Gena the Crocodile – composer Yan Frenkel
According to Uspensky, Crocodile Gena borrowed character traits and style from composer Jan Frenkel. The author expressed the following from the stage in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Children’s Literature publishing house in 1983:
“Dear friends, I will now reveal to you a terrible secret in which the Crocodile Gena was written. He is sitting here in front of you. Yan Abramovich, please get up.” The composer stood up and greeted the audience.
Dolls from the cartoon “Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena” at the exhibition of the film studio “Soyuzmultfilm”, 2010
Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS
In an interview later published in the book City of Masters. In his article titled “Conversations on the Fundamentals,” Uspensky noted that he mentioned the similarities between Frenkel and Gena more than once:
“We worked with him once, he helped my crocodile acquire very specific human qualities, right down to his gait. By the way, Yang knew this and was not offended.
Like Gena of Crocodile, Frenkel was very shy and sympathetic. While he wrote music in a shared flat for a long time, he is known to have helped his friends buy an unordered flat.
Cheburashka – a defective toy
According to Uspensky, the prototype of Cheburashka was an imperfect children’s toy, resembling a rabbit and a teddy bear at the same time. And the author revealed the story of creating a funny character name in an interview with KP in 2006.
“I came to visit a friend years ago,” Ouspensky said. – Her three-year-old daughter appeared in front of me in a fur coat … She put on something new and immediately fell, taking a step. And dad: “Well, cheburahna!” The word sank into my soul, and when the eared hero appeared, I immediately gave him a name – Cheburashka.
Igor Gnevashev/Global Look Press
Artist Leonid Shvartsman gave the animal large ears and round eyes. He noted that the creation of the image of Cheburashka took almost half of the entire preparation time for the shooting – two and a half months out of five. Rumor has it that the animal’s face may have been copied from cartoonist Rosalia Zelma.
Shapoklyak – the first wife of the writer Rimma Uspenskaya
Uspensky said in an interview with Vozdukh that the prototype of the evil old woman Shapoklyak was his first wife Rimma, with whom he studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute. Before that, there were rumors that the author wrote the hero from his mother.
“No… More like a wife,” Ouspensky said. “It is generally believed that a man chooses his wife according to the pattern of the mother. My mother was a pretty naughty aunt. So maybe she was a good aunt, but we had three kids, she loved the eldest and the youngest, and I passed her on without love. According to this type, I chose a wife that I do not like for myself. And I could be writing since my first wife. He is so strict, disgusting, harmful.
In a conversation with Izvestia in 2007, Uspensky described his ex-wife as follows: “The lady is harmful in every way. Now I wonder how we managed to live together for 18 years. The author added that Shapoklyak also has his own characteristics: “My character is not like an angel either.”
“Soyuzmultfilm”
Shapoklyak Uspensky named the old woman in honor of the men’s headdress of the same name – a compactly collapsible cylinder. Artist Leonid Shvartsman, who drew the heroine for the cartoon, relied on the pictures of his mother-in-law and the hat.
“A certain image helped me when creating the old woman Shapoklyak. In an interview with MK, Shvartsman first gave a hint of the word “shapoklyak” itself: this is a folding top hat, 19th century, jabot, white cuffs, – he said. – The appearance of my mother-in-law also played an important role here. She was a woman of “then”, she had gray hair, a gray bun. I just stuck out his nose, malicious and made his eyes cunning. In general, this character was born quite quickly.
Cat Matroskin – Anatoly Taraskin, editor of the “Wick” newsreel
The prototype of Cat Matroskin was Anatoly Taraskin, editor of the Wick film magazine, an old friend of Uspensky. Like the character in the fairy tale “Uncle Fyodor, the Dog and the Cat”, Taraskin was distinguished by his cleanliness and prudence. Ouspensky initially wanted to name the cat after a friend, but persuaded him not to do so.
Cat Matroskin from the cartoon “Three from Prostokvashino”
“Soyuzmultfilm”
The story was first filmed in 1975, but the cartoon did not become famous. The images of Matroskin and other characters gained fame thanks to Vladimir Popov’s trilogy “Three from Prostokvashino” (1978), “Holidays in Prostokvashino” (1980) and “Winter in Prostokvashino” (1984).
Uncle Fyodor’s mother – actress Larisa Myasnikova
The author did not mention the date of creation of the character of Uncle Fyodor’s mother. But the artist Levon Khachatryan his well-known appearance in a series of cartoons about Prostokvashina, which he copied from his wife Larisa Myasnikova.
Uncle Fyodor’s mother
“Soyuzmultfilm”
“Small, short hair, with glasses. Popov made his corrections… Points. In my sketch, my wife wore round, but Popov thought the square ones were better,” Khachatryan later said.
Myasnikova was dissatisfied with the way her husband portrayed the heroine on the screen. He expressed hope that Uncle Fyodor’s mother would not be associated with him because he would “never wear glasses like this”.
Source: Gazeta
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.