The Red and the Blue (Il Rosso e il Blu) is an Italian stop-motion animated series for children. It has two clay animated characters, antagonistic shapeshifters, one colored red, the other blue.
The show sets the two characters in an undifferentiated white plane in which they interact. They are able to assume various forms at will, for example in one episode The Blue becomes a boat while The Red becomes an island, later the Blue becomes a suitcase while The Red partially converts his body into a chest-of-drawers, filling the suitcase with red 'clothes'.
Misseri's website describes the situation as: Two blocks of clay. The Red is big and passionate; he like driving fast cars, eating... enjoying all the pleasures of life. The blue is small, smart and cunning, and he's there just to bother the red.
The characters communicate in a prelingual form that conveys emotions without using any particular language. This avoided the need for translation or subtitles. Francesco Misseri describes the language "non-verbal" and "onomatopoeic" on the website and in a comment on YouTube.
The series was written and directed by Francesco Misseri with music by Piero Barbetti. In Australia it was first broadcast on the ABC. In the United States, it first aired in 1976 on Captain Kangaroo on CBS.
Episodes
1976 series
The Car
The Little Plant
The Gun
The Suitcase
The Opera
The Slot-Machine
The Umbrella
The Imitator
the Tv Set
2005 series
The Policeman
The Tap
Popular culture
The Red and The Blue lookalike characters appears in one Play-Doh commercial in Australia back in 1997, except the colours for the characters were changed as Green and Red.