| Mr. Rossi | |
| First: | Un Oscar per il Signor Rossi (1960)[1] |
| Last: | Mr. Rossi's Vacation (1978) |
| Creator: | Bruno Bozzetto |
| Portrayer: | Carlo Romano, Giuseppe Rinaldi |
| Species: | Human |
| Gender: | Male |
| Nationality: | Italian |
Mr. Rossi (Italian: Signor Rossi) is a cartoon character created by Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto.[2] He was first seen in several short films, about ten minutes each. The show had a life span of 15 years with 6 episodes, 3 movies and 11 skits.[3]
In Italy, Rossi is the most common surname, suggesting to the Italian spectator that Mr. Rossi stands for the average Italian man and that he could be anyone. He also appears in a couple of feature length animations, including one where he is seen unhappy in life and single, until he befriends his neighbour's talking dog Harold (Gastone in its original Italian) and a witch who grants him wishes, where they have many exciting adventures. In Italy the show was known as Il Signor Rossi cerca la felicità, whilst in English-speaking countries it was known as The Fantastic Adventures of Mr. Rossi (where it was broken down into a TV series for children's TV) or Mr. Rossi Looks for Happiness.
In the United States, Mr. Rossi has become known not only as a children's film, but also as a cult "druggie" film for its psychedelic coloring, jokes and mushroom references. The recent adoption of the Mr. Rossi series to the "druggie" culture is not unlike what has happened to other classic children's films.
The Mr. Rossi short films were as follows (original Italian titles in parentheses):
These short films contained no spoken dialogue and any captions to accompany the film usually appeared in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German.
The feature length Mr. Rossi films include:
In 1975, there was a short mini series called Mr. Rossi's Sporting Feats. It contained 11 episodes and each one was two minutes long approximately. Each episode focused on Mr. Rossi attempting to partake in one sport, with very unusual results.
These episodes featured the following:
In Bruno Bozzetto's 1976 feature-length film Allegro non troppo, Mr. Rossi briefly appears in an animation embedded in a live-action sequence.