# Urpo and Turpo > A Finnish stop-motion animated television series for children, based on Hannele Huovi's books. This is the Markdown rendering of [https://marjutrimminen.com/films/urpo-and-turpo/](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/urpo-and-turpo/), generated from the page itself. It carries the same words in the same order, with every image reduced to its description. The short map for machines is at [https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt](https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt). This page in Finnish is at [https://marjutrimminen.com/fi/lyhytelokuvat/urpo-and-turpo/](https://marjutrimminen.com/fi/lyhytelokuvat/urpo-and-turpo/). # Urpo and Turpo 1996 · Television series · 35mm · 13 episodes Animated television series, directed by Liisa Helminen and Marjut Rimminen, based on Hannele Huovi's books ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Turpo (red) and Urpo (grey) standing side by side in their nappies](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-turpo-and-urpo-side-by-side.jpg) A Finnish stop-motion animated television series for children, based on Hannele Huovi's books. Teddy bears Urpo and Turpo live on a bookshelf in the children's room and are voracious readers, particularly of the classics. Marjut's directorial approach was to emphasise the bears' imaginations and to film what they saw from a child's eye level. Each episode begins from the bookshelf and rebuilds the rest of the bedroom into somewhere else. A stack of clean folded laundry becomes the princess's pile of mattresses; toy blocks scribbled in marker pen turn into a castle's keep; a plastic saw and a tea-towel apron set up a hospital. The imagined worlds are built out of whatever is already on the carpet. ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, the bears playing knights atop a castle made from drawn-on wooden blocks](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-bears-as-knights-block-castle.jpg) ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Urpo beside a stack of folded laundry that has become the princess's mattresses](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-urpo-folded-laundry-mattresses.jpg) She paced the two bears differently in the animation. Turpo, the red one, leaps before he thinks: spontaneous action and perpetual movement. Urpo, in grey, is pensive and sensitive, with a lively imagination. Turpo lurches from one pose to the next; Urpo lingers, looks, considers. ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Turpo in a surgeon's mask wielding a toy saw](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-turpo-surgeon-mask-toy-saw.jpg) > You don't need to speak slowly and loudly to children. Small minds move fast and anything but linearly. From whim to whim, jumping wildly from one thing to another. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Kotiliesi, 4 October 1996 > Urpo and Turpo are without a doubt Finland's funniest bears. Children, adults and critics alike fell in love first with the books and then with the autumn animated series. For animator Marjut Rimminen, the series was a new challenge. > > – Kirsi Riipinen, Kotiliesi, 4 October 1996 > Urpo and Turpo, better than Toy Story. > > – Ilta-Sanomat, film review, 1996 - Episodes on [Yle Areena](https://areena.yle.fi/1-2375816); on DVD from VLMedia (2019) - 🏅 **Valtion laatutuki**, 1996, the Finnish state quality award - 🥉 **Bronze Elephant**, 1997 [Golden Elephant International Children's Film Festival](https://www.handleproductions.com/film/urpo-turpo-orig/), Hyderabad - **Monitoro Award**, 1998 ## Screenings and broadcasts - Cinema premiere at Kino Engel 2, Helsinki, 27 April 1996, distributed by Cinema Mondo; festival screenings the same year at Espoo Ciné, Copenhagen, Lübeck, Sodankylä and Oulu ([Elonet](https://www.finna.fi/Record/kavi.elonet_elokuva_167978)) - First broadcast on YLE TV1, 14 September 1996 - At the [Blue Sea Film Festival](https://www.blueseafilmfestival.net/2019/04/12/2005/), Rauma: Urpo ja Turpo kuntoilevat in the children's programme - On Yle Teema, [Animaatioarkiston aarteita](https://yle.fi/aihe/a/20-61976), 7, 10 and 12 October 2014: Urpo ja Turpo näyttelevät in a package marking a hundred years of Finnish animation ## Retrospectives - **[Anima, Brussels Cartoon and Animated Film Festival](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/most-wonderful-voyage-folioscope)** 17 to 28 February 1998, retrospective homage at the 17th festival, presented by Marjut from the [Tetra Pak](https://marjutrimminen.com/commercials/tetra-pak/) commercials through [The Frog King](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-frog-king/) and Urpo ja Turpo to [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/) and [Many Happy Returns](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/many-happy-returns/) ## Writing about the work - **Marjut Rimminen**: Giannalberto Bendazzi, [Animation: A World History, Volume III: Contemporary Times](https://books.google.com/books?id=BpvhCgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PT86) 2016, CRC Press: a biographical paragraph in the chapter on Great Britain (pages 71 to 72), from the 1968 graduation and [Vivante](https://marjutrimminen.com/commercials/vivante/)'s Zagreb award through Halas and Batchelor, the commercials for Finland, [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/), Urpo & Turpo, [Many Happy Returns](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/many-happy-returns/), [Mixed Feelings](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/mixed-feelings/) and [Red Ribbon](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/unicef-aids-red-ribbon/) to [Learned by Heart](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/learned-by-heart/), with a still from it; and a passage in the Finland chapter ([page 135](https://books.google.com/books?id=BpvhCgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PT221)): Learned by Heart "x-rays the country's history through the eyes of a child" - [Some Protection](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/some-protection/) - [I'm not a Feminist, but…](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/im-not-a-feminist-but/) ## Get in touch For festival and screening enquiries, teaching, masterclasses, or correspondence: [marjut.rimminen@gmail.com](mailto:marjut.rimminen@gmail.com)