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The first one sounds so much like "minuscule-secret lives of insects"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuscule_(TV_series)
that's a French show with air-plane noise bees, each episode about 5 mins..but it's early 2000's not 80's
I actually did find Miniscule, but that's not it. It was traditional cel animation, from 30+ years ago. The insects were more anthropomorphic; the cricket stood on two legs and used his other four as arms.
Holy crap! After literally YEARS of looking for this thing, I finally found one!
I FINALLY stumbled on the right combination of random key words in Google. I got the sequence of events a bit backwards, but I did seem to get the gist of it right.
The series with the cricket was called Liliput-Put.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgIuH6FHVb4
That only leaves the cutesy little puppy and kitty cartoon.
Edited by EricaB
Bump.
Yeah, Jason Kreis ain't exactly a soccer star.
I saw these animated shorts on either HBO or Showtime in the early 80s. I've been trying to find out more about them for years. I thin the production companies for both series were European, possibly French.
1. A series of cartoon shorts where the characters were anthropomorphic insects. The one I remember the most clearly involved a cricket who was trying to practice his singing. Every time he opened his mouth, some other insect would make a sound an interrupt him. The bees would fly by (sounding like jet airplanes), or another bug would saw some wood, etc. The cricket became increasingly frustrated until he finally snapped and chased the other bugs around, yelling at them. There was no actual language, just incoherent yelling and babbling. Finally, all the other bugs were quiet, but he'd lost his voice from all the yelling so couldn't practice anyway. At the end, the cricket manages to organize all the other bugs to make their sounds on cue, and directs them like a symphony.
Another toon in this series focused on the bees, which had elephant-like trunks that would suck up nectar from the flowers and made sounds like airplanes when they flew. I don't remember nearly as much of the plot of that one.
2. The other short animated series had a cutesy little puppy an kitten drawn in a round style similar to Hello Kitty (but it wasn't Hello Kitty). The only thing I remember about these shorts are the jaunty little theme tune and that the critters never talked. They moved their heads and gestured, but instead of talking, the theme tune would play to suggest that they were talking.
Either of these sound familiar to anyone?
Edited by EricaB