Where is Mama

Where is Mama also known as Where's Mama, is a short Chinese animated film produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1960 under the artistic guidance of Te Wei. The narrated film describes the adventures and misadventures of a group of tadpoles in search of their mother. It is one of Te Wei's first attempts to break away from Western style animation and aim for a painterly style influenced by Qi Baishi and more in keeping with native Chinese aesthetic sensibilities. Because of its simple story line and repetitive script it is ideal for children who are beginning their study of the Chinese language.

The film tells the story of a frog mother who left after laying tadpole eggs. The tadpole eggs slowly grew tails and turned into a group of tadpoles. After the shrimp father-in-law described the characteristics of their mother, they decided to find her. Along the way, they mistook goldfish, crabs, turtles, and catfish for their mothers. Finally, the tadpoles finally found their mother.

In October 2021, Xigua Video and Volcano Engine announced that they would spend one year repairing 100 classic animations and use technology to restore these classic works to the greatest extent possible. "Tadpole Looking for Mom" has been fixed.

Since the beginning of the last century, traditional cultural elements such as Chinese painting, paper-cutting, and shadow puppets have been widely used in animation production. Popular domestic animations such as "Tadpole Looking for Mom" have attracted a large number of fans around the world.

Tadpole
After the tadpoles were born, they started to play around. They first met the chicks and saw the chicks and the chicken mother together. After being stimulated, they started to look for their mothers. They met first, the shrimp father-in-law asked about the appearance of the frog mother, and then met crabs, turtles, Goldfish, catfish, and finally meet the frog mother who rescues the tadpoles from the catfish.

chicken family
The chick and the tadpole became good friends, and then the mother chicken came to look for the chick. The tadpole thought of its mother and started looking for her.

Mr. Shrimp
The tadpoles met Father Shrimp first and asked him about their mother's appearance. Father Shrimp told them that their mother had two big eyes.

goldfish
Because they have two big eyes, the tadpoles happily call the goldfish "Mom" when they see it, but the goldfish says that the tadpole's mother has a white belly.

Crab
Because they have white bellies, when the tadpoles see a crab with a white belly, they all call the crab "Mom", but the crabs say that their mother only has four legs.

turtle family
Because it has four legs, the tadpoles saw that the turtle had exactly four legs and thought that the turtle was their mother. However, the little turtle said that this was its mother because it looked the same as the mother.