Ric the Raven (1989)

Personally speaking, while I happily accept cartoons with clever word-play and mad personalties, I've mostly favoured visual humour on account of it's so much fun and easier to draw or write. And in terms of storytelling, they get through scenes and gags much quicker than having characters over-explain everything. To coin a phrase: "Actions speak louder than words."

Pantomime cartoons have always had a great appeal to the International Market, spanning back as far as the Black-and-White days of Charlie Chaplin - given that they barely contain any dialogue to translate, it makes them very easy to air across the world. The Pink Panther, Nudnik, Tom and Jerry, Chuck Jones' Road Runner and Coyote...these would all knock the likes of Spongebob for six should one find wall-to-wall dialogue extremely taxing. They have also inspired many modern-day "silent" works such as Oggy and the Cockroaches, Bernard and even Scrat of Ice Age fame.

They also inspired King Rollo Films to create their own "silent" cartoon back in the late 80's. Co-produced by German Studios Ravensburger Films / Videal GmbH Production, it follows the adventures of Ric, an optimistic blue raven who, as with many characters that weren't limited to singular settings or "guidelines", was placed anywhere in a variety of roles - as a Pilot, a Viking, a Thief, a Knight and many others - where he somehow stumbles through even the simplest of jobs in a series of frantic "sqwarks". Along the way he was regularly assisted / pestered by a trio of short bearded men, who seem like a cross between Bill Oddie and the Oompa-Loompas...  =P

Ric's career started out as a series of 30-second shorts - as were most of King Rollo Films's shows at the time, these were animated in a "cut-out" style; similar to Oliver Postgate's Ivor the Engine, for example. Then soon after, Ric was extended to five-minute shorts with full hand-drawn animation. All in all, it's a terrific series, which features the sparkling talents of Duncan Lamont, David McKee and David Bull, and which follows the comical spirit of the Pink Panther / Looney Tunes very nicely.

Ric originally aired first on Channel 4, then GMTV Kids for ITV, and then Tiny Living for Satellite Television, but he remains very popular in Germany to this day - so much so that he even has his own Digital Channel plus Website, which also airs a variety of other European cartoons. Suffice to say, it's impressive how far that little Raven has flown since 1989!