Wanju Zhi Jia aka "Toy House" (partially found Chinese CGI animated series; 1998)
The show's main characters Little Computer and Old Box.
Status: Partially Found
Wanju Zhi Jia (玩具之家, "Toy House") is a Chinese CGI animated series that aired on CCTV in 1998.
Premise
The show was one of the earliest CGI animated series produced in China, featuring anthropomorphic computer and old box depicting various daily routines in a house called "Toy House". The show has also never before been released on home media, nor re-aired.
The show has been the subject of an ongoing search effort on the Chinese Internet to date, and five episodes have now been found. In addition, until around 2011, when the search for the show began, there were absolutely no captured images of the show on the Internet and very little information about it.
The show existence
On July 14th, 2011, the community space "Toy House Bar" was opened on the forum site Baidu Tieba, where netizens followed their memories about the show. In October 2011, community member "ikyokyo" published an illustration of an Old Box drawn from his memory. Six months later, another community member "z594843336," created a 3D model based on ikyokyo's drawing of an Old Box.
Some netizens doubted the show's existence, given the near-total absence of information. However, on March 2006, CCTV ran a call for entries on its website, "My Animation, My Choice of Chinese Animation Ranking," in which viewers were asked to select their own 10 favorite animated series from a list of 180 works, and the list included the title "Toy House" was on the list[1]. This was proof that the show existed.
Contact with some creators
On January 2015, one of the show's searchers, Pure Milk II (纯牛奶贰), discovered a report titled "Powerful production team of Tianwei Yuanchuang - Chinese animation dream factory (强力制作团队之天维源创——中国动画梦工厂)" posted on QQ.com on August 17, 2006[2]. It contained a very important reference to a man named Cui Xuefeng (崔雪峰), who "Completed China's first 3D animated 'Toy House' in 1995". Incidentally, the report also described the number of episodes of the show, which was 38. Pure Milk II found Cui's Weibo account on the 27th of the same month and contacted him via private message, to which he replied that he was the primary producer of the show.
The show's searcher, VisionalLoong (VL), found information on the website of the Shanghai Theatre Academy that an associate professor, Wei Dongxiao (魏东晓), was participating in the show's script work[3]. However, the information there gave the show's episode count as 52 and the year of release as 1998, contradicting the description on QQ.com. It also appears that VL has attempted to contact Wei himself, but has been unsuccessful.
Partially found
Since the found of the two creator's information, no new developments in the search have been observed. But on April 2nd, 2019, the turning point happened suddenly. It was on the marketplace site Xianyu that the resources for the four episodes were sold for 600 yuan (about 84 dollars) by seller, "a198608029," and one of the users, "Re (热)," reported this fact to VL in a Toy House QQ group. The seller, a198608029, was identified as "The history of the galaxy has turned over another night (银河的历史又翻过了一夜)" and is the person who uploaded the opening and ending videos of Japan and Western animated series when they aired in China on Bilibili.
On April 3, the group was excited that the resource had been confirmed, and Mo Xuan (墨泫), former owner of Tieba's Toy House Bar, solicited crowdfunding for the purchase in a WeChat group chat. It was then decided within the QQ group that VL, who had already bid at this time, would be the resource buyer representative. In the afternoon of the same day, VL negotiated with a198608029, and VL offered to barter but was turned down. Finally, the price was discounted to 540 yuan (about 76 dollars) and both parties agreed. At 21:49 on the same day, a198608029 shared resources with VL at Baidu Wangpan, and VL paid him. Immediately, VL shared the link to a WeChat group chat with ikyokyo.
ikyokyo checked the resource and noted that it was all in the format "mpg" files and used MPEG2 encoding. Furthermore, the resolution of the video is as high as 480p, a quality close to what can only be achieved by using an SVHS video recorder. Incidentally, the titles of the four episodes are "Blind Old Box (老箱子失明记)," "Movie Star (电影明星)," "Weight Loss and Fitness? (减肥健身？)" and "Return of the Terracotta Army (秦俑再生记)".
On November 18th, 2019, QQ Group member "Amnesia Star (失忆的星星)" revealed to the group that she had ripped a screenshot of what appeared to be one of the episodes, "Energy Crisis (能源危机)," from a CCTV broadcast at the time. ikyokyo was able to determine from the screenshot's top left corner that the Analyzing the CCTV logo, ikyokyo tentatively assumed that the episode aired between June 1998 and July 2001. According to Amnesia Star, his QQ friend "Nostalgic 80s (怀旧八零后)" was in possession of the "Energy Crisis" resource, who was a used videotape collector and dealer living in Siping, Jilin Province. There was no movement since then, but on November 3, 2022, VL received a private message from Bilibili user "Sōka Gakkai Hisamoto (创价学会久本)." Hisamoto said he had the "Energy Crisis" resource and posted a video of the resource in the QQ group Hisamoto said Nostalgic 80s was the request and asked if the group was interested in purchasing it. After hearing the story by Hisamoto, group member "Free" revealed that Nostalgic 80s once told him that they possessed all the episodes of the show.
On November 4, Hisamoto quoted a price of 200 yuan (about 28 dollars) for the resource and Mo Xuan immediately started crowdfunding, but VL, who was referred by Hisamoto, added Nostalgic 80s' QQ and made a personal deal with him. After VL paid Nostalgic 80s, the resources were delivered to him and he shared them with the group.
Availability
Four episodes posted by user Chunshangu Wyatt (楚山孤Wyatt) on April 4th, 2019 in Bilibili. On November 29, 2022[4][5][6][7], the "Energy Crisis" episode was posted by user "Sweetie Particle (甜心粒子)" in Bilibili, but was deleted for unknown reasons. However, on April 2, 2023, it was posted again by user "Jituo Haitun (吉托海豚)" and it remains undeleted and available for viewing today[8]. Nostalgic 80s is in possession of all the episodes, but so far there have been no moves by him to release them.
When the resources for the four episodes were found, a user on Weibo named "Wu Xiaomeng (吴小濛)" gave a mention that the show had 39 episodes in total, that 10 beta tapes existed and contained four episodes on one tape, and the numbers of the four episodes that were found. VL returned the question to him as to how and where he knew this, but received no response. VL stared at the possibility that he owned those 10 Beta tapes, but it is still a mystery about this user, and of course the possibility of Beta tape ownership remains unknown[9].
The numbers of the four episodes mentioned by Wu Xiaomeng are as follows.
- "Blind Old Box" - Episode 29
- "Movie Star" - Episode 30
- "Weight Loss and Fitness?" - Episode 31
- "Return of the Terracotta Army" - Episode 32
Found information
Production team
The resources discovered have revealed a great deal of previously unknown production team information. Cui referred to himself as the primary producer, but in reality, he was a technical instructor.
The information is as follows.
- Production Company - CCTV Animation Group (中央电视台动画部), Beijing Golden Shifan Cultural Development Company (北京金色十方文化发展公司)
- Distributing Company - China International Television Corporation (中国国际电视总公司)
- Presenter - Liang Xiaotao (梁晓涛)
- Director - Tong Tong (佟彤)
- Art Designer - Li Zhuoyi (李卓艺), Zhang Danqing (张丹青)
- Exective Producer - Li Xiaojian (李小健), Duan Gong (段工)
- Script Coordinator - Wei Dongxiao (魏东晓)
- Episode Writers - Tong Tong, Wang Leiqing (王磊卿), Zhang Yi (张毅), Qian Yu (钱钰), Duan Ran (段苒)
- 3D Producer - Lü Miao (吕淼), Zhang Fan (张帆)
- Composer - Zhang Xiao (张晓), Zhang Ruxin (张如昕)
- Casting - Lu Kui (陆揆), Sun Hao (孙皓)
- Recording - Zhang Zizhong (张子忠)
- Effects - Liu Wanfu (刘万富)
- Post Editor - Sun Guodong (孙国栋)
- Technical Instructor - Gong Jiu (工久), Cui Xuefeng (崔雪峰)
- Producer - Zhao Xin (赵欣), Wu Hongbao (吴洪宝)
- Responsible Editor - Geng Lin (耿琳)
Production period and number of episodes
On January 29th, 2021, Pure Milk II, one of the show's searchers and leader of the QQ group at Toy House, found an interview with Beijin Golden Shifan, the show's production company, in the magazine Computer CD Software And Applications: COMPUTER ARTS (计算机光盘软件与应用: COMPUTER ARTS数码艺术), Issue 2, 2005.
In the interview article, the show's production date was stated as 1993, and furthermore, the total number of episodes was 39. This was consistent with Wu Xiaomeng's reference that VL was staring at owning a beta tape of the show. 1993 is when the number of CGI animated series started to increase, and if this is the case, we can confirm that this show was the first CGI animated series in China.
Incorrect information
On June 11th, 2015, an article on Toy House in the Baidu encyclopedia added the statement "The film was destroyed by fire at CCTV," and this information has since been disseminated to many netizens. on February 9, 2009, the Beijing Television Cultural Center, which is adjacent to the CCTV headquarters, suffered a fire accident. However, ikyokyo has completely denied this information. He claimed that the reason for the denial was that CGI animation is not recorded on master tapes, and furthermore, that TV show and film resources aired by CCTV have special warehouses where they are kept at a certain temperature.
External Links
References
- ↑ 动画剧集＜玩具之家＞探佚情况2017年度汇总 Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ 《玩具之家》考证进行时 - 百度贴吧 Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ 动画剧集＜玩具之家＞探佚情况2018年度汇总3 Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ Blind Old Box (老箱子失明记) Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ Movie Star (电影明星) Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ Weight Loss and Fitness? (减肥健身？) Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ Return of the Terracotta Army (秦俑再生记) Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ Energy Crisis (能源危机) Retrieved 14 Jun '23
- ↑ 动画剧集〈玩具之家〉探佚情况2020-2021年度汇总 Retrieved 14 Jun '23