High school students call for reintroduction of non- dubbed cartoons

Tweety


High school students call for reintroduction of non- dubbed cartoons
http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=21640
Otilia Haraga

"Save Tweety!" is a petition urging the reintroduction of cartoons in the English language on the specialized animation channels. The petition has been posted on the internet by a group of high school students from Bacau, and about 3,000 people had signed it by Thursday at noon, according to the daily Ziarul Clujeanului.

Tweety, the little chicken from cartoons, was chosen as a symbol for a protest initiated by a group of high school students discontented with the dubbing into Romanian of several "classic" cartoon series such as Tweety, Tom and Jerry or The Flintstones. Initiated by pupils and teachers of the Ferdinand I National College in Bacau, the petition was sent to the Ministry of Education and also the Ministry of Culture.

The pupils are demanding a return to the model in which the original voices are in English with subtitles in Romanian. The document was posted on the internet at the address http://www.savetweety.lx.ro/ and lovers of cartoons in the "original" form are invited to support it. Over 400 supporters had registered on Wednesday over the course of several hours, most of them emphasizing the benefits of cartoons in English in helping small children to learn the language.

"I grew up with cartoons in English and honestly they were a big help. I learnt English more from television then I have and will learn from school," said one of the signatories, Gabriel Samfira. Adopting the Western model, the Cartoon Network channel has followed its standard policy of dubbing voices into the official language of the country in an effort to make the cartoons more accessible to children