Yep, in a couple of days, "Star Trek" fans may indeed be seeing the last of the crew of the Enterprise-D forever. It was an intriguing run with a fully human Data, an evil and hammy Changeling, an antagonistic Starfleet captain and the Borg queen. Ah, speaking of Changelings...way before them and even good ol' Constable Odo on Deep Space Nine, I knew of another group of shapeshifters.
Growing up in Canada in the 1970s, I had my usual viewings of cartoons from Hanna-Barbera, Walt Disney, Warner Bros. and Filmation. However on Saturday afternoons on the French channel CBLFT-25, I used to watch the oh-so-calming "Barbapapa" (further enhanced by the original soundtrack and the wonderful theme song) created by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor as a children's book in 1970. Even then, my French ability was non-existent but it was still pleasant viewing the big pink and friendly guy make his way through the world changing himself (Clickety-click, Barba-trick!) and the lives of his friends. Then he settled down to have a family with Barbamama. We eventually got the English dub of "Barbapapa" on the Buffalo ABC affiliate, so I could finally figure out what was going on, including what all of the Barba kids' names were.
Years later when I was living in Japan, I learned to my surprise that "Barbapapa" wasn't just a beloved North American and European example of animation. The shapeshifting family had its fans in my ancestors' nation by showing up in commercials, such as the one above for Sekisui House (I was rather snarky and thought it sounded like Sexy House). It was sure nice of the Barba Family to sell a house for which most people would end up passing the remaining mortgage payments to their descendants.
"Barbapapa" made its first foray onto Japanese TV screens in 1977. The broadcast over there had its own opening credit sequence and theme song, and as I mentioned above, I always enjoyed the original adorable theme song. The one for the Japanese version, "Barba Family no Uta" (The Barba Family Song), is just a little too kiddie for me, though, as if it's practically demanding that the moppets stand up and march around the living room to the music.
"Barba Family no Uta" was performed by seiyuu Noriko Ohara（小原乃梨子）and Kaneta Kimotsuki（肝付兼太）with lyricist Zenzo Matsuyama（松山善三）and composer Chuuji Kinoshita（木下忠司）. Apparently, the series had a couple of other runs following the 1977 season in 1995 and 1999.
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