Animation / Doctor Aibolit

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''"Kindly doctor Aibolit,

Under tree he likes to sit,

Under tree he likes to siiiit.

Come to him with any ailing,

Be you cow, or wolf, or lemming -

All be cured in a heartbeat

By great doctor Aibolit,

Kindly doctor Aibolit... "''

Doctor Aibolit (Russian: Доктор Айболит) is a seven-episode Soviet animated miniseries based on Korney Chukovsky's adaptation of Doctor Dolittle, produced by Kievnauchfilm and with script by David Cherkassky, produced in 1984-1985.

Doctor Aibolit is a kind vet with an ability to talk to animals, spending days treating their ailments. When the news of sick animals in Africa reach him, it's up to him and his animal companions - parrot Karrudo, dog Avva and owl Bumba - to travel to Africa through many perils and save them.

Tropes in Doctor Aibolit:

• The Ace: Aibolit is a true miracle worker, able to cure any disease and trauma on any kind of animal, from a small bug to elephants. He also plays the bass violin in his free time!
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Barmaley zig-zags between this and Adaptational Villainy, but ultimately veers into this territory. While he does orchestrate an act of mass poisoning of African animals (which he didn't in the original, as they were simply sick from unrelated reasons there) and locks them up on top, as well as makes several attempts to stop Aibolit, he never performs any child-eating he's infamous for and in general doesn't kill anyone, to the point he's easily forgiven and allowed to travel to Leningrad alongside his gang. By contrast, Barmaley in the original is such a vicious Complete Monster that when he drowns during the riverside battle, the entirety of Africa and Aibolit's entourage cheer on it.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Spider in the local version of "Party Fly". Rather than simply trying to kill the Fly on her own birthday party, he also kidnaps her and locks up in his prison beforehand.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: One of the notable features compared to other adaptations is inclusion of Chukovsky's other works. This includes such works as "Telephone", "Cockroach", "Barmaley", "The Party Fly" and "Stolen Sun".
• Adaptation Distillation: The Crocodile from "Stolen Sun" is present as one of the antagonists. While in the original poem the Crocodile is merely a greedy bully who wants to keep the sun all to himself, here he consumes the sun by orders (and with help of) Barmaley to cause a blackout that should make Aibolit's journey harder.
• Adaptation Expansion: Barmaley's imprisonment and breakout never appeared in Chukovsky's original works.
• Adapted Out: Several animal characters (such as Chi-Chi the Monkey and Push-Pull) don't appear.
• "I Am" Song: Barmaley sings one twice that underlines his Card-Carrying Villain trait. The first time he sings it as pitiful reassurance due to being locked up. The second time is a Dark Reprise as he sings it more sinisterly in the process of returning to his prime.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: A heroic and consentual version occurs in "Party Fly". After Mosquito slays the Spider, he tells the Fly that since he killed the villain and saved her, he wants to marry her. She agrees.
• And the Adventure Continues: In a way. Although his adventures ended, Aibolit kept on working and often had animals and Barmaley over for tea. Karrudo didn't leave his side either, still upkeeping his duties as a nurse.
• Animated Musical: There are plenty of songs around, though most of them are straight up sung versions of Chuckovsky's poems.
• Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: One of Aibolit's patients is a hare who got run over by a tram. The artificial replacements for his legs works so well that the hare is able to leap over entire buildings.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • The female moth from the first episode has... mammarian glands. Human mammarian glands.
  • The whale that helps Aibolit to cross the ocean is able to stay on the surface for the entire trip to not drown Aibolit. Real life whales are still underwater creatures and need to dive back after getting enough oxygen.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Mostly excused by it being a children-oriented cartoon, but still present:
  • One of the early patients of Aibolit is a hare who got run over by a tram. Not only is he alive, but merely has his legs cut off and Aibolit is able to fix him by sewing on the new legs. The hare is back to his former shape in an instant AND even stronger, able to leap over stacked elephants and buildings with no problem.
  • Pirates are able to make drugged drinks by simply mixing them with bottles labeled with diseases.
  • Animals are inflicted with all kinds of diseases, but only show symptoms of common cold. Considering the scope of diseases, maybe it's for the best.
  • Upon arrival to Africa, Aibolit is able to cure all animals of all diseases in shortest amount of time. Animals also don't suffer any kinds of post-sickness traits, restored to health completely.
• Artistic License – Physics: Of course the Crocodile wouldn't be able to inflate himself, soar into skies on that alone, devour the Sun whole and still live. Then again, this is a cartoon based on poems about talking animals, so this isn't that strange in a bigger picture.
• Art Shift: Instead of straight up animation, "Party Fly" is rendered as a series of stills. Probably justified in that in-universe it was thrown together by pirates as a distraction.
• Ascended Extra: The hippo who warns Aibolit about the sickness of African animals gets his own plotline as he first guards Barmaley and later follows his crew to investigate their plans.
• Badass Boast: Both Crocodile and Cockroach deliver those in an attempt to intimidate their opponents. The latter is more effective, but both get defeated regardless.
  • Crocodile:
  "If i want and if i wish,
  Moon too'll be swallowed like a fish! " (Evil Laugh)
  • Cockroach:
  "Hold it, hold it,
  Don't you hurry,
  I shall eat you on a whim,
  I shall eat, i shall eat,
  Sparing nobody! "
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Pirates take great glee in poisoning African animals and then kicking and throwing them around before locking them up.
• Benevolent Boss:
  • Despite his otherwise horrible personality, Barmaley treats his allies with respect to the point that they are happy to have him back.
  • Doctor Aibolit treats his subordinate animals just like every other animal - with respect and love.
• Beyond the Impossible: Dolittle could speak to animals, but otherwise was still a normal doctor. Aibolit is nothing short of a miracle worker, able to nurse a hare with legs broken by a tram by simply sewing on new ones (even better than previous ones!) and then later cure the entirety of African animal population from a variety of mixed diseases. Downplayed, as while his healing of hare is instantaneous, it takes him 10 whole days (despite the footage making it seem otherwise) without food, water or sleep to cure the entirety of Africa... which, considering the amount of animals and diseases at hand, is still an impressive display of determination and durability.
• Big Bad: Barmaley, an animal-and-child-hating pirate who creates the main conflict with his terrible schemes.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: As is in original poem, the "Party Fly" stage play set up by pirates has the titular Fly abducted during her birthday party by an old creepy Spider that wants to kill her.
• Black-Hole Belly: The Crocodile to the absurd degree, enough to fit both Barmaley and the Sun without any harm.
• Boisterous Bruiser: The Crocodile has a great bravado and boxing skills, even boasting at one point he'd eat the Moon with ease too. Too bad he can't back it up in his fight with a bear, as one swift punch is all it takes to knock him out and make him spit the Sun.
• Bookends:
  • The first and last we see of Aibolit is him sitting under a tree and playing a violin.
  • "Thank you, Doctor! " is sung in a first episode and is the last song overall (not counting credits song, which is instead a reprise of "Kindly Doctor"), even having the same vocals.
  • Karrudo is first seen in a dark room waking up from the nightmare and lighting a candle. The last scene of the series is him packing up his medical coat, finishing his narration and extinguishing the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
• Bread and Circuses: The crux of Barmaley's plan. On his arrival to Africa, he and some of his pirates posing as world-famous troupe act out a dramedy stage play based on "Party Fly", while his remaining cronies drug the drinks with diseases. The animals are too entranced by the performance to sense any danger and drink the drugged offerings.
• Bystander Syndrome: True to original, the guests in "Party Fly" abandon her to her death when she's kidnapped by a Spider rather than choosing to stand up for her (despite her reminding them she both fed and gave drinks to them). It takes a brave mosquito coming to the rescue and slaying the monster to save her.
• Canon Character All Along: Hippopothamus acting as Barmaley's guard seems like a completely new character, but Episode 4 reveals him to be the very same hippo who calls Aibolit in the original poem to warn him about sick African animals.
• Canon Foreigner: The original didn't speak about Aibolit's family (if he even had anyone). The mini-series introduce his sister Varvara who is a polar opposite of him.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Barmaley wastes no opportunity to remind everyone how awful he is. His "I Am" Song is meant to enforce it.
• Catchphrase: Barmaley likes to remark how ruthless, bloodthirsty and evil he is very often.
• The Chase: After the animals are freed and cured and the sun returns to the sky, they give chase to the fleeing pirates to apprehend them.
• Child Eater:
  • Barmaley is stated to roast children over fire and eat them for dinner. Thankfully, it never happens on-screen.
  • Cockroach beckons the animals to bring their children to him for food. Unlike Barmaley (and despite the pirates actually making a cauldron and bonfire set to seemingly cook baby hares), this one is truly nothing but a bluff.
• Cigar Chomper: The Crocodile spends a good amount of screentime with a hige cigar in his mouth. The fact that the aame amount of screentime he spends with the Sun in his stomach helps.
• Composite Character: The Crocodile seen in this series plays the role of the one from the poem "Stolen Sun", as well as the one from "Barmaley".
• Crazy-Prepared: If the sparrow from final episode didn't get into the doctor's hat himself, then apparently Aibolit carries around a sparrow just in case.
• Demoted to Extra: Bumba and Avva, important companions in the original, have only few spoken lines. While they are shown to be assistants of Aibolit, we also never see them perform any kind of assistance (though they may be treating other animals offscreen to help with workload). Karrudo, on the other hand, becomes something of an Ascended Extra due to elevating to the position of The Narrator.
• Deus ex Machina: The sparrow that kills the Cockroach. All this time it has been sitting inside the Aibolit's doctor hat without any kind of signs pointing to it and in the final episode it just decides to come out and kill the Cockroach at Aibolit's direction.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The Spider from "Party Fly" in the original dies from beheading, whereas here he engages in a fight with Mosquito, gets stabbed and falls from the table to his doom, though the voiceover still says the Spider ends up decapitated.
• Dirty Coward: Both Barmaley and his gang prefer trickery over physical confrontation. When their sole muscle (Crocodile) gets defeated and animals get freed and cured, they resort to fleeing in hopes of finding the Cockroach that could help them fend off the mob.
• The Ditz: One of the callers that reached Aibolit(or rather, Varvara) were a pair of gazelles who somehow thought the entirety of carousels and swings burned down and didn't change their mind when told otherwise. Varvara (in a rare moment of having a point) calls out their stupidity.
• The Dog Bites Back: Under Barmaley's employ, Crocodile sustained several injuries from the Bear due to eating the Sun on former's orders. When a gorilla retreives him in final episode and brings him to Barmaley, Crocodile is more than happy to devour Barmaley whole to prevent him from doing any more harm when Aibolit asks him to.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: After Crocodile eats the Sun, the pirates start singing, dancing and even taking photos to celebrate their apparent victory. Cue Aibolit swooping in on the eagles despite the blackout and healing everyone.
• The Dragon: One-Eye acts as Barmaley's first mate and is his most trusted ally.
• The Dreaded:
  • Barmaley is feared by both children and adults, to the point that his name alone is used to scare kids long after he's imprisoned. Considering his ruthlessness and Child Eater tendencies hidden behind Laughably Evil veneer, this is more than justified.
  • Varvara, Aibolit's Evil Sister, is feared by animals that she supremely despises. In her first scene, as soon as a group of animals notice her coming, they quickly book it for the nearest hiding spots.
• Dumb Muscle: The Crocodile is a bulky boxer with a Black-Hole Belly and army mannerisms... and isn't exactly the brightest bulb.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Barmaley's crew consists of several normal pirates, multiple peg-legged pirates, one legless, a couple of humanoid foxes and a crocodile (not the African Crocodile, he joins later). When Varvara stumbles upon them in the open sea and expresses her desire to join their scheme, he's more than glad to welcome her in.
• Face Death with Despair:
  • Doctor Aibolit worries at several parts of the journey that they are not gonna make it and "disappear on the way". He doesn't worry about himself - he fears what is going to become of African animals if he's not gonna come in time - or at all. Thankfully, his worries are proven false since some animals arrive every time to help him go further.
  • After Barmaley gets swallowed by a Crocodile, he's crying and begging to be let out.
• Fat Bastard: Varvara is a fat, petty animal hater that eventually joins the villains.
• Fate Worse than Death: Thanks to Crocodile's Black-Hole Belly, Barmaley doesn't die when swallowed by him. The Crocodile's dark, cramped and horrible insides are so tormenting, however, Barmaley bursts into tears at the prospect of spending foreseeable future in them and tearfully begs to be let out with the promise of reforming. And he does.
• For the Evulz: Barmaley does terrible things just because he can. He's quite proud of it too.
• Framing Device: The adventures of Aibolit are told by his assistant Karrudo when he wakes up during one of sleepless nights.
• Friend to All Living Things: Aibolit, as was Dolittle. He gladly heals any animal that comes to him (or calls from another part of the world, in which case he mails them the cure and other items) to the point they are willing to help in return when he has troubles on journey to Africa. By the end of the series, Varvara, Barmaley and supposedly other pirates too join him in this regard.
• From Bad to Worse: Apparently inflicting African animals with all kinds of diseases isn't enough for Barmaley. He also proceeds to lock them up in cages.
• Furry Reminder: One of Aibolit's patients is a moth who burnt his wing on a candle. Moths are known for being attracted to light and actually dying from the flames, so this particular moth was lucky.
• Guards Must Be Crazy: Barmaley was locked up by people of the country he's from in an old fortress and, according to Karrudo, given reliable guard. Said guard is a single hippopotamus (guarding what's admittedly the most dangerous person in the setting) who often sleeps on the job and doesn't check the visitors to the point that pirates are able to pull off the Jail Bake scheme. Granted, when Barmaley breaks out he turns out to be a Determinator willing to chase pirates and snoop out their plans, but stll, no points for doing the original job.
• Heel–Face Turn: Both Barmaley and all his gang members choose to reform after Barmaley gets eaten and released by the Crocodile. Varvara even changes her worldview on animals (as it were animal children that chose to spare Barmaley, showing her they have compassion and are not mindless), while Barmaley became a friend of both children and the doctor and even is a common guest in his house.
• He's Back!: Villainous version. Years of imprisonment have turned Barmaley, once feared pirate, into an overgrown high-pitched broken man. One break-out and cleaning up later, he regains his menacing aura and eagerly announces the desire to return to villainous ways.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite both initial less-than-stellar looks and gruffy voice, Varvara turns out to have a beautiful singing voice and equally alluring looks with right approach, allowing her to pull off "world-famous troupe vocalist" disguise without a hitch.
  • The pirates themselves turn out to have great singing voices, with Barmaley having conductor skills on top.
• Ironic Name: A nickname rather, but true to Chuckovsky's poem, Cockroach is called "The Scary Giant"... while being a normal cockroach whose scare factor comes from big antennas and bravado.
• Jail Bake: Barmaley is broken out of his initial imprisonment thanks to his allies leaving a file in a piece of bread.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Barmaley discusses the case of it, seeing as how he would be imprisoned for his crimes again (and one of his crimes on-screen is imprisoning animals in cages). Because he chooses to reform, it mever happens.
  • The Crocodile that ate the Sun by Barmaley's orders also acts like a braggart bully. He's defeated on a boxing ring, knocked out and forced to spit out the Sun by a Bear who lost (literally) his children in a blackout caused by Crocodile. When he appears in next episode, he's still bruised and in a cast (though shakes off the injuries quite quickly when asked to devour Barmaley).
  • For his crimes, Barmaley is devoured alive by Crocodile "like a mere fly" and only released under promise of reforming. For bonus points, it's the very same Crocodile as above!
• Leitmotif: Melody of "Little Children" is closely associated with Barmaley and his gang.
• Misplaced Retribution: Varvara despises animals in general, but joins the scheme to make all African animals sick rather than do anything to those that visit Aibolit in their country.
• The Napoleon: Barmaley is very short in the adaptation. Usually, illustrations (and other adaptations) actually make him taller than the average.
• Non-Action Big Bad: For all his proclaimed ruthlessness, Barmaley is more of a planner and relies on his crew and other villains to actually put the plans into action. When put up against a Crocodile in the final episode, he gets swallowed without much resistance. This may have to do with his short stature compared to other characters and Adaptational Nice Guy being in play.
• Non-Indicative Name: Barmaley's first mate is known as One-Eye, despite having both his eyes in place.
• Ocular Gushers: Once the Sun gets returned to the sky and the cages and other zoo elements get demolished, the entire gang of Barmaley bursts into this.
• Off with His Head!: The Mosquito in "Party Fly" rescues the titular fly by decapitating her captor. At least in the original - see Dies Differently in Adaptation.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Barmaley has one when he learns about Aibolit coming to rescue as it would mean he'd be reimprisoned.
  • Both Barmaley and Cockroach get terrified when Aibolit pulls a sparrow out of his hat to eat the latter.
• Only Sane Man: Aibolit and his assistants are the only ones not intimidated by the Cockroach. Aibolit additionally pulls out a sparrow to neutralize the latter.
• Papa Wolf: Ironically, the Bear. He literally loses his children in a blackout caused by the Crocodile, so when he learns who is responsible, he finds the guy, threatens to break him in half if he doesn't give up the Sun on his own and then follows up on the threat by grabbing him and knocking him out with one punch.
• Paper Tiger:
  • The Crocodile is a Boisterous Bruiser that manages to throw Africa into disarray by consuming the Sun, boasts that he could easily eat the Moon too, has both bravado and great boxing skills... and then he comes up against a Bear and gets knocked out in one punch.
  • The Cockroach, Barmaley's last resort against the chasing crowd of animals. True to poem, he intimidates both Aibolit's and African animals into backing off, but gets killl a sparrow Aibolit had in his hat soon after without much resistance.
• Percussive Maintenance: In Episode 4, the grammophone that plays the music for the pirate's stage play starts out looping the track. The pirate operating it whacks it, restoring it's functionality.
• Plagued by Nightmares: Even after the time passed since the told adventures, Karrudo frequently wakes up due to nightmares of Barmaley and other events he was part of.
• Prank Call: Varvara is a subject of one in episode 3. The caller is asking for Moydodir (while most likely knowing he was calling Aibolit).
• Refuge in Audacity: Barmaley's plan is to present his crew as a travelling troupe, organize a one-time only performance and then poison distracted animals with drinks laced with diseases, disguising it as treats that come with the program. The plan is overdramatic and absurd, especially since pirates bar Varvara don't even bother with disguises to hide their Obviously Evil looks, but they do such a good job at acting and singing that animals fall for the trap hook, line and sinker.
• Riddle for the Ages: Just how exactly did the pirates get a huge stash of disease vials?
• Show Within a Show: The "Party Fly" poem appears as an in-universe performance by Barmalei's crew.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: The Bear threatens the Crocodile to spit out the Sun, telling him he lost his children and the entire world is in disarray while the reptile couldn't care less. The Crocodile promptly replies he'd devour the Moon too if he wanted.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Aibolit is a kind doctor to the point of being Friend to All Living Things. His sister Varvara, meanwhile, absolutely despises animals and his brother's work, to the point that she gladly joins forces with Barmaley in his plan to make all Africa's animals sick and lock them up.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • As animals start drinking the spiked beverages, the song about Party Fly keeps going, eventually contrasting the grim visage of animals falling sick and motionlessly lying on the ship.
  • In Episode 7, pirate's cheerful tone of singing is contrasted with them singing about dangers of Africa... and making a pot and pyre to cook hare children for Cockroach.
• Spared by Adaptation: Barmaley (who actually drowns in one of other adaptations) is merely Swallowed Whole and spat back out after he promises to reform.
• Split-Screen Phone Call: When the Hippo calls Aibolit, the screen is vertically juxtaposed this way, with Hippo on one side and doctor on the other.
• Ultimate Universe: The cartoon combines elements of the novel (Aibolit's animal companions, his sister Barbara and Barmaley being a pirate captain) and the rhymes (most of Aibolit's patients, his mission to Africa, as well as events of Chukovsky's other rhymes that didn't even have Aibolit as a character in them).
• Villain Episode: Episodes 2 and 4 focus exclusively on Barmaley and his gang of pirates.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Varvara's animal-hating tendencies aren't fully unbased: not only do they call Aibolit extremely often throughout the whole day and cause a lot of noise, but he seemingly allows them to roam the house, causing it to become dirty to the point that other people are too freaked out to visit them.
  • When gazelles call her telling all swings and carousels burnt up, she tries to reason with them. Considering they don't listen, she's right to call them stupid.
• Villainous Breakdown: Barmaley's gang bursts into literal fountains of tears at seeing their plans demolished.
• Villain Song: Aside from aformentioned "I Am" Song, Barmaley has "Little Children" sung by his cronies, warning children against visiting Africa no matter what since that's where he lives - and awaits those same children so he can cook and eat them.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Barmaley actually learns about Aibolit coming to rescue and attempts to stall him by having the Crocodile steal the Sun from the sky.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A short narrated one. As Karrudo says, after the end of adventures, Aibolit and co returned to Leningrad alongside pirates, Varvara came around her viewpoint on animals and started loving them too, Barmaley became a friend to all children and often visits his house. Aibolit's house is often full of animals who drink tea together...including Karrudo himself.
• Would Hurt a Child: Barmaley is stated to be a Child Eater. While he doesn't eat any onscreen, he's more than willing to infect animal children of Africa as much as adults.