''The Red and the Blue'' (''Il Rosso e il Blu'') is an Italian

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animated television series An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...

for children. It has two clay animated characters, antagonistic shapeshifters, one colored red, the other blue. The show sets the two characters in an undifferentiated white plane in which they interact. They are able to assume various forms at will, for example in one episode The Blue becomes a boat while The Red becomes an island, later the Blue becomes a suitcase while The Red partially converts his body into a chest-of-drawers, filling the suitcase with red 'clothes'. Misseri's website describes the situation as:

Two blocks of clay. The Red is big and passionate; he like driving fast cars, eating... enjoying all the pleasures of life. The blue is small, smart and cunning, and he's there just to bother the red.

The characters communicate in a prelingual form that conveys emotions without using any particular language. This avoided the need for translation or

subtitles Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

. Francesco Misseri describes the language "non-verbal" and "onomatopoeic" on the website and in a comment on

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. The series was written and directed by Francesco Misseri with music by Piero Barbetti. In Australia it was first broadcast on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

. In the United States, it first aired in 1976 on ''

Captain Kangaroo ''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program ...

'' on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

Episodes

1976 series

*The Car *The Little Plant *The Gun *The Suitcase *The Opera *The Slot-Machine *The Umbrella *The Imitator

2005 series

*The Policeman *The Tap

Popular culture

The Red and The Blue lookalike characters appears in one

Play-Doh Play-Doh is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects at home. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then reworked and marketed to Cin ...

commercial in Australia back in 1997, except the colours for the characters were changed as Green and Red.

References

External links

Misseri Studio's YouTube Channel
1976 Italian television series debuts 1970s animated television series 1970s children's television series Clay animation television series Italian children's animated television series Stop-motion animated television series Television series about shapeshifting Animated television series without speech {{Italy-tv-prog-stub