The Pingu reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004
(provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Pingu

Helping orphans the way you would do it
Pingu was a Swiss animated series aimed at children. It featured a family of penguins who lived at the South Pole, and primarily focused on the antics of the son, Pingu, and his friend Robby the Seal. However there were also a lot of family based episodes, featuring the mother and father and (after she was hatched) his baby sister Pinga, as well as several other minor characters.

104 episodes of the series were made from 1986 onwards. Each episode was 5 minutes long, and they were directed and animated by Otmar Gutman for Swiss TV (Trickfilmstudio) using claymation techniques.

One of the features that made Pingu an international success was the fact that there was no dialogue as such. All dialogue was given in a kind of penguin language (Pinguish), performed (without script) by Carlo Bonomi.

In 2004, Hit Entertainment bought the UK rights to the series (including the original 104 episodes), planning to release a further 52 episodes, starting in 2005. These will feature a new (as yet un-named) voice actor, as Bonomi, now in his sixties, was considered too old.

See also: