Director: Juan M. Urbina and Carlo Guillot, Producer/Copyright: Venturia Animation Studios, Language: Spanish, Colombia, Format: HD, Genre: Family, 2013, 13×13’, Rights: Selected
An educational animated series from Colombia aimed at 6-10 year-olds. It has previously shown on Señal Colombia and Netflix in Latin America. The series teaches children about the origin of the Spanish language. Ideal for Spanish learning and for localization.
It is a modern intergalactic children animation series inspired by the classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes with the aim of finding the origin of words. The Spanish language or “Castilian” has evolved from several linguistic branches, mainly from Latin and Arabic. It has also been nurtured by French, English and native words from the Americas among many other influences.
“Don Quixote in space!” is an animated series that celebrates the diversity of the Spanish language in a fun and enriching way for the family. Don Quixote´s quest to rediscover the origin of each word will be the perfect excuse to visit ancient cultures (Rome, Egypt, Arabia) and different planets (each one representing in a metaphorical way a country of Latin America). In each episode, Don Quixote and his loyal robot companion S.A.N.C.H.O will use the “windmills of time” to travel back in time and try to capture the origin of each word, and by doing so they end up creating the word itself in a paradoxical way.
The overall art direction and cartooning style of the show is a mixture of two main concepts: Renaissance because the original Don Quixote was written during that time period– and Retro-futurism because it takes place in space. The cartooning style of the show also draws inspiration from old school anime (Osamu Tezuka, Zukkoke Knight, The Flying House) mixed with classic western cartoons of the ’60s, like The Jetsons.