Once Upon a Cartoon: Let’s Talk About the Foreign Animations We Loved

When the melody of “Astroboy” begins to play, and the familiar voice of Ikkyu-san whispers,  “Let’s take a little break”, childhood memories flood back like a rising tide. The event “Once Upon a Cartoon: Let’s Talk About the Foreign Animations We Loved” will take those born in the 70s, 80s, and some 90s back to the golden age of watching dubbed animations.  Pull up a chair with animation history expert Guanzhong Afu and dredge up the screen memories that time has quietly tucked away.

The event’s keynote speaker, Guanzhong Afu, is a “walking encyclopedia” of China’s animation-import history. As the chief editor of “Tales of Childhood: Dubbed Animated Series in China (1979–1992),” he and his team spent eight years interviewing over 130 industry professionals and consulting materials from more than twenty libraries, reconstructing the golden age of dubbed animation with nearly a million Chinese characters.

Starting from the first foreign animated series broadcast on CCTV, he will take us through more than 100 overseas animation classics from 1979 to 1999: the inside story of importing “Ikkyu-san,” the fun anecdotes of dubbing “Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” and the nationwide frenzy that greeted the premiere of Transformers… Those familiar animations hold so many untold stories!