I've got this almost figured out...
Pomysłowy Dobromir (Inventive Dobromir) is a Polish children's series of 20 animated shorts, produced from 1973 to 1975.Every short follows a similar formula. Dobromir, a boy living in the country, sees his grandpa struggling with some back-breaking physical task. Dobromir, in a flash of inspiration, designs a mechanical tool which would automate the task. His animal friend, a smart but unintelligible bird, attempts to describe the invention to the grandfather, who only manages to grasp the concept when Dobromir brings in his newly-constructed tool for a demonstration of how it makes life easier.The series was written by Adam Słodowy, the Real Life Gadgeteer Genius from Polish TV, who ran his 'Do it yourself' show for years, majorly averting Doom It Yourself.
The series was continued in the years 1984-1988 with Pomysłowy Wnuczek (Inventive Grandson), based on the same concept. You'll find it, along with some more cartoons by the same studio, on the studio's official YouTube channel
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The series features the following tropes:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: It's a children cartoon, after all. The various devices build by Dobromir work on principle, but are still greatly simplified from their real-life counterparts.
- Art Evolution:
- If viewed in chronological order, then from episode to episode there are slight improvements in animation and details. Even the frame-rate itself is gradually increasing.
- The sequel-remake from the 80s, titled Pomysłowy wnuczek (Inventive grandson), has significantly more detailed animation, character models and backgrounds. If not for the premise and title, it could be easily taken for a separate show.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Perceptiveness and an active mind, along with good amount of laziness is how people become inventors, Dobromir included.
- Cartoon Creature: The bird. It's of unspecified species, not resembling anything that's native to Poland - or Europe, for that matter. As far as the surviving documentation helps, it was never intended to be anything in particular, as opposed to plot-important bird species.
- Cheerful Child: Dobromir's default expressions seem to be a huge grin and the "thinking frown".
- Civilized Animal:
- The bird is able to towel himself off when wet, but can't speak (he's quite "talkative" but in mime and tweets only).
- The bees communicate by Synchronized Swarming - they can even form an "SOS".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first two episodes, Dobromir doesn't make his trademark "yo-hoo!" after his idea marble bursts and he has a new concept. He also employs local animals to help, like asking a beaver to drill tree trunks for pipes (chainsaw sounds included) or a woodpecker to help him with a sewing machine prototype - something that would never happen later.
- Edutainment Show: You could say that. If not the inventions themselves, there was always the physics that made them work.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Whenever Dobromir is pondering about something, he eventually has one of those, finding solution to the problem at hand or how to further upgrade one of his devices.
- Feather Fingers: The bird has these.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Dobromir, constructing variety of simple mechanisms to make his and grandpa's life easier.
- Good Parents: Good grandparent, proud of his inventive grandson.
- Idea Bulb: A characteristic variant—Dobromir's idea is depicted as a marble bouncing on his head until it finally settles down and pops with a bright flash.
- MacGyvering: Most machines are build from whatever Dobromir had on hand.
- Match Cut: The sand in the hourglass from the opening sequence transitions into a hill next to grandpa's house.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon
- Minimalist Cast: Almost all episodes feature only the three characters.
- Mundane Utility: Dobromir builds ingenious devices to (among others): wake him up in the morning, reap corn efficiently, pump water for the garden, cool the trio in the summer...
- No Name Given: The grandfather and the bird.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Not that the light-hearted and cute cartoon needs much of this, but the bird is easily the funniest character.
- Raised by Grandparents: Has anyone ever seen Dobromir's parents? (Or any other member of his family besides gramps?)
- Recycled Animation: Most often used to present the cycle of the operating invention, but it shows here and there in other contexts, too.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Dobromir's machines downplay this, being needlessly complicated only until he figures out (by trial and error) the optimal design.
- Schematized Prop: The machines begin their existence as detailed technical drawings on Dobromir's blackboard.
- Shown Their Work: The machines are real world physics-compliant (designed by the one and the only Adam Słodowy), and we see quite a lot of technical drawings and designs.
- Strictly Formula: There is a minor inconvenience in Dobromir/his grandfathers' life. Dobromir notices it and starts building a machine to solve it, but the first attempt goes wrong. Then MacGyvering begins. Finally he drafts an actual, working device on his big blackboard, builds it (on his own or with grandfather's help), it works perfectly. Everybody's happy!
- This Means Warpaint: Played for Laughs by the bird, when wild birds start eating the corn.
- Visual Pun: When on a sailing fishing boat, the bird is sitting in the literal crow's nest at the top of the mast.
