Vhs findings

That's very wierd,how do the cartoons look though.I wish I had a vhs to try all mine out,I'm still looking for a good one.

Oh man, nailed it! You had one job, cover artist, one job!!

Back in the 1980s, in France, we also had very ugly VHS cover art for cartoons. Instead of using official art or just a screencap, they'd draw their own.


For comparison, this is how Pollen is supposed to look:

What's the story of Huck and Jim? I'm not great with the swirly handwriting. All I got was that one of them was adopted. That cover is hilarious though. It reminds me of Of Mice and Men, except both of them are Lennie.

The text at the back is supposed to be reminiscent of a child's description on school paper...

"Summary of the plot:

This is the story of a little boy, Tom SAWYER, abandoned by his daddy and who gets adopted by a family.
Tom doesn' t like this family that forces him to go to school even though he'd prefer to play.
He escapes and meets a black slave who takes care of him.
Both of them live a lot of beautiful adventures...
Mathieu"


Recommended for children aged 4 to 13.

Looks like they got Huckleberry and Tom confused!! I mean, it's not like they said his name in the freaking title, eh?

And Huck/Tom has some animal on his hat... A cat? A squirrel? ("Tell me again about the cats/squirrels/whatever, George...")


By the way, I just found out this is actually a compilation of episodes from the 1976 anime Huckleberry no Boken, which aired in France several times!! Quite a good series, by the way (Huck's dad story ark was quite moving).
 

(Yep, it's a squirrel.)

Question: WHY not use some of the official art? Why not simply use screencaps? WHY draw abysmally ugly original art??

This was typical of the Fil à Film VHS editions. They would draw original art on the box covers... very often extremely ugly.

YES!!!

Anime was screened regularly in France since at least the late 1970s!!

Back then, it was stuff like Grendizer, Captain Future, Harlock and Candy Candy.

Grendizer is called Goldorak in France.


Captain Future was called Capitaine Flam in France.


Harlock was called Albator in France.


Candy Candy was just... called Candy. Yeah. One of the classic "girl anime".

Anime kept on being very popular on French TV during the 1980s and early-mid 1990s.

Problem is, in France, we still thought that all cartoons were for kids. So for a kid show like Amuse 3...


You'd have good anime for children like Maple Town Stories...

Called Les Petits Malins ("The Little Tricksters") in France. Sponsored by an original teddy bear brand (who is advertised in the theme song) that has now disappeared!


Demetan, even though it had a lot of dark and sad moments...

And then you'd have Dirty Pair!!!


Called Dan et Danny in French. Yes!! An action anime with two sexy young women in sometimes violent adventures, often involving R-rated situations!!

And the biggest offender... Fist of the North Star!!

Called Ken le Survivant in France. The cartoon was so violent it caused a lot of controversy among parents and moral organizations.
It got a dub full of stupid jokes and puns because the comedians were reluctant to voice such a violent cartoon.
The dub was so silly it still gets fond memories from the viewers.
"No, don't cut off my head! It is my mother's favorite one!"
"When his blood comes out, it is so cold it is already vanilla ice cream!"
"Knife of the North Star, cooking knife from the dining room!"
"I must avenge my brother! - Why? - Why why? - Wait, what why? - What why what? - Why why what why?"

Some old anime that stayed very popular and kept being put on TV a lot of times, like...

Nippon Animation's Tom Sawyer. It was quite an awesome cartoon, with a lot of funny and intense moments.
The Huckleberry Finn anime mentioned earlier was actually made years before, but can also serve as a sequel, ironically.

Many anime was put on TV through special kid show blocks. The most famous one was:

Club Dorothée!
Dorothée (blonde woman in picture) was a popular kid singer, who often sang the French themes for cartoons, especially anime. Her friend Ariane (dark-haired woman) would also sing, and appear to host the show with her.

With their friends Corbier (bearded man), Jacky (guy on left) and others, they would do a lot of short comedy skits between cartoons, including a special segment called Pas de Pitié pour les Croissants (No mercy for croissants).


It had animated parts using designs by the late cartoonist Cabu. Cabu often drew Dorothée, rendering her with a long pointy nose that became her trademark (but always portrayed very positively).


Club Dorothée screened many classic anime in the early 90s.

Of course, Dragon Ball Z...

She even had her own magazine!

Sailor Moon...


Ranma 1/2...


Don't you just love that cursive golden logo? It has stayed iconic.

There were also more obscure slice-of-life anime like Kimagure Orange Road...


Max et Compagnie ("Max and co.") in France...


Aishite Naito called Embrasse-moi Lucile ("Kiss me Lucile") and alternatively Lucile, Amour et Rock n' Roll ("Lucile, love and rock n' roll")

Yes, back then in France, most anime had the character's names changed so they could sound French.
In this Kimagure Orange Road dub, Kyousuke is called "Maxime", Madoka is called "Sabrina", Hikaru is called "Paméla"...

Sailor Moon had very odd name changes. Usagi was called "Bunny Rivière", Mamoru was called "Bourdu" (what's in a name??!!)...

Ranma 1/2 was very strangely translated, despite having a very "Eastern/Asian" look to it. Ranma and Genma still have their given names, but their surnames are "Vincent" in French! Akane Tendo becomes "Adeline Galant", Tatewaki Kuno becomes "Julian Storm", Happosai becomes "Ernestin"...

Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end.

The producers of the TV channels decided to cut out a lot of the anime series and replace them with more "mainstream" American and French cartoons (that most of us forgot). Club Dorothée was ultimately cancelled in the late 90s. Other classic kid blocks would follow...

This was the end of an era... and since this day, kid TV in France was never the same.

I still like to look back at old French-dubbed anime, often very cheesy and charming.

Such as The Kabocha Wine.


Called Mes Tendres Années (My Tender Years) in France.

It has a very cute premise of a short angry boy (Shunsuke, "Sonny" in French) and a tall gentle girl (Natsumi/L, "Lydia" in French) who is in love with him, and the adventures are simple and innocent.

Nowadays, most of the anime we get are shown on special cable channels. Mainstream channels almost no longer show anime (there was one time where the full Dragon Ball Z was shown on repeat, however).


There is a special French channel called "Mangas", however, that is focused on showing classic nostalgic cartoons (American or European) alongside old/recent anime.

Oh yes, I have heard that these old 1970s giant robot anime were quite popular in Arabic-speaking countries!

Personally, I usually don't care about giant robot anime...

But I remember Dragon Ball Z really got my blood pumped... the villains actually felt threatening and caused serious casualties among the heroes.
It was very refreshing after so many silly cartoons where the villains are ineffectual losers and the heroes would look like bullies when defeating them.