As Aventuras de Gui & Estopa

Cartoon NetworkBoomerang

**United States**:
**As Aventuras de Gui & Estopa** is a Brazilian animated series created by Mariana Caltabiano, who created her most iconic *Zuzubaland* franchise.

The series and characters are derived from a 2000 children's website known as Iguinho (a website belonging to iG, a Brazilian Internet service provider), also created by Caltabiano. The site contained games and flash animations, mostly focused on the site’s mascot, also called Iguinho (currently known as Gui, who at first was a cute Westie puppy); over the years, the animations with the mascot developed until they became more and more similar to American cartoons that Disney used to have during the 90s and 2000s, until in 2008 Caltabiano decided to take her characters to television starting with a film that was a compilation of several episodes that later went to by Cartoon Network (channel from which she used to have a strong partnership with iG during the 2000s).

The series has five seasons, the first in 2008, the second in 2009, the third in 2011-2012, the fourth in 2016 and the fifth in 2019.

## Why It Rocks

1. It stays faithful to source material.
2. Memorable characters, including Gui, Estopa, Piti, Cróquete, Róquete, Riba and Fifivelinha.
3. The animation, starting in the third season, are smoother, compared to its first two seasons, which is noticeable and very clever in the fourth and fifth season.
4. It had many funny moments, especially in the first season which has some of the charm of the original shorts made for the Iguinho website and also some classic CN shows.
5. The character designs are done-well.
6. Most of the title cards look so good and being strongly inspired the Disney and Warner Bros..
7. Decent writing.
8. There are good/decent episodes like:
	* *Maiô de Bolinhas*
	* *A Luva de Três Listras*
	* *A Rampa de Skate*
	* *The Dogs in Concert*
	* *Prima Esnobe* (depending of your view)
	* *Irmãozinho*
	* *Mãe Maneira*
	* *Padrinho de Casamento*
9. Unique dog-themed puns.
10. It has a well-composed soundtrack, and so as the catchy songs.
11. The UPA-style backgrounds are pretty creative and beautiful to look at.
12. Starting in season four the length of episodes began to increase lasting up to 5 minutes instead of just 2 or 3.
13. The second season is pretty good (but very funny) and even explains about the Brazilian Wildlife and the marine Wildlife.
14. The art style that fits the standards of the Disney cartoons of the 1940s and '50s.
15. The Latin Spanish dub is much superior and very good, easily compared to the Brazilian dub, with much better voices for the characters, most notably in the voices of Cróquete and Gui's mother.
16. Season 5 adds an opening sequence to the series, unlike its first four seasons.

## Bad Qualities

1. A handful of bad episodes.
2. Most of the episodes have mean-spirited moments and bad morals.
3. While the voice acting for its original Portuguese dub was decent, it almost became bland, with many of the voices sounding annoying and forced (the worst example being the voice of Gui's mother) looking like a amateur dub. This is due to the fact that the show has only two voice actors for all the characters, one of them being the creator of the show, Mariana Caltabiano, who is far from being a professional voice actress (this show is the only one she dubs). Many of the voices don't even match the characters; for example, Estopa and Piti are supposed to be children, but they have the voices and appearances of middle-aged adults, probably due to the characters originally being adults before the characters were anthropomorphized.
4. Some Karma Houdini moments, like in episodes like *Nerdson*, *Gatada Rosa*, *Guerra dos Nervos*, *Estopa*, *o Lutador*, *Cubo Mágico!* and *Curling*.
5. Some episodes have advertisements for the series' sponsors, such as: the episodes Amor e Músculos, Confusão Médica and Relaxamento that have advertisements for Oi and Volkswagen (season three sponsors) in the background and Comgás where the entire episode was done as an advertisement for the eponymous gas brand (that is season four sponsor). In addition, the episode Garotos advertises Mariana Caltabiano's website Iguinho.
6. Few sound effects are rather gruesome like the scream stock sound that is heard in the episode *O Aparelho*.
7. Some gross-out moments can be pretty disgusting. (especially *O Aparelho*).
8. Stiff animation for its very first two seasons (depending on your view). Although this point can be redeemed by the fact that the production of cartoons is something recent in Brazil, having only started to gain prominence in the 2010s, the animation has not shown any signs of evolution since its first season, (which debuted in 2008) and also because of the fact that Mariana Caltabiano has been working with animation since the 90s.

## Trivia

* In 2008, there was a compilation movie, with a few episodes of the first season of this show, hosted by Stress and Relax, two dogs with different personalities that eventually became stars of their own movie, *Brasil Animado*. You can watch it here.
* The show already aired on TV Cultura for a short period in 2013.

## Reception

The series has received good ratings at the IMDB website, as the show received an 8.1/10.