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Comment by O__________O | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of the video series called Pingu, which uses no natural language, though it does use a fictional language based on honks and context; basically it’s for kids in regardless of the language they speak.

https://m.youtube.com/user/pingu/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=l...

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Aardman's stop-motion TV series Shaun the Sheep also does not use speech and relies on visual comedy. There are even two feature-length films - both devoid of any dialogue or narration.

There's also a pre-school spin off called Timmy Time, which also uses animal noises in place of speech.

But the best thing is that they subtitled it.

https://subsaga.com/bbc/childrens/timmy-time/series-1/6-timm...

Sadly they've reedited Timmy Time to have commentary by a child narrator. Which seriously undercuts the programme's charm in my view.

Pingu was a favourite to watch with the kids when they were younger - so much going on with no words. Also loved "The Flying Adrenallini Brothers" which was an animation with a made up language but so many visual gag laughs.

Bakaboo. Mizi puchi e mizi kuchi: Adrenalini! Yazaa!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4x9938

The web shorts were good but the TV series was perfect. Animation gold.

Glad you liked it! I co-created and directed the Adrenalini Brothers. You've made my day!

I co created and directed the Adrenalini Brothers - glad you liked it!

The made up language was Rendoosian. In the beginning we tried to improvise gibberish but realised that it just didn't sound right so we wrote everything down.

Wow, this is an honour indeed to interact with you! I've actually gone back on Youtube and watched a few episodes again - ah the memories.

Loved re-listening to Rendoosian again - wonderful language that has enough of a hint of actual English that you understand what was being said or implied. Also loved the intro Rendoosian glyph fonts.

Thank you for bringing such a wonderful and different cartoon to the world!

EDIT (Translation): Binti Boo mit ur magnificibifici Cartoon grandi-max

Thanks! That means a lot to me. The cartoon was a labour of love for many people, and a big part of my life for many years.

A big YAHZAA to you too! :)

Also Khaby Lame, TikTok's most followed creator (currently almost 150 million followers and 2.3 billion likes). Some say his purely visusal comedy contributed to his success, because he is not siloed into a language community.

Very tangential, but there was even a music video made featuring Pingu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7RcqRmBlIQ

Not to speak of the terrifying Japanese horror film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abegO5oyUZM

For some reason this doesn't seem to translate to games, or at least I'm not familiar with any good kids games without audio cues. Not sure why that is, maybe because the player is in control and the camera isn't as easily able to control the view of the narrative?

Journey is a great example of a narrative game which doesn’t use verbal communication.

The Sims games franchise also famously uses “Simlish”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simlish

https://www.polygon.com/22891664/the-sims-similish-maxis-stu...

A long time ago now, but The Neverhood did non-verbal physical comedy well. It's a point-and-click puzzle game.

Early Lego games made great use of intonation and miming for their gags and storytelling. For example, this is their version of the famous "I am your father" scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvX3MaFB9TI

For me, something was lost when they added voice dialogue to the LEGO games. I much preferred the earlier games that had no real dialogue.

Wario Land had a very expressive ending without language: https://youtu.be/dx_VEj0n_d4?t=11457

For some reason the entire audio track is completely different for US and the rest of the world. If you’ve ever seen it in the US, you haven’t heard the original.

Ha, our kids watch that when they are around 3 to 5 years old. It’s very entertaining seeing the kids entertained.

Thanks for sharing, Me and my sister loved to watch this on TV.

Wow, what a trip down memory lane!

doot DOOT

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