The Little Mole

He's on a quest... for pants!

In today’s header gif, we are watching a bit from the 1957 cartoon short How Mole Got His Trousers (Jak krtek ke kalhotkám přišel) by Czech animator Zdeněk Miler. This, the first of the “Little Mole” (Krtek) series, won the award for the best directing achievement during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It’s quite sweet, and the settings are beautifully rendered.

The short opens with the mole digging out of his burrow, several treasures in hand. When he finds more useful things, he realizes he cannot carry them all; but he spies a pair of overalls and realizes this is what he needs to port his treasures. After unsuccessfully attempting to enlist some of his animal neighbors to retrieve the trousers, his friends the flowers remind him that that fabric can be woven from flax. The mole then engages the bugs and beasties in all the steps to make and weave flax fabric. It’s very detailed in all of the steps, and fun to watch the fabric and eventually the trousers take shape.

Miler created 63 Little Mole cartoons between 1957 to 2002. Intending the cartoons to be child-friendly and internationally understood, he scripted the action to be dialogue-free beyond short greetings and exclamations, using his own daughters as voice actors. The series became an international hit, popular throughout Europe and Asia. The Little Mole is a well-known and well-loved bit of nostalgia in particular for Czech citizens, with the character appearing on all manner of toys and trinkets. The mole has even appeared on the side of Formula 1 race cars thanks to a 2019 partnership with Alpha Romero Racing. US astronaut Andrew J. Feustel, whose wife is of Czech ancestry, carried a Little Mole plushie with him on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2011 (the stuffed toy was modified to NASA specifications required for on-board space travel). This makes the Little Mole the first ever animated character sent to space… with or without trousers.

Kafkadesk: "The mole, the myth, the legend: The story of Krtek" by Kafkadesk Prague Office, 8/3/20

The Big Cartoon Database: Krtek

Wikipedia: The Little Mole

IMDB: Krtek