Featured Rupert The Bear -film cel?

This was at a car boot sale and I thought it was interesting.
It appealed to me having grown up with Rupert annuals every Christmas. Rupert and Porgy are painted onto film which has been loosely glued to the blue and green handpainted background.
The figures are well done, the background very amateur.
I suspect the background is irrelevant to the film.
Is this likely to be a film cel? I peeked under the card frame and if there was any writing on the film sheet it has been cut off to fit the frame.
I can see some similar on google but all seem to be in the US. Just interested to know what I have and if it is a film cel if it’s possible to date it at all?
Approx 3” x 4”
Thanks for looking

 

Possibly 1985-97 according to Wiki. The older series was puppets and Porgy was written out of the 2000s series.

 

That's a rather cruel thing to do. Does he get redundancy pay?

 

It’s probably something to do with being PC in some way

 

Most of Rupert is ok from memory I think?
We were staying over at Granny and Grandpas and I pulled an old children’s book out of the bookcase and started reading it to the kids but I didn’t get very far. Not only was it racist but was also savage!.
I suppose many of the very old fairy tales were pretty nasty. As a child we had a Grimms Fairy Tales that had fantastic plates in it but they were frightening as a child. I must retrieve it next time we visit.

 

Maybe Porgy didn't want to identify as a pig for fear of being labeled fat. Maybe he wanted to identify as a bear also.

 

The list of amendments-

 

I have never been offended by a children's book. I guess there are so many ways to look at them. Sambo was an adorable child in the stories. They were cute little books for all children. I never heard of the second one. You can take offense to any child's book if you sit and break them down. In poems and children's books boys were described as lazy and stupid. Girls were described as fragile and stupid in poems and children's books. They are fiction. Children thrive on fiction. Or should all children's books and poetry be banned along with cartoons because some adults find them offensive.

 

This is perplexing me. I don't think it's a true animation cel. There are too many gaps in the paint that should not be there. Also , it is not finished, no color on the faces or hands. It could be a set up cel, used to experiment with colors etc....A production cel would be complete, and have punch holes along the bottom. I will post a picture of one of my production cels in a minute.

 

Production cels are very exact. In the below one, the cel matches the drawing exactly. Your item is too small to be a production cel. I'm not sure exactly what to call yours, but it is unfinished and never used in an animated show. The CEL is the Owl only. The rest is a background scene. It has the production numbers and scene on the bottom of the cel, but that is covered by the mat.

 

I love the owl! Jungle book is such a favourite.
What size are they normally Bdigger?
The picture is finished as Rupert and his pals were nearly always depicted with uncoloured hands and faces except on some of the book covers. People had painted hands and faces but not the animals.

 

Usually a production cel is 10.5 x 12.5 with some exceptions. Your artwork could be for an annual like you show. What concerns me about yours is the area around the bottom of Ruperts scarf missing paint along with a couple other areas. Still a nice piece of art , and a keeper. Figuring out what it is from will be difficult. You'll have to watch Rupert animations until you see one with him carrying that bundle!

 

Inches, right?

 

yes. inches.

 

As an educator , scary fairytales are actually beneficial. I think they build resilience.

 

Never did get the racist thing with "Sambo" , he was Indian , not "African American" .... I mean India still has an "Unofficial" caste system and that's even worse , in my humble opinion. ( But I still like those old crazy Bollywood Movies ...Laxmi Chhaya was a goddess ! )

 

I remember reading Little Black Sambo when I was a child. IIRC, he was a happy little guy and I remember I liked the story.

 

I did too - and he must have been India because he got the tiger to turn in a circle so fast he turned into butter. (Or am I remembering the story incorrectly?)