Flix was published in 1997 to much acclaim. Upon publication, author and illustrator Tomi Ungerer was awarded the Hans Christian Anderson award - the equivalent to Nobel Prize in the world of children's books. It was Tomi's first children's book after a hiatus of twenty five years. Now Ungerer's world comes to life in a new RTÉ animated series.
The book tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Krall, two cats, who give birth to a puppy, a pug to be exact. It describes Flix's life story - from birth to his challenges at school through to his marriage to another dog, a poodle called Mirzah de la Fourriere (they give birth to a kitten) and him eventually creating a new political party, the CDU (Cats and Dogs United) and becoming the first ever mayor of both Cat Town and Dog Town and creating a joint administration...
In 2016, Pictor Productions (founded by Tomi's daughter, Aria Ungerer) in conjunction with UK production company, Eye Present, optioned the rights to develop the book as a TV show. "We were very fortunate to be able to work directly with Tomi on the adaptation," she says. "I knew that if we were going to be able to present to the world an animated version of one of Tomi's books, we'd need him on board to make some of those really difficult judgement calls and to lead the design tone. Not only that but in adapting the book there was a whole world to flesh out".
In the animated series based on the book, we only get to know Flix as a 7-year-old. Because the book doesn't go so much into who Flix's friends are when he is a kid, the producers, along with Tomi had to create new characters for the show - now Flix's two best friends are Tabi Scratch and Munchkin, and we have also created other new characters such as Ratski the deputy headmaster and Miss Hiss, Flix's teacher at school as well as Burma Fang, Flix's nemesis.
During development, Tomi also created the world of Split Island and a rich back story to go with it - an island of two halves split by a channel in the middle. On one side is Cania and on the other is Felinia. Though in the history of the island, there was a time when cats and dogs were at war, now there is peace between both. Joining both sides of the island is a road with a bridge in the middle, thus making it easy for cats and dogs to mingle and to go to each other's sides of the island for various supplies, festivals and so on. For example, the best antiques and furniture are to be found in Dog Town and the best fabrics (silk is a speciality) is to be found in Felinia. That said, of course cats and dogs have different needs and talents, and the island reflects that.
The theme of the book, and the series, is clear - Flix is all about embracing your quirks and the things that make you unique and celebrating being different.
As well as redesigning Flix himself for screen, Tomi also designed the colour schemes and building concepts for Dog and Cat Town as well as all of the new characters that were needed to make the story work on screen. "In the first stage of development we actually developed the whole thing in 3D before changing our minds and returning to a 2D style more reminiscent of the style of the original book", says Aria. "This process involved a lot of back and forth between the designers in the UK and Tomi. Tomi only worked on fax so I'd fax him ideas and sketches, he'd draw on top of them and fax them back. Or I'd print out lots of materials for him, drive them to West Cork where he'd rework them and I'd send everything back. It was a fantastic collaboration between someone who is really at home in the analogue world of pencil and paper, making books, and a team of people who work mostly on tablets and screens."
Tomi passed away in 2019 so was sadly unable to participate in the production itself, but there was already a very rich trove of Tomi designed and approved designs to draw on.
"Luckily we did have the one minute teaser that we had produced for Cartoon Forum in 2018 and which he had approved," says Aria, "as well as his many notes and all of the feedback we received from him, so we felt that we had his blessing to keep going in this vein." Finding that balance between Tomi's wishes and what works on a screen for a contemporary audience was something that Aria Ungerer worked extensively on with director Tom Gray and Art Director Antonio Terlizzi, regularly looking to Tomi's original notes for inspiration and reference.
Tomi always embraced the absurd in his work and so it is no surprise that we are never asked to question how it is that Flix's parents and sister are cats and he is a dog. But he is not a typical dog - he is pretty clueless about the ways of dogs and feels like a bit of a tourist in Dog Town. And in his day to day life in Cat Town, well, there are plenty of challenges too. Nevertheless, Flix is an incredibly resilient character - he is proud of his uniqueness and never compromises on who he is. The theme of the book, and the series, is clear - Flix is all about embracing your quirks and the things that make you unique and celebrating being different.
In the book, Tomi describes Flix as speaking Cat with a dog accent and Dog with a cat accent which posed a conundrum for the production team. "In the end," says Aria, "we decided that what would make sense is to find an actor whose original language was probably not English and whose accent is thus, slippery. We had the great good fortune to find Clinton Liberty who voices Flix, and whose accent perfectly expresses this inbetween-ness."
Flix will be launched with a screening and panel discussion as part of this year's Dingle Animation Festival on March 25th and will be screened weekdays on RTÉ 2 from Monday, March 27th - catch up via RTÉ Player.
