soviet censors who would certainly not approve anything that they thought implied homosexuality (which was illegal in the Soviet Union)? I think it would be more accurate to say the the Wolf had a "feminine" side (as also shown by his many artistic talents). But one doesn't have to be a homosexual or a pedophile to have a feminine side - and besides that, there is some evidence that Wolf had an eye for women in the cartoons (such as in episode 3 where he had that painting on his motorbike) Esn 06:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll accept your assurances that it wasn't a common perception. Have you talked about the cartoon with any homosexuals who grew up with the cartoon or perhaps were 'in the closet' when the cartoon was airing? I'm still curious to know from that perspective. Mr. Cat 07:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I did not. Anyone who fits that description, feel free to comment. Esn 03:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Esn's right, the show was pretty enjoyable and innocuous. Any interpretations that there were sexual connotations and innuendos in this show are just plain false. I don't know anyone who could have seen the film's details in such a manner. I think its just a matter of culture. In the USSR it was alrite for two men to kiss each other on the cheeks as a form of a greeting but in the United States, anyone would interpret those same two men as homosexuals when they weren't at all. Also, the article refers to "Hare" as "him", the rabbit was clearly a female character in the cartoon. --MarshallBagramyan 04:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Umm... no. If Hare was female, why did Hare wear the clothes of a boy? And in episode 17, both the wolf and the hare wore gentlemanly clothes in the opening sequence, and had white beards. I can't believe anyone could think that the Hare was female, that just seems so bizarre... yes, the hare was voiced by a woman, but it was common in Russian cartoons to have young children of both sexes voiced by women. Esn 15:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes there was also an episode where the wolf brings roses to Hare and even decide to drink something like champagne together. However, I find it bizarre that someone would consider the rabbit for a male. Maybe Hare was a male...--MarshallBagramyan 23:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be hard to find such person, since in USSR homosexuality was considered a major mental disorder and on top of that was as much despised in public, as (for example) pedophilia. Also that is why there were no common signs or gestures etc that could help identify a homosexual (and even if they were, they probably existed between very small groups of people), and that is why acceptible borders of man-to-man relations were broader than the ones in the Western countries.Pdfourteen 21:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The perception of a particular scene, notion, or imagery really depends on the culture that is perceiving it, so it almost makes no sense in arguing whether the "sexual innuendoes" existed in this cartoon. I can confirm that, from the point of view of culture in which the film was created, it was absolutely clean, as much as anything can be, and that no representative of that culture, sensible or otherwise, would imagine any sexual content in it. It's not even that the evidence is needed; the standards for state control of media at the time were such that it was completely unimaginable for any movie with sexuality to be admitted for viewing, much less for a cartoon intended for children. Note that whether the themes presented are viewed as sexual or not by the contemprorary Western audience almost doesn't matter, since it's makes little sense to attempt to evaluate the more subtle points of a cartoon made in one culture from within a completely different one. IgorSF 06:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point - but the references to "sexual innuendoes" were already there when I came across this page, so I edited it to make it clear that they were NOT innuendoes of any kind in the culture in which the films were made. One could remove the references alltogether I suppose, but someone would probably just add them back in... Esn 02:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The wolf definitely has an artistic, feminine side. What is not mentioned in the article (I think) is his Argentinian tango skills. He demonstrates these usually when he thinks he's caught the hare. He always leads in the dance, which for me (I have danced tango for four years and I know a number of homosexual men at my club) actually suggests he is NOT homosexual (of course, that pre-supposes a belief that the hare whom he forces to dance with him is male). No, feminine side does not mean homosexual - there is no way this could have passed censorship otherwise. I also seem to remember that they are always dancing to the same tune, but I do not know exactly which. I am almost sure it was NOT the cumparsita, which (next to Serdtse, of course) was the most popular tango tune in Soviet times. I really have to watch it again ... --Pan Gerwazy 12:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Just saw "waltzing" in the text. I am sorry, guys, but that is a mistake. The tune (and that is what counts, Argentine tango comes in many flavours) is definitely a Argentinian tango tune. This must be corrected. The point I made about men dancing tango with other men, still stands by the way.--Pan Gerwazy 12:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hare is not female

A response to MarshallBagramyan: The roses were an attempt of reconciliation on Wolf's part - obviously, it never came to anything. It wasn't romantic at all. Also - episode 6 (I believe) when Hare is a "pioneer" (equivalent to "Boy Scout" in America) along with the other lads on the plane. Quite simply: Hare does not look female to me. I'm looking at a picture and trying to picture him as female right now, and it's creeping me out. And for a final piece of proof, I scanned an image from a "Nu Pogodi" book that I bought in Russia some time ago. If you can read Russian, you will notice that it talks about Hare in the male tense. [1]

I do believe that this constitutes conclusive proof. --Esn 00:10, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually "pioneer" is not a boyscout and both boys and girls were "allowed" to join.
Anyway, Hare is male simply because the word "Hare" itself has a masculine gender in Russian (Zayatz). A female hare is called "Zaychiha". Pdfourteen 20:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, but at the start of the article it says "she" and at the end it says "he", someone should make it all one or the other, or just keep it vague ;) Dan Carkner 15:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC) PS. I also thought it seemed like the rabbit was gay in various ways and that the wolf was trying to fight against it, but I fully admit that is my current bias speaking ;P

Actually, the question of whether the Hare is male or female is an interesting one. I'm not entirely convinced he's male, as per discussion above. Just the name itself can't be used as a proof, since in Russian it's acceptable, if at times considered a colloquiality, to call a thing by its male version if the gender does not play a role in the discussion. I can completely imagine that the Hare's gender was not an intended thing for the readers to discover or discuss, and as such it was left undefined. IgorSF 06:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[2] - look, notice how the book refers to him in the male tense? Can't we put this issue to rest already? *sigh* Yes, hare was voiced by a woman - it was common in Russian cartoons for young boys to be voiced by female voices. Esn 02:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I never thought of the hare as a girl or a woman. Playing the DVD to my son, I noticed the female voice. I was immediately reminded of British pantos, where all the bad characters (even the female ones) are played by men (often dark haired) and the good parts (even the male ones) by fair-haired ladies. Even though Nu Pogodi did not continue this to the end (the sea captain has a male voice, I think) - surely, there is no reason to think that Bristish panto is inherently homosexual? The flowers are obviously a peace offering, and in my view also a subtle hint at the first scene in episode one, where the wolf's attempts to climb unto the hare's veranda are frustrated by plants. --Pan Gerwazy 12:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The visual feminine characteristics are blushing cheeks and eyelashes. In American cartoons, those two are usually shorthand for a female character. That's why the newer Mighty Mouse cartoons made me uncomfortable as a child. --BlueNight 12:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Unofficial" episodes

It seems that there were at least three unofficial episodes that do not fall into the episode numbering system and aren't well known. Interesting discussion over here (if you can read Russian). Apparently they were made at Ecran Studio rather than at Soyuzmultfilm and were done without Kotyonochkin's involvement. They were directed by Yu. Butyrin, and the scenario was written by A. Kurlyanskiy.

Also, there was one cartoon made before the first official episode, as part of "Vesyolaya Karyusel". Esn 09:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and here's something else. Just You Wait, Glass Factory! О фильме: Фрагмент передачи "Вокруг смеха", в гостях которой был показан данный фрагмент журнала "Фитиль": маленький мульт "Ну, погоди!" Esn 09:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's a link to a download for one of the "unofficial" episodes: [3] (which cannot be bought anywhere, as of now, and is quite rare) Esn 23:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment about this series

Hey, I watched the 1st 18 episodes (excluding the 2 unofficial ones made at Ecran & Episode #19: Health Spa, but including Episode #0) on YouTube, and I admit, this series is better than I thought, considering the conditions in the Soviet Union. Even though I am American and understand little Russian, it's still funny to me. Having said that, why is this series better than what I might expect from the Soviet Union? Also, what took Soyuzmultfilm so long to produce new episodes? Sgt. Bond 20:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Who said it was "better than what you might expect"? If you read the History of Russian animation article, you'll see that there was no shortage of great animation produced. "Nu pogodi" is an example of a series of films which gained mass popularity - likely because it featured many funny situations which were based on real things (the series practically shows you the whole extent of life in the USSR). There are many less well-known films that are also very good, or which were once well-known but have been forgotten by today's generation.
There were a variety of reasons for why episodes took "so long" to produce. Primarily, it's because each episode was done by the same director and (mostly) the same small group of people (see here) - it wasn't a series in the way that series are made in the West, meant to be shown within a single year. Rather, they were made by a group of people also worked on other films in between (this is in contrast to how tv series are made today - the episodes are done at the same time and often by different people). It wasn't approached as a series, but as a number of independent films. Beyond that, Soyuzmultfilm had a certain formula - a certain amount of time was given for so many minutes of animation. I think this length of time was more generous than for most Western cartoons, and was indicative of the different priorities - both sides tried to cut their costs (they both had only a certain amount of money to work with) and make films that people would want to watch, but in the USSR the emphasis was on the second (there was no point in making a film if people wouldn't watch it) while in the west the emphasis was on the first (there was no point in making a film if it was going to lose money). Esn 22:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm...interesting approach. As long as they were producing other films in between to keep people occupied, I suppose it doesn't really matter. As for the "better than what I might expect" thing, I say this because the Soviet Union was a Communist country & because of the government restrictions on media, I wouldn't have expected much. However, it appears that these restrictions weren't as severe as I thought, & my expectations have been blown away. After all, it's a whole lot better than that "Worker & Parasite" cartoon that I saw on The Simpsons once. Perhaps I should tell my friends about Nu Pogodi. Having said that, I came up with a clever subtext for the Wolf's pursuit of the Hare: The Wolf is kind of like the U.S.S.R. He is skilled in many things, but no matter what his skills are, he just can't defeat the Hare, who is a little bit like the U.S.A. OK, I do admit that this analogy could use plenty of work, but it's an interesting thought, eh? Sgt. Bond 01:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The interesting thing about Worker and Parasite is that it bears no resemblance to any Soviet animation that I've ever seen - and I've seen a fair amount of films from the 1930s to the 1990s. The W&P wiki article mentions this. I can't figure out what style they were parodying, since it's quite different from anything I've seen - maybe it's an exaggeration of the style of the Tom & Jerry cartoons from Czechoslovakia. The restrictions on media exist in the capitalist world just as they did in the USSR, only they're of a different kind. However, I'm not sure at all whether they are any less restrictive - a lot of master directors and animators from formerly communist countries are finding it very difficult to work now and have barely shot anything since communism dissolved (Yuriy Norshteyn, Jiri Barta, etc). The pressure of the finances rules everything, and most producers do not fund anything that is too different and risky - that's why you see so many sequels in the West (and bad sequels at that), and why it is often said that "Hollywood is running out of ideas". Read the history of The Thief and the Cobbler for a tragic example of the censorship in this system.

Here's the thing: as I see it, both systems occassionally relied on swindling the viewer. The Soviet system swindled the viewer by making a great film and inserting a message into it that was beneficial to the government (see here for an example). That way, they (hopefully) had some influence on the viewer. But they had to make the film good; the better the film, the more likely the message was to be accepted. I should point out, though, that only between 1-5% of Soyuzmultfilm animated films were actually propaganda - most were just children's films (with either no message or a traditional moral), and some were adult films (in the sense of being more mature in subject matter, not in today's sense of being porn). Even during WW2 (when the country was on the brink of being destroyed), slightly over half of the films were not propaganda but were based on fairy tales. Disney also made a lot of propaganda films during that time.

The Western capitalist system, on the other hand, swindles the viewer by making him pay more to see a film than the film is worth. It doesn't necessarily matter what people think of the film after they see it in this system - what matters is whether people will want to see it in the first place. Now, if the film is good, positive word-of-mouth can contribute to that. However, another way which is used quite often is to make a crappy film but advertise it as being good. If enough people pay to see it before the bad word-of-mouth spreads, it doesn't matter anymore - the creators already made a profit. In other words, it is a form of con artistry. Such a system can censor just as effectively as the more obvious censorship in the USSR - it hinders new ideas and puts more value on marketing than on filmmaking skill.

For a really interesting account of the differences between the communist and capitalist animation studios, I highly recommend reading this story. It's written by Gene Deitch, who was went from an American animation studio to Czechoslovakia in 1959, and stayed there for a few decades.

Oh, and here are a few nice Soviet films: [4] [5] [6] ;) Esn 05:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I am 40, grew up in the USSR. Until the late 80s we had only 2 (two) TV channels in the USSR. And VCRs were considered luxury. Soviet cartoons are great, most of them are masterpieces. Although I've also seen many Soviet cartoons that were pure propaganda. We were so happy when the first independent TV channels started to expose us to American cartoons. --206.169.169.1 (talk) 23:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Nu-Zaietz-01.jpg

Image:Nu-Zaietz-01.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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A rationale has been added. (Not by me.) --BlueNight 12:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Nu pogodi by vjacheslav kotenochkin.jpg

Image:Nu pogodi by vjacheslav kotenochkin.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Hare?

Why "hare"? The creature is commonly known as a "bunny" which is a kid word for rabbit. "Bunny" is the proper translation in this case. No need to translate the biological species name. In Russian, rabbit ("krolik") typically is a farm animal, it lives in a cage and moves slowly, that's why all fairy tales involve "zayats" (wild rabbit or hare). In English speaking cultures the long eared creature that moves fast is Rabbit/Bunny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.7.86.218 (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)