Hasta La Motion!

La Linea (“The Line”) is an Italian animated series of about 100 episodes created by Osvaldo Cavandoli in 1969. Due to its short duration (usually 2 minutes 30 seconds), it is often used as an interstitial program.

The cartoon features a man (known as “Mr. Linea” or, in some parts of Europe, “Balou”, as well as “Linus” in Sweden), drawn as a single outline around his silhouette, walking on an infinite line of which he is a part. The character encounters obstacles and often turns to the cartoonist to draw him a solution, with various degrees of success. One reoccurring obstacle was an abrupt end of line. The character would often almost fall off the edge into oblivion and get angry with the cartoonist and complain about it. He was voiced by Carlo Bonomi in Italian gibberish, giving the cartoon the possibility to be easily exported without dubbing. The voice resembles Pingu’s, the Swiss animated penguin, which was also voiced by Bonomi.