Good Night, Little Ones!

Good Night, Little Ones! (Russian: Спокойной ночи, малыши!, romanized: Spokoynoy nochi, malyshi!) is a long-running Russian-language children's television program. Continuously broadcast since 1964 (premiered during the Soviet era), it airs as of 2016 on the Carousel channel.

Good Night, Little Ones!
From left to right: Stepashka, Filya, and Khryusha
RussianСпокойной ночи, малыши!
GenreChildren's television
Created byAlexander Tatarsky, Eduard Uspensky
Written byAlexey Lebedev, Aleksandr Kurlyandsky, Felix Kamov, Arkady Khait, Alex Budovskiy, Denis Chervyachov, Vladimir Meerzon
Directed byDenis Chernov, Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin
Creative directorsAnatoliy Prokhorov, Fydor Ivanov
Presented byAnna Mikhalkova, Oxana Fedorova, Nikolai Valuev, Mikhail Porechenkov
Theme music composerArkady Ostrovsky
Ending themeTired toys are sleeping
Original languageRussian
No. of seasons55
Production
AnimatorsAlexander Davydov, Alexander Goncharov, Roman Kozich, Sergey Kuligin, Anna Golovina, Galina Sorokina
Release
Original networkCarousel
Original releaseSeptember 1, 1964 (1964-09-01)

The program's presenters have included Valentina Leontieva (in the 1960s and 1970s), Angelina Vovk, Tatyana Sudets and Tatyana Vedeneyeva (in the 1980s), Amayak Akopyan (in the 1996 and 2001). Current presenters (as of 2021) include Anna Mikhalkova (Nikita Mikhalkov's daughter), Oxana Fedorova, Nikolai Valuev and Mikhail Porechenkov.

Format

The format has remained relatively constant over the decades. The presenter (a recognisable news reader, actor, or public figure) is joined on-set by one or two puppet characters. The most regularly appearing puppets are Khryusha (a piglet - introduced on February 10, 1970), Stepashka (a hare, introduced in 1970), Philya (a dog, introduced in 1968), Karkusha (a crow, introduced in 1982) and Mishutka (a bear, introduced in 2002). The presenter engages the puppets in a short conversation or helps them to perform a quick activity such as cleaning up the puppets' toys, or learning a moral.

After few minutes the presenter introduces a short cartoon. The cartoon lasts about five minutes. In early 2006, however, American Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons were used on Fridays, and in 2007 and 2008, most nights featured an episode of Luntik, a cartoon produced by Melnitsa Animation Studio. If the cartoon is in another language it is dubbed into Russian, although the original language may still be audible.

After the cartoon the presenter and puppets return for a few seconds to say "Spokoinoi nochi, malyshi", or a variant thereof, and wave goodnight. The lullaby "Tired toys are sleeping" (Russian: «Спят усталые игрушки») opens and closes each segment, accompanied by elaborate clay animation. The lullaby itself was written by Arkady Ostrovsky and Zoya Petrova, while the animation was done by Aleksandr Tatarskiy in 1981.

In 1988, Fred Rogers had made a guest appearance on the show with Daniel Striped Tiger, as shown on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, during the weekly theme, "Nighttime".[1] Tatiana Vedeneyeva, who was the presenter at the time, appeared on Rogers' show later in the week and brought Stepashka with her.[2][3] Khryusha and other Russian puppet characters appear on the 1988 TV special Free to Be... a Family where they met the Muppets Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and others. Khryusha and Stepashka would later make cameo appearances in the 1989 Disney special Mickey Goes to Moscow.

From September 11 to September 14, 2001, and from April 15 to May 30, 2014, the show wasn't aired.

The show celebrated its 50th anniversary on September 1, 2014.[4] An anniversary concert was produced and screened on television.[5]

In November 2018, Khryusha was the spokesperson for Russia at the 16th annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Minsk, Belarus along with a girl named Dina. Khryusha returned at the 2019 contest as the spokesperson.[6]

See also
  • Tushite svet, a satirical TV program from the early 2000s featuring Khryusha and Stepashka grown to adulthood

References
  1. ""TV.com- Nighttime (2)"". Archived from the original on 2010-01-05. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
  2. "TV.com- Nighttime (4)"
  3. «Спокойной ночи…» переходит с ОРТ на «Культуру»
  4. В гостях у сказки
  5. "Любимой передаче малышей и их родителей в ушедшем году исполнилось 50 лет!". Archived from the original on 2018-10-16. Retrieved 2014-09-01.
  6. Granger, Anthony (22 November 2019). "Russia: Khryusha Revealed as Spokesperson for Junior Eurovision 2019". Eurovoix. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
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