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Canticos

  • ️Thu Jun 20 2024

Canticos (Western Animation)

Canticos! ¡Vamos a cantar!

Canticos. Put a little song in your heart.

Canticos is a series of animated musical shorts released through YouTube and also for a time by Nick Jr. The songs are performed in both English and Spanish. The three main characters, as such, are the chicks Kiki, Nicky and Ricky Chickie. Other characters include a cardboard cut-out boy named Pin-Pon, an elephant named Benji and a rabbit named Sammy. The songs featured are generally children's songs such as popular nursery rhymes, including traditional Spanish nursery rhymes like "Los Pollitos" and "Arroz con Leches," though popular songs such as "La Bamba" and "Feliz Navidad" have been covered as well. The standard format is for the song to first be performed in one language and then for a group of kids to shout "Again, again!" after which it is performed in the other. In addition to the animated versions, many of the songs have been released on digital music albums under the banner Canticos Nursery Rhymes and there are also book and plush toy releases. The series was animated by Mercury Filmworks from 2018-2020, but is still releasing new content as of 2024. The official website for the franchise can be found here.

Canticos contains examples of:

  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Nicky only wears glasses and Kiki only wears a pink bow. Occasionally, however, they will be shown wearing more clothing when a particular song calls for it.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The three main "chickie" characters - Kiki, Nicky and Ricky, are the expected yellow color. However, there is also a group of unnamed subsidiary chickies that are other colors like brown or blue.
  • Art Initiates Life: Although described as being a "cardboard cutout," the Pin-Pon song shows Benji the elephant making a painting of Pin-Pon, which then pops up and out of the cardboard block.
  • Baths Are Fun: "Chickies in the Tubby / Al agua los pollitos" opens with Kiki not wanting to take a bath and running away, but being entertained by bath toys, bubbles and splashing once she is in the bath.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: In "La Bamba," when Benji accidentally shuts off the stage lights, Kiki, Nicky and Ricky can still be seen by the lights of their eyes.
  • Disembodied Eyebrows: Nicky's eyebrows are disembodied from his glasses and the spider character Lily also has these.
  • Edutainment Show: Designed to help kids become bilingual in both English and Spanish, while also sometimes teaching other things like the alphabet, the names of colors (in English and Spanish of course) or general pro-social values.
  • First Day of School Episode: The book release Kiki Can! Go to School focuses on Kiki going to school for the first time and being excited about attending with her older brothers Nicky and Ricky, but then troubled when she realizes they are going to different classrooms.
  • Instant Costume Change: In "La Bamba," Benji accidentally turns off the stage lights. When they come back on, about two seconds later, Kiki, Nicky and Ricky are wearing new outfits.
  • Making a Spectacle of Yourself: Sammy wears a pair of heart-shaped glasses studded with purple and yellow jewels in "Amor."
  • Nursery Rhyme: Many of the songs and some of the characters are drawn from nursery rhymes, including English-language nursery rhymes like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" or Spanish ones such as "Los Pollitos."
  • Shaking the Rump: Ricky does the celebratory variant in "Chickie Boom."
  • Stock Animal Diet: In "Feliz Navidad," Nicky's gift to Sammy, a rabbit, is a carrot wrapped with a bow, which he seems quite pleased with.
  • Stock Footage: Most if not all of the animation from "Feliz Navidad" was later reused for "Jingle Bells / Navidad Navidad." Particularly notable during the parts where the characters are shown playing instruments which directly fit the music from "Feliz Navidad," but doesn't have anything to do with that for "Jingle Bells / Navidad Navidad."
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Kiki wears a pink bow, the main thing that distinguishes her as female from her brothers Nicky and Ricky.

Canticos. Pon una canción en tu corazón.