Charlie Chaplin to be CG animated in India Charlie Chaplin to be CG animated in India

You know this can’t be good. A press release from Mumbai brings news of a new television series to be based on legendary screen comedian Charlie Chaplin:

Charlie Chaplin is to be brought to life as a cartoon character via an Indian-French collaboration that will see the legendary British comedian featured in an animated television series. DQ Entertainment, an animation and special effects firm based in the southern city of Hyderabad, says it is to reproduce the entertainer’s slapstick in 3D and computer-generated images for television.

The eight-million-euro (11.5-million-dollar) project is a joint venture with French media groups Method Animation and MK2, according to the companies. Further details were set to be announced by DQ Entertainment at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday. DQ and Method Animation will make a total of 104 six-minute episodes in India and France, Method’s chairman Aton Soumache told AFP in Paris last November. The animated shorts — aimed at children aged six and above — will not have any dialogue and are set to hit screens from early next year.

“We’ve been working for more than a year on the graphics concept to find an original way of adapting Chaplin’s world,” said Soumache. “It won’t be a realistic portrayal but more like a puppet in an offbeat universe. We’ll put him in modern situations but at the same keeping his poetic, child-like view of the world with a retro feel.” The episodes have been inspired by sketches and gags culled from some 70 short films made by Chaplin involving his trademark bowler-hatted vagabond character sporting a toothbrush moustache, ill-fitting suit and twirling cane. But there will also be original content, Soumache added.

Hoo-boy! I predict disaster. I doubt it will be even half as good as Edna, the 2005 short film by two students from SupInfoCom (Arles, France), or even an Otto Messmer Chaplin cartoon from the teens:

Jerry Beck

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