Barbapapa, the splodgy pink cartoon character beloved by French schoolchildren and translated into 30 languages, has reached middle age.
The characters – Barbapapa is the father but also the name of the wider cartoon family – were created on 19 May 1970 by French architect and writer Annette Tison and her American partner Talus Taylor, who died last month in Paris aged 82.
Legend has it that the pair, living in Paris, were walking in the Luxembourg Gardens when Taylor heard a child asking his parents for something sounding like “baa baa baa baa”. Not speaking French, he asked Tison what the child wanted. She explained he was asking for “barbe-à-papa” (daddy’s beard), French for candy floss.
Sitting in a restaurant a few hours later, the couple began drawing the mostly pear-shaped characters that can change form, on the tablecloth. Their drawings, turned into a story book, were an instant success, later being made into nearly 100 five-minute television cartoons in the 1970s.
It was hard not to like the Barbapapa family with their persistent and contagious good humour and bright colours.
The clan includes the pink papa, the multi-talented black Barbamama, who, according to the official website likes to cook and clean but can also thankfully “build structures, repair dams and divert the lava of volcanoes”.
There are also seven children of various colours and shapes, and the family has a dog called Lolita.
Google.fr changed its logo on Tuesday to mark the 45th birthday.
