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Moomins are odd looking creatures who most resemble hippos, and were the invention of Finnish artist Tove Jansson. The originally started life in a series of books, the first of which appeared in 1945. This book was called The Moomins and the Great Flood, and it told how the Moomin family came to live in the Moominhouse in Moominvalley.
The main hero of the stories was Moomintroll, who was a young inquisitive Moomin who was fascinated by the world around him. His mother and father, Moominmamma and Moominpappa, also featured heavily. Moomintroll had a large extended family who often came to stay, including a female Moomin called, no not Moomingirl or something like that, but bizarrely The Snork Maiden?!
Other frequent guests of the Moomins were Snufkin, a wandering lad who played the harmonica, and the frankly scary Little My, who seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face and who got irritated about things very easily. Little My lived almost permanently with the Moomins, and despite being a bit disruptive at times could often be useful to have around.
My first encounter with The Moomins came in the form of the stop motion animated series which was first made in 1977 but didn’t make it to UK screens until 1983. The show was beautifully made, with the characters being animated in front of highly detailed backgrounds. The Moomins were slightly three dimensional and were made from some kind of flocked material, which led to the show being dubbed The Fuzzy Felt Moomins.
There was something about it though that felt almost creepy, even when nice things were happening. I always had this feeling that some horrible impending doom was about to befall Moomintroll, and he and I were both powerless to do anything about it.
Perhaps part of the reason for the general creepiness was that the Moomins didn’t appear to have mouths, and of course Little My always seemed to look scary just by virtue of her explosive character. Even the music was spooky, played mostly on the flute but with a strange cooing sound going on in the background. It still sends a slight shiver down my spine when I hear it.
As well as this TV series there have been several other TV and film adaptations, and in the 1950’s the Moomins also had their own cartoon strip in the London newspaper The Evening News. Today there is even an art museum devoted to the Moomins and they have their own theme park in Naantali, Finland, called Moominworld. The characters have even appeared on the sides of some Finnair aircraft.
Search for The Moomins items on Amazon.co.uk
Scariest Moomin character was the Groke, who had no friends and left a trail of ice wherever she went. She was in the books but I don’t know if she was in the TV series.
I didn’t mention them above, but the Hattifatteners were the things I found most creepy. Odd little worm like things that travelled around in groups and didn’t make a sound, which is more scary than something that makes a loud roaring noise in my book.
Who’s seen the American version?
It’s early CGI.
They go to the “prom”.
There are overt body dysmorphic elements.
Sacrilege.
OMG – Sounds like I should be glad I haven’t seen it…
totally love the moomins, used to read the books then watch the tv series I even think we read comet in moomin land at school, still love em now, Im a big finland fan though, I listen to lots and lots of Finnish bandsand am a great fan of Finnish design and architecture, have got a piec by aalvar aalto an architect designer. in finland metal is a quite mainstream sort of music and they have lots of shops and festivals, and of course its snowy and great scenery and they have santa and reindeer, and blonde girls what more could you want, paradise