| Rantanplan | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Lucky Comics |
| First appearance | Le Journal de Spirou |
| Created by | Morris |
Rantanplan is a fictional hound dog created by Belgian comics artist Morris and French writer René Goscinny. Originally a supporting character in the Lucky Luke series, Rantanplan later starred in an eponymous series. Rantanplan is a spoof of Rin Tin Tin, as idiotic as Rin Tin Tin is clever. English versions of the books have renamed him "Rin Tin Can" and "Bushwack" in the 1983 Hanna-Barbera Animated Lucky Luke television series.
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The character first appeared in the earliest panels of the story Sur la piste des Dalton, published on February 4, 1960 in the comics magazine Spirou, and latter as an album in 1962.[1] The character remained a fixture over a long series of Lucky Luke publications, resulting in a series of its own publications starting in 1987. Ten years after the death of Goscinny, for the production of the Rantanplan series, Morris collaborated with scenarists such as Jean Léturgie, Bob de Groot and Vittorio Leonardo.
Rantanplan is a prison guard dog often tasked with watching over the Dalton brothers or assisting Lucky Luke track them down each time they escape. However, he is unable to understand this (or anything much) and mistakes Joe Dalton, who hates him psychotically, for a beloved owner. As well as stupid, Rantanplan is incredibly slow and accident-prone, and cannot even swim.
Lucky Luke's horse Jolly Jumper, a very intelligent animal, holds Rantanplan in contempt, regarding him as one of Nature's great mistakes.
In 2006, the production company Xilam produced an animated series of Morris' Rantanplan stories in 90 second episodes, broadcast on France 3. It is broadcast in Canada on YTV under the name Rintindumb.
Footnotes