''Carosello'' () was an Italian television advertising show broadcast on RAI from 1957 to 1977. The series mainly showed short

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

films using live action, various types of

animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

, and

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a perform ...

. It had an audience of about 20 million viewers.

History

Initially, the only income for Italian television broadcasters came from subscription fees, but the amount was still very low. Rai had already thought of introducing a space dedicated to advertising in the television schedule. RAI was looking for an original, innovative and interesting way to offer it to the public in a pleasant way through entertainment and shows without disturbing them. Then came the idea of making relatively long (average three minutes) funny curtains, comics and sketches, which attracted people's attention. At an experimental level, some of the test procedures were performed with the ''proto-caroselli'', based on fictitious products, made in Turin, Rome and Milan. In fact, this is what the carousel will look like two years later.

Animated segments

''Carosello'' would feature hand drawn and stop-motion segments. Some of which would feature characters from

Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

. Meanwhile, the original characters created for the series, including Pallina, were animated by Gamma Productions, who also animated '' The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends''. Pallina (Italian for 'little ball') was an Italian cartoon character created by

Quartetto Cetra Quartetto Cetra (; ) was an Italian jazz vocal quartet established during the early 1940s and active until 1988. Career The band was based on the Mills Brothers and started performing under the name Quartetto Egie from the initials of the singers ...

for the series. She originally appeared in the 1960s, running from 1961 to 1968, and was a 60s mascot for various cleaning products, including Solex and Vetril.

References

Italian television series 1950s Italian television series 1957 Italian television series debuts 1960s Italian television series 1970s Italian television series 1977 Italian television series endings Italian television shows featuring puppetry {{Italy-tv-prog-stub