I can see that a genuine effort was made, but this is still my least favourite of the three films (I think the first is still the best, and each subsequent one took away some of what made it so memorable).

Personally, I was disappointed with this one and think it's the weakest film by Pekar that I've seen so far. There are some interesting visual designs, but the plot is barely there ("two Korean aristocrats are in love and get married, then a dragon threatens the land and the lady sacrifices herself which somehow defeats it"?), the characters don't seem in any way real, and the scene changes are plodding. The film he made next year is way better.

Like a fair number of other films of Bardin's, this one is about the nastier side of human nature. However, there isn't too much humour here to soften things.

Interesting (and I think generally accurate) review of the series from a comment on RuTracker (transkriptase, Jun 13, 2014):

[The summary says] "Introduces children to the simplest concepts of the world around them."

Lol... this cartoon will "introduce" them all right... I can't stop laughing... Still, this one should be watched by those who are not so young, who will understand where the cartoon characters are, so to speak, not in the right. :)

But generally speaking, I recommend this most of all to adults - children's psychology is shown very subtly, and at the same time without any tediousness and with humor - where else can you find something like that? ;)

However, I don't remember the last two cartoons very well - I deleted them from my hard drive when I downloaded them last time. I was very disappointed. Unlike the first ones, they seemed to be just empty and stupid fuss. I'll watch them again now. Maybe I'll delete them again. :) Or maybe not...

But the first three (or four, since the third one is "two in one") are very good. Especially the first two, where Long Ears himself narrates everything that happens. But the following "two in one" cartoon is also excellent, you keep seeing real children instead of animals. :) Moreover, although all the characters start talking in their own voices [in that film], they are voiced by the same actress.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Downloaded them, watched them. Well, the impression from last time was correct. The last two cartoons are total stinkers. It is as if other people made them under the name of the previous authors, clumsily trying to plagiarize and repeat the style of the original.

But they apparently misunderstood something. For one, that the previous cartoons had meaning, and were not just about fooling around with doll figures. [In those last cartoons] they came up with meaningless and relentless crap.

My own impressions are similar - the first two are very good, the third isn't as good, and the last two are terrible, despite being made by the same creative team. They also changed the puppets, and Long Ears started looking far less charming.

I actually added this because it appeared on r/tipofmytongue recently. Apparently it was dubbed and shown on Swedish television. Processed the audio through Audapolis, and it turned out to not have much dialogue, so it didn't take that long.

The studio was falling apart at the time, but this isn't a bad film. I also like the other ones by the director that I've seen - none are flawless or award-winning, but they're all at least memorable.

A faithful, but slow and unimaginative adaptation, I think... not the best of Aksenchuk's films.
A much weirder adaptation of Krylov's "The Crow and the Fox" can be found in Irina Smirnova's The Song of the Cheese Spirit (1997) and (though it uses completely different text, aside from mocking the whole thing) Aleksandr Tatarskiy's Plasticine Crow (1981).
A much weirder adaptation of "The Cuckoo and the Rooster" can be found in Andrey Hrzhanovskiy's In the World of Fables (1973).

This one has an excellent first half, but I think that when the grandfather's story starts, the film becomes overtly propagandistic in a way that feels alienating in 2024. This could have been avoided if the director had simply stuck to Gaidar's original story, in which the grandfather's story has the same gist as here, but is more personal, which makes it more timeless. The focus is less on large-scale politics and the fight against "capitalists", but on the personal experience of a man who fought for what he believed in, suffered for it, but triumphed together with his comrades. And that makes it relatable even if the political cause is not.

Here's the relevant segment from the original story, translated:

— You, of course, thought that I was old, lame, ugly and unhappy, — the old man said to Ivashka. — But in fact, I am the happiest man in the world.

A blow from a log broke my leg — but that was when we — still ineptly — knocked down fences and built barricades, raised an uprising against the tsar, whom you have only seen in a painting.

They knocked out my teeth — but that was when, thrown into prison, we sang revolutionary songs together. A saber cut my face in battle — but that was when the first people's regiments were already beating and smashing the White enemy army.

On the straw, in a low, cold barracks, I tossed and turned in delirium, sick with typhus. And the words that our country was surrounded and the enemy force was defeating us sounded more menacing than death. But, waking up with the first ray of the sun shining again, I learned that the enemy had been defeated again and that we were again advancing.

And, happy, we stretched out our bony hands to each other from bunk to bunk and timidly dreamed then that, even if we never lived to see it, that after us our country would become as it is now - mighty and great. Is this, foolish Ivashka, not happiness?! What do I need another life for, another youth, if mine was difficult, but clear and honest?

Here the old man fell silent, took out his pipe and lit it.

This film is the reason why I love Tallinnfilm. :)

Here's the full "EconJobRumours" translation of the poem, that I saw back in 2021. I'm posting it here because the URL is now dead and I can't find it anywhere else. I figure it should be preserved at least somewhere online. It's a rather "spicy" version, more so than the Russian text, I'd say. But interesting.


Mayakovsky - Black and White (1925)

Economist
0e1a

Not much has changed:

A glimpse
at Havana
bright from the windows
A sunland
under the palms stand
red shadows,
the one legged flamingoes;
and bloom
collarlos
In high toned
Vedado.
Of frontiers
Havana
no lack;
Dollars bound the white man,
bare pockets the black.
And so
Willie stands flush
with his brush
before Henry Clay
& Co.
Enough splinters
and fluff
to stock a dead forest
Has black Willie brushed
his lean living
to win.
That's why Willie's hair
off has been harassed
And his belly
brushed in.

Dreams dwarf In cramped beds --
thin phantoms of joy --
Sometimes a thief
or a wharf gang chief
throws a cent
to the "boy."
No escape from the dirt shoveling shoe.
if only
man walked
on his head?--
All the worse !
More dirt
would be spread.
Hairs are a thousand,
feet only two.
Sparkles
and sputters
a three mile jazz.
Straight and ahead
slick boulevards spin.
"Ah here," his mind
the dim thought
has,
the veritable
Eden
must have been.
No subtleties coil
in Willie's
brain,
where little was sown
and little grown;
but one thing's cut
far in
by pain --
(Not deeper
the words indent
the stone of Maseo's
monument)
"White man eats fruit
that's ripe
and firm;
black man
shares his
with the worm.
In fair hands
fair work
parks;
on dark hands
falls the dark."
No great queries worried Willie
but one question
had him stumped.
How that question
drilled through Willie ·--
When it stuck him,
willy-nilly,
from his arm
the big brush
slumped.

Too bad that
just then
heaved his way
toward the King of Cigars
Henry Clay,
in pluperfect whiteness
and big jowl wag,
his royal
sugar highness
Mr. Bragg.
Up to the fat one
runs the
'n***er':
"Beg yo' pardon
Mr. Bragg,
Aint it funny
yo' lily white
sugar
Black man makes and puts it in the bag
With yo' white color
black cigar's sho'
out o' place;
goes lots better
on the black man's
face.
Sugar in yo' coffee?--
Help yo'self,
help;
Be so kind, sir
make it
yo'self."
To flaming yellow
suddenly
the royal whiteness burns.

Here such a question
never goes.
The king does what
each white lord
learns;
then from his hands
his soiled gloves
throws.
Shaky Willie wipes his hand
across his drawers
across his stern.
Broad red smears
he leaves there from
his bloody nose.
Painful sniffs he draws up with
his Injured organ.
Don't ask no questions
of a
gorgon.
One hand on his brush
Willy
presses,
the other to
his bruised cheek
goes.

That such questions
one addresses
To Comintern,
Moscow,
how should Willie
know?

A pretty formulaic children's film that I think is far less interesting than the director's previous films made in the Soviet era.