Tintin, the dauntless young globetrotting reporter, has come a long way since 1929, when he first came to life in the Belgian magazine Le Vingtième Siècle. Drawn by Georges Remi, (a.k.a “Herge”), Tintin immediately rose to international success with its amazingly constructed and always good-humored adventures.
The books took Tintin from South America to the Sahara, from a moon landing to deep sea treasure diving. He encountered Incans, Opium smugglers, opera singers, and whomever else happened to come into the path of his insatiable curiosity.
The young journalist’s constant companions were his terrier Snowy (“Milou” in the original version), the dim-witted detectives Thompson and Thomson (“Dupont” and “Dumond”), and Captain Haddock, the hands-down champion of creative swearing (his vocab ranged from the frequent “Billions of blue blistering barnacles!” to the more obscure “Bashi-bazouk!”)
Tintin first became an animated cartoon in 1963, and while the series was extremely popular in France and Belgium, it hardly aired at all in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1971, when syndication was offered a second time, that the American Tele-Features studio picked up the show.
Limited by its half-hour format (too short to relay the book’s complex adventures) and the basic animation of the studio, these cartoons weren’t able to acquire the same audience loyalty that the books had. In 1991, a new studio tried again, and the results were much improved.
production details
France – Belgium – Tele-Hatchette and Belvision Productions – NTA / Syndicated / 1963 – 1971
voice
Larry Harmon as Tintin
Paul Frees as all others
