The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin

The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin
The Adventures of Lolo the Penguin
The Adventures of Small Penguin Lolo
Directed by Kinjiro Yoshida
Gennady Sokolskiy
Produced by Toru Komori
Takeo Nishiguchi
Written by Victor Merezhko
Eiichi Tachi
Shozo Matsuda
Starring Svetlana Stepchenko
Lyudmila Gnilova
Rolan Bykov
Elena Sanaeva
Narrated by Alexei Batalov
Music by Masahito Maruyama
Cinematography Alexander Chekhovsky
Production
company
Life Work Corp
Soyuzmultfilm
Sovinfilm
Aist Corporation
Jim Terry Productions (USA version, "Scamper")
Release dates
  • June 26, 1987 (Russia)
  • March 26, 1988 (Japan)
  • January 3, 1989 (USA)
Running time
 78 minutes (Russian Version)
76 minutes (Feature American Version)
Country Japan
Soviet Union
Language Original: Russian, Japanese. Dubs: French, Estonian, English, Czech, Lithuanian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Danish, German, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Swedish, Dutch, Arabic, Hungarian.

The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin is a film that was released by Enoki Films, Just for Kids and Feature Films for Families. It is sourced from a film from 1986–1987 (it was originally released as a three-part serial) The Adventures of Small Penguin Lolo (original title). The film was co-production between Japan and Soviet Union. It is an animated feature film about the early life of an Adélie penguin.

The film is targeted at a very young audience, although the movie is narrated like a documentary about the life of the penguins during the spring and summer seasons in the Antarctic. The premiere on the Soviet television took place on January 1, 1986. In Japan the trilogy was published in the OVA format on March 27, 1988.

Plot

The story begins with the end of winter, and the southern ocean showing the aurora australis. A flock of penguins, coming from the north, returns home. The females separate from their mates to go hunt as males build their nests from piles of pebbles. The females return to lay their eggs, only to eventually separate from the males again, whilst the males take care of the eggs. It would be 40 days before the females returned. A flock of aggressive seagulls constantly threatens to steal the penguin eggs and raids the nesting grounds while the females are away. Unfortunately, The hunger and all that the good food that was waiting made some of the male penguins abandon their nest. A father (black and white penguin) of a couple saves the egg of another family, meanwhile one of their two eggs is stolen from their nest. When the mother (a dark navy blue and white penguin) returns, the father says that one of the eggs is not theirs. They return another's egg and have one egg for themselves.

When the eggs finally hatch, the egg that is kept hatches into a royal blue and white male penguin named Scamper (or Lolo). He meets a peach and white female penguin. One day, he runs away from his nest. He climbs a hill and reaches the top. A pair of seagulls attack Scamper, but a helicopter blows them away, seriously injuring the seagulls themselves. Scamper also encounters a husky named Cowboy (Don) . He and his owner, the scientist return Scamper home, but he ends up in dead meat with Gilbert (Toto).

Soon enough, the penguins attend school. The students are educated by a wise, old grandfather-figure penguin named Mr. Feather (originally Pigo) that is gray and white. They have a physical fitness coach originally named Rosie (Nini) who is also aqua blue and white. The teacher and the coach bear a resemblance to Scamper's (Lolo's) parents. The teacher educates them about an elephant seal. While the seal yawns, the teacher observes and describes its mouth. Once the seal finishes yawning, it chomps on the teacher's head, but he is released unharmed.

The physical fitness coach teaches the young penguins how to slide. Much later, she will teach them how to swim. She must stay alert because the penguins cannot swim yet, as the water is too cold.

Scamper (Lolo), like any other young penguin, is over-inquisitive and very curious. This irritates the adults because they do not have any answers. Furthermore, he wanders off often, and gets in trouble with his father.

In one of his adventures, he meets a dog, a husky named Cowboy (Don) and his human guardian, who are on a scientific expedition. Momentarily he decides to with his best friend Snowflake (Pépé), escape again. Scamper (Lolo) introduces Snowflake (Pepe) to Cowboy (Don), but Scamper (Lolo) is attacked again by an seagull. The seagull swoops down to try to get back Lolo, but Cowboy (Don) grabs the seagull and throws it to death. The scientist heals Scamper (Lolo)'s wounds.

Later, the two penguins crash towards the water (but land on a block of ice). They are stranded on the ice because they still cannot swim. Once they mature, they would grow more feathers to insulate from the water, but they are still too young. They are unable to call for help, and they cannot find any food to eat. They find a group of xenophobic emperor penguins, which ignore their cries for help. They are attacked by a leopard seal, who is attacked itself by an orca. The orca ignores the penguins, who are now on a much smaller block of ice.

The two penguins are rescued by the crew of a ship. The penguins think that the crew is of gentle scientists, but are mistaken. The men are poachers and they throw the penguins into a cage. They have a neighbor, who is a male, black feathered, macaroni penguin. They also attempt to befriend another dog, a Saint Bernard named Jack.

Once they escape, they eat a disc-shaped food. They are chased by the poachers. Jack the Saint Bernard howls, and the crew of the ship take cover because they think there is a storm approaching. The Saint Bernard gives them a life saver which they float onto another block of ice. They have grown now, and can swim and eat.

Once the penguins return home. The coach (Nini) alerts the rest of the community that the students have been captured in a net. Scamper's (Lolo's) father leads a rescue. The poachers end up caught in a tidal wave which was caused by their gunshots echoing.

The story ends as the dark winter comes, and the penguins go northward again, now led by Scamper (Lolo). Louie (Mak), the macaroni penguin later decides to find his own community.

Creation history

History of creation of the animated film according to the description of the producer Takeo Nisiguti:" During a trip to Moscow in 1973 I with surprise opened for myself animated films of great Russian masters. Being the producer of children's feature films in Japan, I dared to offer in 1980 to the Soviet party coproduction of the feature animation film! Of course, I was very courageous, extremely motivated idea to make the beautiful movie with the Russian artists and is excited, as the rocket which is flying up in space! I chose history which anyway didn't concern any of our two countries, and received loud "Well!" from the representative of the body exercising supervision of our project. Collaboration with Russians appeared the real opening for me and Japanese team. Their approach had production, a little general with our experience, in Japan: distribution of tasks, storyboards, problems of technologies of all types. Fujifilm even had to create a special negative that perforation coincided with the Soviet movies! Every day I brought new surprises. The long way of Lolo ended in 1988, and within eight years of work on this movie, we became witnesses of all political changes who shook then the Soviet system. It is necessary to tell that our movie is the only animated film which was created in coproduction by Japan and the USSR."

Production

The original film was created by Takeo Nisiguti who had sought a co-production with Russian animation. He contacted them in 1980 and took several years to develop. During this time, Russian animation received film equipment commonly used in Japan. It is the first time Russian and Japanese production had collaborated to make an animated film.

It was then animated in 1986 by Soyuzmultfilm. It was co-produced by Soyuzmultflm and Lifework Corporation with music by Masahito Maruyama. It was sponsored by Aist Corporation and Sovinfilm. English versions of Lolo were distributed by Force Entertainment. The "Scamper" version was released by Enoki Films USA. A French dub was produced by Agovision and distributed by Arkeion Films.

Additional dubs of Lolo were made in Estonian, Czech, Lithuanian, and Finnish.

Additional dubs of Scamper were made in German, Swedish, Portuguese, Danish, Bulgarian, and Serbian.

Additional Dubs of both versions were made in these languages: French, Arabic, Hungarian, and Polish.

Another version called Pim De Pinguïn was released in Dutch.

Titles

The Japanese title of the film is Chiisana Pengin Roro no Bōken (小さなペンギンロロの冒険) and Russian is "Приключе́ния пингвинёнка Лоло́" (Priklyucheniya pingvinyonka Lolo), both literally translate as The Adventures of Small Penguin Lolo. Apart from language, the Russian and Japanese versions are identical.

Other languages were released:

Censorship

English version

This film was dubbed into English, with the English script written by Nikolai Kurnakov of Film Export Studios and Sovexportfilm in 1987. A release in Australia is called "The Adventures of Lolo the Penguin", and is an English dub of the film as originally released. This version was distributed in 2005 by Force Entertainment (now called Beyond Home Entertainment).

The Beyond Home Entertainment version uses the original soundtrack and matches the lip sync as well as the original script, but it was edited for time purposes. (Trimming 15 minutes) The three parts of the film were combined into one film, thus deleting the original credits segments. The cast of this English dub is also uncredited.

Deleted scenes:


Feature American English version

The American version was called "The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin". It was edited by Collins Walker, produced by Patricia Curran, and directed by Jim Terry with production company Enoki Films USA. This dub was heavily localized and cuts out most of the violent scenes from the original (as well as non-violent scenes). Among them is

Most scenes with blood are edited, with the exception of Lolo's wound from being abducted by a seagull.

The poachers are "zoo keepers", and the frames where Toto (and three other penguins) was shot and killed are deleted entirely. Toto's absence is not explained and the film's conclusion is rushed.

All of the characters' names are changed. Among them, is

Narrations were made by a man. For "Scamper", they were made by a woman. Additional dialogue is added which includes expressive mumbling, and saying "hi" when waving, whether or not their mouths are open. And many dialogs are very far from the original.

A new soundtrack was made for Scamper the Penguin. It was arranged by Mark Mercury (credited as a band named "Bullets"). The music was synthesized instead of orchestrated. In "Lolo", there was only a soundtrack; there were no lyrics. For "Scamper", there were several songs with lyrics added. Example scenes are when the seagull birds attack while the male penguins leave the nest, young penguins sliding for the first time, and escaping from the poachers while on the ship.

The opening segments were replaced to one similar to common American children's animated television series. A common practice of American dubbing of that time period, the original closing credits segments were deleted and not included in the new closing credits. The replacement closing credits segment is abridged.

The original picture quality contains vivid colors compared to Scamper. This also occurred with dubs that used "Scamper" as the source film. A few frames of Scamper contain modified backgrounds. While many scenes were deleted in the final version of Scamper, frames from other scenes were reused to keep the Scamper film the same approximate length as the Lolo film, and also to add time for the background songs containing lyrics.

UK re-release

In 2011, Brightspark distributed the American English version under the title: "Tappy Feet - The Adventures of Scamper".[1]

French

The film was dubbed into French in Quebec, Canada which sources the American English dub. It was also dubbed in France which was sourced the original film. The France version made custom edits. Several other dubs were then sourced from the France release.

Deleted scenes:

Estonian

The Estonian dub is a carbon copy of the Russian language release of Lolo The Penguin. The opening production credits are left in Russian with a dub narration of the credits. The glass harmonica music scene is otherwise unedited.

German

The German dub is a carbon copy of Scamper, including the new theme song and credits as well as the new music. Both the theme song and the credits were translated to German. The credits remain abridged. However, several deleted scenes were restored into the film:

Dutch

The Dutch version is known as Pim de Pinguïn and contains a completely different theme, soundtrack, and sound effects.

Deleted scenes:

Voice Cast

Russian

Japanese

English

French

Additional Voices:

Dutch


References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ 小さなペンギンロロの冒険 Приключе́ния пингвинёнка Лоло́('88日ソ) - 声優辞典(作品) (in Japanese). Kanemoto.mydns.jp. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
  3. ↑

External links