Insignia of this television program, featuring the titular character Moonzy, and his friends Skip, Weebee, and Dottie
Moonzy and his Friends, also known as simply Moonzy, or by its old name The Adventures of Moonzy and his Friends (Russian title: Лунтик и его друзья), is a Russian animated TV program/series, broadcast on television from September 1st of 2006 and is still on air and in production. It revolves around the adventures of the titular character Moonzy, a space alien who was born on the Moon.
The action takes place in a forest near a large pond. Most of the characters are small insects, fish, frogs, etc. They represent adults and children. The main characters are children, primarily Moonzy himself, with whom various adventures happen, during which they learn about the world and learn relationships in society.
In its first English version of the series, the television series' name is Luntik, like in the original Russian version.
History[]
The idea for the animated series Moonzy arose around 2004—2005 and belonged to the director of the Melnitsa animation studio, Alexander Boyarsky. The original concept was very different from what we see now: the main characters had different names (Khrustik, Eroshka, Little Dragon, amongst others), and the main action of the cartoon took place in an abandoned estate. In addition to the main character, there were characters who were not insects; they were the Cat and the Raven (later, the raven character still appeared in the series, albeit as Skip's fantasy hero in the episode “Big”).
Boyarsky came up with this concept together with director Konstantin Bronzit and producer Sergei Selyanov. ALong with him, the creators came to screenwriter Anna Sarantseva (also known as a children's writer under the pseudonym Sarra Anson). Under the leadership of Sarantseva, decisions were made that shaped the final concept of the animated series and made it special. A little later, artist and director Darina Shmidt created the first sketches of the characters, and then it was decided to concentrate all the company’s resources on the development of the project. Closer to 2006, most of the creative team of the animated series gathered: from animators to sound engineers. At the same time, the final Russian name for Moonzy arose: Khrustik began to be called Luntik.
The premiere of the animated series took place on the Rossiya-1 television channel, on the program “Good night, kids” in 2006. The general director of the TV channel, Anton Zlatopolsky, liked the concept of the project and ordered the creation of new episodes of the animated series.
New episodes were released quite quickly, and since 2007, Moonzy began to appear regularly on VGTRK television channels (TV channels “Rossiya”, “Rossiya Kultura” and “Bibigon”), and then on other channels.
Production and broadcast[]
The series is produced by Melnitsa Animation Studio. The entire production process is carried out in digital format using modern computer animation technologies. The studio's creative team consists of about 100 specialists working on graphics stations for 2D and 3D animation.
The first season of the animated series was created from the summer of 2005 to the fall of 2006, with the old 2D computer animation technologies. The first season aired from September 1, 2006 to January 26, 2007. The number of episodes in said season was 80.
The Melnitsa studio, as planned, continued to work on the animated series and, from the end of 2006 to the summer of 2007, produced the second season, and its broadcast began on June 4, 2007, ended on October 26, 2007. The production technology remained unchanged (2D animation). The number of episodes in said season was 50.
The third season began production at the end of 2007. Remarkably, production technology changed from 2D to partial 3D animation (only character models became three-dimensional, locations remained in 2D). This was probably due to low finances. The season was broadcast from April 14, 2008 to December 23, 2008. The bulk of the episodes were filmed in 2008. The number of episodes in said season was 60.
The fourth season was created in 2008—2009. At the moment, this season is the largest in the 3D animated series in terms of the number of episodes, which was 69. Season 4 was broadcast from December 28, 2008 to July 3, 2009, including bonus episodes.
The fifth season of the animated series was created in 2009. It was broadcast from October 12, 2009 to March 22, 2010. The number of episodes in said season was 62 . Presumably, work on the fifth season was carried out simultaneously with the sixth, since the episode Weather Forecast was the only one in this season that was created in 2009, and the remaining episodes were created in 2010—2011. The broadcast was continuous, that is, the show of the fifth season ended and the show of the sixth season immediately began.
The sixth season was created in 2010—2011; accordingly it broadcast from March 23, 2010 to January 31, 2011. Number of episodes: 68 . The last five episodes: “Bodyguard”, “Detective”, “Savvy”, “A Surprise for Granny Annie” and “The Secret of Victory”, were supposed to be episodes of the new seventh season, but in connection with the start of production of a new television series from Melnitsa, an animated series The Barkers, also known as The Barboskins or The Pooches. The five aforementioned episodes were included in the sixth season as bonus episodes.
A year and a half later, the Melnitsa studio continued production of the animated series and began creating the seventh season. The production of the seventh season lasted from autumn 2012 to spring 2013. The number of episodes in said season was 50. In this season, the opening has been updated.
From August 2014 to 2016, the Melnitsa studio produced the eighth season. This time it was released only on the Karusel TV channel. Part 1 was broadcast from September 7 to October 7, 2015, and part 2 was broadcast from September 7, 2015 to August 25, 2016. The number of episodes in said season was 50.
In 2017, production began on the ninth season. The first episode, This Game Is Suitable For All Ages, was released in February 2018 on Karusel. The entire season was released in 2020, the last episode being the 537th.
In September 2019, it was announced that the animated series would be revamped. The animation technologies would change to ones that represent total 3D graphics, and Moona would be introduced.
The premiere of the first episode with the new animation technologies took place on March 5, 2020, was shown by the Kultura TV channel as part of the program “Good night, kids!”, and on March 6, the episode was broadcast on the MULT channel. Later the series was released on the Karusel TV channel. Two months later, the episode “Poems for the Holidays” was created. Both episodes do not introduce the character Moona.
The next three episodes (in the last of which the long-awaited Moona appears in) premiered on the Kinopoisk service in September 2020, but their release on TV took place much later. Two more episodes were published in October, and three more in November, on the same Kinopoisk. It was previously announced that thirteen episodes would be released this year. On December 28, Kinopoisk released a special New Year's episode lasting eleven minutes in honor of the New Year. It became the longest episode in the history of the animated series.
On August 24, 2023, the last episode of season 9 was released on Kinopoisk, the 60th in a row and the 45th in the new 3D. On August 31, the premiere of the first episode of season 10 took place there.
Seasons[]
- For the list of episodes, see the page Episodes.
NOTE: Only a very limited amount of episodes of the TV program are dubbed into English, because of its very high popularity in Russia making the TV series obscure in other countries except for China, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
| Season | Release years | Has episodes dubbed in English? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2006 | Yes |
| 2 | 2007 | No |
| 3 | 2008 | No |
| 4 | end of 2008 — first half of 2009 | No |
| 5 | second half of 2009 — first half of 2010 | No |
| 6 | second half of 2010 | Yes |
| 7 | 2013-2014 | Yes |
| 8 | 2015-2017 | No |
| 9 | 2018-2023 | Yes |
| 10 | 2023-present | Yes |
Characters[]
- See Characters.
International broadcast[]
Moonzy has been broadcast in different countries around the world and also in various different languages. Here is a list of countries the television series has ever been broadcast in, as well as its localized name in each country/area. However, the series' areas of broadcast/localisation are unreasonable.
Some countries where the series has not came to yet are France, Spain, Italy, Germany (despite some Russia-only episodes being semi-translated into German), Netherlands, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Portugal, Thailand, and amongst others.
| Language | Localized title | Area | Available on | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abaza | Лунтик | Russia (Karachay-Cherkessia) | online-only (YouTube) |
|
| Albanian | Munzi |
|
Pikaboo | Possibly lost dub |
| Arabic | قمري | All countries in the Arab world. |
|
|
| Azerbaijani | Aybala | Azerbaijan | ARB Günəş |
|
| Buryat | Лунтик | Russia (Buryatia) | DVD-only | |
| Chinese | 月亮宝宝蒙奇 |
|
CCTV-14 | The original Russian dub was used as a base for this dub, hence Chinese subtitles appearing everytime text is shown on the screen. These subtitles tend to translate said text. |
| Croatian | Moonzy |
|
Pikaboo | |
| English |
|
All Anglophone countries. | online-only |
|
| Hebrew | לונטיק | Israel | A+ Kids | |
| Karachay-Balkar | Лунтик | Russia (Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia) | unknown | Only a small part of the localized intro is available on the Internet. |
| Kazakh | Айбала | Kazakhstan | Balapan | Lost dub, no longer airing |
| Kyrgyz | Айдан | Kyrgyzstan |
|
|
| Macedonian | Мунзи | Macedonia | Pikaboo | Existence unconfirmed. |
| Polish | Moonzy | Poland | Puls 2 |
|
| Russian | Лунтик | Russia |
|
Russia is the country where the television series came from, therefore it has been airing on several channels there. It is also the country where the TV series is most popular in, as well as where it only makes success in. |
| Serbian | Monzi | Serbia | Pikaboo | Possibly lost dub |
| Slovene | unknown | Slovenia | Pikaboo | Possibly lost dub, |
| Tatar | Лунтик һәм аның дуслары | Russia (Tatarstan) | Shayan TV | Watch here. |
| Ukrainian | Лунтик та його друзі | Ukraine |
|
No longer airing |
| Uzbek |
|
Uzbekistan |
|
|
Trivia[]
- In other television shows produced by Melnitsa you can often see references to Moonzy. For example, in the animated series The Barkers, characters sometimes, and canonically, watch Moonzy on TV. In the 23th episode, the amusement park “Luntland” was mentioned, and the kid has a toy in the shape of Moonzy. In the trailer for the movie based on the aforementioned TV show, “The Barkers: Mind The Cats”, one of the characters (Rosa) puts on part of the costume—Moonzy’s purple mask.
- Darina Schmidt, the creator of the designs for Moonzy and the other characters, the director and artist of the animated series, presented the first episode as her thesis for the university where she was studying at that time.
- According to one of the creators, the first episode of the animated series was ready by the summer of 2005.