Taotao (TV series)

Taotao (タオタオ絵本館) is an anime series that aired for a total of 52 episodes on TV Osaka. The first series aired from October 7, 1983 through March 30, 1984. A second series with the same title was aired from October 9, 1984 through April 9, 1985. Prior to the TV series, an anime film was released on December 26, 1981. It is not specified if the series are intended to be connected with the film and, if so, if the series take place before the movie or after it (e.g. in another realm). They were produced as a Chinese-Japanese-German venture and directed by Shuichi Nakahara and Tatsuo Shimamura.

The series is about the eponymous Taotao, a small panda. In the stories, Taotao has adventures with his animal friends and listens to the stories of his mother, the mother panda.

The theme music of the series was composed by the Czech Karel Svoboda.

International broadcast
The series has been shown in Finnish on the Yleisradio channels. The series was narrated in Finnish by Inkeri Wallenius over the German soundtrack of the Austrian ORF television channel.

The series was also broadcast in Israel where it was dubbed into Hebrew and its theme was sung in Hebrew by the singer Ilanit.

In Greece, the series was broadcast in the 1980s on the TV channel ET1 in Greek.

In the late 1980s it was broadcast in Afrikaans in South Africa. The anime was also broadcast in the early 1990s multiple times as تاو' تاو' and is still popular in the Arab world.

The series was also broadcast in Albania in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Meanwhile, Albania's communist prime minister Adil Çarçani was informally referred to as Tao Tao by the Albanian dissidents during the protests leading to the fall of communism in Albania.

The series has been shown in French in French Canada on Télévision de Radio-Canada and in France from 1987 on FR3.

1987 was also the year the show originally aired in Portugal.

During 1992, with the collaboration of CFI from France, Vietnam Television dubbed the series to Vietnamese for their children program "Những bông hoa nhỏ".

DVDs

 * Taotao 1-4
 * Story about a crow who wanted to look like a woodpecker
 * Story about a rabbit who beat a lion
 * Story about a self-righteous snake
 * Story about three puffy frog sisters
 * Taotao 5-8
 * Story about the crocodile king and his sick wife
 * Story about a rabbit who started a big rumour
 * Story about a white camel
 * Story about a careful bat
 * Taotao 9-12
 * Story about a vain vulture
 * Story about the moving day of the birds
 * Story about the adventure of the small fish
 * Story about the wedding party of the fairies
 * Taotao 13-16
 * Story about unusual friends
 * Story about the difficult problem that troubled the mouse
 * Story about the selfish weather vane
 * Story about the discontent butterfly
 * Taotao 17-21
 * Story about three little pigs
 * Story about a zebra
 * Story about a rainbow bird
 * Story about a small dog and a big bone
 * Story about a babbling turtle
 * Taotao 22-26
 * Story about an ugly duckling
 * Story about an owl and the north wind
 * Story about the cat in boots
 * Story about the gift of a fish
 * Story about the missing fairies

In popular culture
The Finnish band Guava published the Taotao theme music as a single in 2003.