If we meet them in real life, the mice arouse disgust and sometimes fear, but transformed into animated characters are the kings of popularity, from Mickey Mouse to Geronimo Stilton, passing through Jerry to those of Ratatouille. And then there is him, Topo Gigio, who does not shine out of intelligence, who has no superpower, but who for 66 years has entered everyone’s heart. Seeing him duet in Sanremo with Lucio Corsi, singing in the blue painted blue, was a tender amarcord for those who have a few years on his shoulders, and a curious discovery for the youngest. The Tuscan singer -songwriter, who arrived second and winner of the critical prize, explained the reason for this unusual appearance to Ariston: “Ducting with Topo Gigio was not a gag at all, it was something that was based on a reasoning inherent in music: mouse Gigio made his debut on television in 1959 with the voice of Domenico Modugno, and it was as if he had found that song on that stage. Topo Gigio had never climbed the Ariston stage. Elton John inspired me, who had done it with the Muppets. Then that song speaks of a dream, of dreamlike things and I know that the music I like is the one that brings me somewhere else with respect to reality, therefore a fantasy character, but as concrete as Mouse Gigio, was perfect ».
In 1959, the date of birth of Topo Gigio, i puppets that moved on TV were already thereMaria Perego and her husband Federico Caldura had brought them, taking inspiration from the tradition of the theater of puppets and the creations of the Czech artist Jirí Trnka. It took an Italian mouse that competed in Mickey Mouse, but with different characteristics: and here is Gigio, twenty centimeters tall, made with soft material halfway between plastic and taps, inside which there were the mechanisms to make the mouth, eyes and hands work.
Very sweet blue eyes, yellow fringe, striped shirt, Gigio has a great need for affection, so much so that his most famous phrase is “Strapazzami di Coccole”. It is tender, naive, friend of all and a little shy, so much so that they often exclaim: “They tremble my mustache from emotion”. The phrase that perhaps everyone as children have tried to imitate with his nasal voice and at times a little screeching is “But what do you ever say!”. After the debut with the voice of Domenico Modugno, his historical voice actor for 40 years has been Peppino Mazzullo and since 2010 he has been that of Leo Valli.
Topo Gigio has appeared in numerous Rai broadcasts, with a golden Zecchino (where he made a fixed couple for years with Cino Tortorella and in the last edition with Carlo Conti) to Canzonissima, from Carosello to Drusilla and the Almanac of the next day. But the Italian borders to our greedy mouse of Groviera went tight and so he made the rounds of the world: the first to make an animated film about him were the Japanese in 1967, a film presented none other than at the 28th Venice International Film Festival. He was a guest on TV all over the world: in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. And for 53 evenings, between 1962 and 1969, he was a guest of the legendary CBS program and Sullivan Show and defined on the official website of the transmission “one of the most popular puppets in history”.
When, first in the program The Saturday of the Zecchinothen in The Zecchino gangbecame the protagonist of parodies of classic fairy tales, myths and legends, the then director of Il Giornalino, Don Tommaso MastrandreaHe had the idea of publishing also on the weekly historian for children of the San Paolo Parodie unpublished told by Gigio in the first person, entrusting them to a journalist from the editorial staff after having had the approval of Maria Perego. Thus were born dozens of stories such as yellow cape, the adventures of Caciotto, powder, fiordilatte and the seven mice …
Still today on Rai Yoyo and Raiplay the cartoons of Topo Gigio are broadcastand in toy stores a soft and talking Gigio mouse is on sale to … scramble in pampering. For today’s children, as it was for those of yesterday.
