Culturally appropriate kids' television

I caught an interesting piece on the radio recently about how Russian television adapted Sesame Street, an American kids' educational program, back in the early 90s. An American producer, already living and working in Russia, worked with Russian state TV to help put Sesame Street on air. The path to muppets in Russia wasn't a straightforward one, unfortunately. The Russians in charge of the adaptation needed to be persuaded to use Henson's creations as his puppets (Muppets) did not fit the puppet aesthetic already long since established in Russia. When it was finally agreed that Henson's muppets were to be used, not all characters from the American show made the grade. 

For instance, Oscar the Grouch, a slightly unkempt misanthrope who lives in a trash can, was a strict 'no' for the Russians as it was thought that kids might get the wrong idea and want to jump into garbage bins like Oscar. Life in Russia in the immediate years following the fall of the Iron Curtain was most certainly chaotic, but would children have actually gone bin diving? Maybe...?

Standing around 8' tall with yellow plumage, Big Bird, on the other hand, was not axed but remade into an image that would more align with Russian folklore. The creature Big Bird became is mostly blue and covered in bits of moss and twigs. His name is Zeliboba and he is a spirit about 7-8 feet tall who can smell sounds. If you ask me, Z. sounds less like a children's muppet and more like some scraggly dude selling 'schrooms at a Dead show.

Here is the spirit, Zeliboba:

Zeliboba, like our Big Bird, is meant to be a child.

And here is my childhood TV-friend, Oscar the Grouch, with Ernestine aka Lily Tomlin:

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy.

I first learned of Germany's Sesame Street adaptation, Sesamstraße, when living as a study-abroad-student in SW Germany in the mid-90s. A handful of the muppets from the US version of the show were incorporated into Sesamstrasse like the child-like Big Bird, a full-sized muppet. In the German show he's known as Bibo & he speaks in an adult voice. I remember thinking how funny that in a language valued for its compound nouns & literal descriptions Big Bird--who literally is a very big bird--would not be known as Grosser Vogel (literally: big bird). I now see that such a name would not translate well for the German-watching populace because Grosser Vogel would probably simply read as an accurate description and not a sort of fun and alliterative name as it is in English. 

Left: Big Bird's 'cousin' from Mexico's version of Sesame Street; right: Big Bird