La Linea

This show was sent on children's TV in Norway (under the name "Streken" ("The Line")), and is therefore of nostalgic value to me. When I recently came by some online videos of this old cartoon, I discovered that La Linea can still be funny.

I like this show, it's brilliantly put together: The simplexly drawn character and his environments and the constant drawing hand interfering the history.

The plot is quite trite. The little guy walks on a straight line and runs into various problems (such as a hole in the ground or an object he can play with). If there's an obstacle, the cartoon yells at the drawer, and he (the drawer) promptly draws a solution. A lot of nonsense happens in the episodes, and it doesn't seem to always be any clear red lines the story follows.

The little fellow is enormously moody; he gets angry very easily, but is just as quick happy again if he likes the solution the cartoonist draws him. It's interesting how the background colour changes depending on La Linea's mood (blue when happy, red when angry).

Although the show originally is Italian (the creator is Italian), it works in every language. As far as I know, La Linea doesn't speak any actual words, but my rediscovery of him made me aware that he babbles with an Italian accent.