Scandalous glory of the cartoon "Last year's snow was falling": How the censors almost brought the director to a heart attack
Scandalous glory of the cartoon "Last year's snow was falling": How the censors almost brought the director to a heart attack

Video: Scandalous glory of the cartoon "Last year's snow was falling": How the censors almost brought the director to a heart attack

Video: Scandalous glory of the cartoon
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Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

The cartoon by Alexander Tatarsky about a foolish peasant who went into the forest in search of a Christmas tree has been an indispensable attribute of the New Year holidays for 35 years. Today it is difficult to imagine why in the 1980s. Tatarsky's humor was not just not appreciated, but did not even want to release the cartoon on screens. After accusations of Russophobia and mockery of the Soviet people, the author found himself in a pre-infarction state …

Animation director Alexander Tatarsky
Animation director Alexander Tatarsky

Tatarsky had problems with censorship while working on the first cartoon - "The Plasticine Crow". He was allowed to film it on an exceptional basis - for helping to develop animated screensavers for the 1980 Olympics on television. But when the cartoon was ready, it was banned from showing with the wording “ideologically unprincipled”. The situation was saved by Eldar Ryazanov and Ksenia Marinina, who at that time were working on the Kinopanorama program - despite the ban, they released the cartoon on the air.

Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

The animator's acknowledged success was the intro to the program "Good night, kids!" Inspired by this success, Tatarsky set about creating a new cartoon - "Last Year's Snow Was Falling", written by Sergei Ivanov. And here the censors had even more complaints. The author recalled: "". The peasant seemed to them to be a fool and an idiot, and the plot was a mockery of all the people. In some places, the cartoon had to be re-dubbed and re-edited. The cartoonist admitted that at the final delivery of "Snow" he had a pre-infarction state.

The censors saw a mockery of the Soviet people in the idiot peasant
The censors saw a mockery of the Soviet people in the idiot peasant
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

Composer Grigory Gladkov, who wrote the music for the cartoon, explained the authors' intention: "".

Composer Grigory Gladkov
Composer Grigory Gladkov

At first it was planned that there would be no text at all in the cartoon, only exclamations "Oh" and "Ah". But the studio management demanded to "clarify this nonsense" and insisted that the plot be more specific. Alexander Tatarsky, together with screenwriter Sergei Ivanov, began to come up with replicas of the heroes. Many phrases from the cartoon, which later went to the people, had to be defended with battle. For example, sedition was seen in the phrase "" In the replicas of the protagonist, the censors imagined encrypted messages.

Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

In the work on the image of a peasant from the people, telephone pranks, which the authors were once fond of, helped. Grigory Gladkov said: "".

Stanislav Sadalsky, who voiced the cartoon
Stanislav Sadalsky, who voiced the cartoon

The problems continued after the cartoon was ready. Actor Stanislav Sadalsky was invited to dub, but his name had to be removed from the credits. The fact is that Sadalsky grew up in an orphanage and all his life tried to find his relatives. In the mid-1970s. he managed to find a great-aunt who had emigrated to Germany in 1917. When they finally managed to meet, Sadalsky was forbidden to travel abroad for communicating with a foreign woman, and as a punishment his name was ordered to be removed from the cartoon's credits. Although the audience immediately recognized his voice.

The censors saw a mockery of the Soviet people in the idiot peasant
The censors saw a mockery of the Soviet people in the idiot peasant
Animation director Alexander Tatarsky
Animation director Alexander Tatarsky

The paradoxical phrase “Last year's snow was falling” seemed to Tatarsky the ideal name for a cartoon with absurd humor, especially since he found a quite logical explanation for this phrase - “last year's” can be considered the snow that fell on December 31st. Stanislav Sadalsky recalled: "".

Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

As a result, the cartoon "Last Year's Snow Was Falling" was finally released on New Year's Eve 1984. Later he became a recognized classic of Soviet animation and one of the most famous works of Alexander Tatarsky. Based on the cartoon, 2 computer games were released, which were also voiced by Stanislav Sadalsky.

Animation director Alexander Tatarsky
Animation director Alexander Tatarsky

During the discussion of the final musical theme, the animator asked the composer Grigory Gladkov to write a piercing melody: "". In 2007, the director passed away - at the age of 56, his heart stopped, and, according to his will, the music from his most famous cartoon was played at the funeral.

Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983
Shot from the cartoon Last year's snow was falling, 1983

Another famous writer and screenwriter Eduard Uspensky faced similar difficulties when creating his cartoons: how Soviet officials found sedition in stories about Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena.

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