Charlie Chaplin Gets Animated

DQ Entertainment is working on a joint venture with several companies to create a series of 104 3D-CGI shorts featuring Charlie Chaplin. I’m not really sure how I feel about this, as it seems somewhat disrespectful to his actual work, but at least none of the shorts will have dialogue. Granted, it’s not like dead people can complain about how they are portrayed.





On another note, I’m just a casual fan of animation and I’m not too knowledgeable when it comes to studios, but DQ Entertainment seems to be becoming the world’s key player. They’ve worked on a ton of shows, even for major networks in the states, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be slowing down any time soon. Some of their shows look better than others – “The Penguins Of Madagascar” and “Twisted Whiskers” come to mind, but I guess it all depends on budget sizes and deadlines.
 
Yikes. On one hand, this reminds me of when they brought back Jim Varney's character of Ernest P.Worrell in CG form to do commercials on TV for Cerritos Auto Square; a disrespectful disgrace, in the opinion of many.

On the other hand, I think they're several decades too late for this. From the sounds of what they plan to do, this could be done with any character, not one that no 6-year-old would have any clue about. Very weird! :shrug:

On the other hand...oh, I've run out of hands.
 
I think it sounds neat. Chaplins character "the Tramp" is so closely identified with the actor who played him that the two are, in the eyes of the public, pretty much indistinguishable, so it's going to be interesting to see how they will promote this animated adaption with this in mind. Like, are the title cards going to say "Charlie Chaplin" (which would be just plain wrong, since Charlie has absolutaly nothing to do with the show, having been dead for several decades and all) or "the Tramp" (which there would be really nothing strange about, since tha Tramp is a fictional character, who just happens to for the first time ever be "played" by someone else than it's original actor/creator).
 
Yeah, I have nothing against this as long as it's the character of The Tramp! A character is a character. Plain and simple. They don't even have to make it look like Chaplain. Although I would consider getting rid of the Hitler mustache.
 
This isn't the first time that someone has tried to bring Charlie Chaplin to animation. DePatie-Freleng attempted this earlier with Baggy Pants & the Nitwits (NBC, September 11, 1977-September 2, 1978).
 
Done… but it’s not like that extra letter was throwing anybody off and preventing discussion. ;)

On another note, Charlie Chaplin isn’t the only aged “character” that DQ Entertainment is resurrecting in animated form; they’re working on a new Lassie animated series as well – one in which she is capable of real speech – which I actually have more concerns about. It seems they also have a Jungle Book series near completion.
 
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