Dooly the Little Dinosaur is a South Korean media franchise created by cartoonist Kim Soo-jung. It was originally created as a manhwa (comic) that was serialized from 1983 to 1993. It centers on the titular Dooly, an anthropomorphic baby dinosaur character. The media franchise expanded to include a television series and animated film. Dooly is considered one of the most respected and commercially successful characters of South Korean animation. Dooly was even made a citizen of South Korea, and given a resident registration card. There is an official sequel, Baby Saurus Dolly, which came out in 1995.

Characters

History

Dooly the Little Dinosaur was first created when its creator Soo-Jung Kim issued the manhwa (comics in Korean) under the comic book named Bo-Mool Sum (Treasure Island). It was first shown in the first week of April 1983, and ended about ten years later. There is a spin-off of the manhwa, A Sad Homage to Dinosaur Dooly, Choi Kyu-seok published.

Controversies

When Dooly was first created as a TV animation, it received a lot of criticism from South Korean Catholics, South Korean citizens, and the government, reasons cited included the fact that the animation was a bit violent, which was suppressed by the South Korean government, and the adult general public was angered due to its character's attitude of disrespect towards elders, but generally speaking, the younger generation has fond memories of this series and find that the violence is actually a quite realistic portrayal of family dynamics in contemporary South Korea. The character "Michol" has also received criticism in more recent years due to the character's appearance being likened to blackface. It had started when SNL Korea and the K-pop band Apink did a skit based on Dooly's Ramen Song, which prominently feature Michol, portrayed by Bomi. It had received massive controversy, but it was also defended due to the belief of her just attempting cosplay.

Cultural references

Related media

Animations

Television

1987-1988 Animation

The original animation and airing were done by South Korean broadcaster KBS. When it was first broadcast in 1987, there were only six episodes, with seven more added later during the second season, so it has thirteen episodes. A video cassette was released in 1989, and re-broadcasting was first done in 1990, and rebroadcast in 1993, 1996, 1998, 2003 and 2006.

List of episodes

Music

The songs of this animation are attractive and stimulate people's memories. The famous songs from this animation are the Dooly the Little Dinosaur, Soap Bubbles and Ramen and Briquettes. Among them, Soap Bubbles appeared as BGM covered by another person in the drama Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 in 2023.

2009 Animation

A new version of the TV series, which began broadcasting in 2009, was Thursday, at 4:00 PM on the Korean animation channel Tooniverse, South Korea's first all-anime/manhwa channel, and SBS.

Direct-to-video

Sunwoo Entertainment released an educational English Direct-to-video South Korean animation named Dooly's Journey to the World in 1995.

Theatrical film

Dooly the Little Dinosaur - The Adventure of Ice Planet (Little Dinosaur Dooly: The Adventure of Ice Planet or Baby Dinosaur Dooly - The Great Adventure of the Ice Star) is a Korean animated film released in 1996. It was produced with a production cost of 2 billion won and was released in 70 theaters nationwide on July 24, 1996. According to the Korean Film Yearbook, the number of viewers in Seoul was 126,872. Dooly, a baby dinosaur, was trapped in a huge iceberg 100 million years ago and separated from his mother, falling into a deep sleep. One day, pieces of iceberg flowed into the Han River, and Dooly, who woke up from a deep sleep, accidentally stayed at the house of Kildong Go, a small citizen living in Ssangmun-dong, and there wasn't a day that Kildong Go's house became comfortable from that day on. Heedong, the "Fearful Pacifier," Alien Douner, Ddochi Ostrich, and aspiring singer Michol will join, and they will travel to the future to quickly become adults on Time Cosmos. However, due to a time cosmos' error, they head to the ice star in the maze of space, where Dooly meets his dream mother. However, the ice star is dominated by the space villain Bayking, and Dooly and his party begin to be chased by Bayking's army. For the 40th anniversary of the original work, Little Dinosaur Dooly: The Adventure of Ice Planet was re-released in cinemas in the 4K UHD format beginning May 24, 2023.

Soundtrack

These were not included in the album, but in this work, Romance of the Guitar (Romance d'Amour, Romanza, Spanish Romance), Kim Jeong-ho (ko)'s Sir and Sul Woon-do (ko)'s Compass named Go Kildong Song came out as OSTs.