Little Raccoon

Little Raccoon
Крошка Енот
Directed by
  • Oleg Churkin
Written byMargarita Dolotseva
Starring
CinematographyAlexander Pekar
Music byVladimir Shainsky
Production
company
Release date
  • 1974 (1974)
Running time
8 minutes, 51 seconds
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

Little Raccoon (Russian: Крошка Енот, romanizedKroshka Enot) is a Soviet animated film from 1974, adapted from the fairy tale by Lillian Moore titled "Little Raccoon and the Thing in the Pool".[1][2] It marks the directorial debut of Oleg Churkin.

Plot

Little Raccoon is celebrating his birthday. His mother gives him a task: "go alone, in the dark, to the pond and pick some sweet sedge for dinner." Little Raccoon eagerly sets off along the path his mother pointed out, but the farther he gets from home, the scarier it becomes for him. Finally, he literally runs into Monkey, who frightens him with a story about "the One Who Sits in the Pond," yet Little Raccoon confidently strides onward.

Reaching the pond, the frightened Raccoon tries to talk to "the One Who...," but receives no reply. Leaning over the water's surface, he sees "Him," strikes a menacing pose, and terrified by his own reflection, flees in panic back the way he came. Halfway there, he encounters Monkey again, and it turns out that Little Raccoon had seen a "naughty raccoon" in the pond, while Monkey had seen an "evil monkey." The friends conclude that "they" must be sitting in the pond together. Monkey advises Raccoon to take a stick to scare off "the One Who...". Naturally, Little Raccoon becomes even more frightened and this time runs all the way home.

Sharing his fears and impressions with his mother, Little Raccoon receives her advice: to smile at "the One Who...". Overcoming his doubts, Raccoon does just that. His reflection smiles back at him. Now unafraid, he calmly picks the sedge and heads home. Along the way, he meets Monkey again and shares the secret of how to befriend "the One Who...," and Monkey immediately dashes off to the pond.

Night turns to day, and the new friends walk together, merrily singing a little song.

At the end of the film, Monkey congratulates Little Raccoon on his birthday and presents him with a pineapple as a gift.

Cast

Crew

  • Screenwriter — Margarita Dolotseva
  • Director — Oleg Churkin
  • Production Designer — Vyacheslav Nazaruk
  • Composer — Vladimir Shainsky
  • Lyricist — Mikhail Plyatskovsky
  • Cinematographer — Alexander Pekar
  • Sound Engineer — Vitaly Azarovsky
  • Film Editor — Marina Trusova
  • Script Editor — Valeria Konovalova
  • Animators: Faina Epifanova, Boris Chani, Elena Vershinina, Antonina Alyoshina, Galina Chernikova, Alexander Sichkar, Lera Rybchevskaya, Irina Belova, Mstislav Kuprach

See also

References

  1. ^ "Папмамбук". Папмамбук (in Russian). Retrieved 2026-01-06.
  2. ^ Сабина, Аманбаева (2020). "Советский мультфильм "Крошка Енот" (1974) и американская сказка Лилиан Мур "Маленький Енот и тот, кто сидит в пруду" (1963)". Детские чтения. 17 (1): 266–300. ISSN 2304-5817.
  3. ^ "Умерла актриса Капитолина Кузьмина - "мама Крошки Енота"". Российская газета (in Russian). 2022-04-02. Retrieved 2026-01-05.