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Spiff and Hercules
Based on
Pif le chien
by
Country of originFrance
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes130
Production
Running time13 minutes
Original release
NetworkTF1
ReleaseNovember 12 (1989-11-12) –
December 31, 1989 (1989-12-31)

Spiff and Hercules is a French comic strip titled featuring an anthropomorphic brown-yellow dog named Spiff and a black-white cat named Hercules, who, despite being best friends, are constantly fighting in a friendship/hate relationship. The character Spiff was created by José Cabrero Arnal for the French Communist Party newspaper L'Humanité on 28 March 1948 and the cat Hercules was introduced two years later.[1] The characters' nemesis is Krapulax, who despite his infant-like features always has a diabolical plot in store.[2]

Spiff later got his own magazine Pif Gadget, which was very popular as not only did it include several different comic strips, but offered a toy gadget in each issue. He was also the magazine's mascot. Hercules also got his own version of Spiff's magazine, this one called Super Hercules, but his magazine was more joke-oriented. A series of 65 26-minute animated cartoons featuring the characters was produced in 1989 by Europe Images/M5 in France.[1] Each program consisted of two episodes. United Kingdom television station Channel 4 aired the series in 1993.

The adventures of Spiff also appeared as Spiff and Hercules in English translation in the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker (later The Morning Star) until the mid-1970s.

Animated series

Episodes

Outsourced production work

International titles

References

  1. ^ a b LES CHIENS CELEBRES, Réels et Fictifs, dans l'Art, la Culture et l'Histoire. Lulu.com. 16 February 2015. ISBN 9781326035655.
  2. ^ Annessa Ann Babic Comics as History, Comics as Literature 1611475570 - 2013: "In the humoristic Spiff and Hercules series, after which the magazine took its name, Spiff the dog and Hercules the cat required the help of Professor Belpomme, an African scientist"
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