Les Minikeums (partially lost French puppet TV kid block; 1993-2002)

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Minikeums.jpg

Show's logo.

Status: Partially lost

Les Minikeums was a kid show block that aired on French channel France 3 from 1993 until 2002.

It featured a wide cast of puppet characters (the "MiniKeums") who were caricatures of French celebrities, but shown as young operatives at a TV station.

The show was very popular during their airtime; along with screening many cartoons and children's TV series, the Minikeums themselves would have a large variety of skits, centering on some character storylines, movie/TV-series/gameshow parodies or music videos.

Their original songs were famously catchy, such as the main theme but especially their boy band parody song Ma Mélissa.

The Minikeums cast.

Les Minikeums remain a solid part of 90s French popular culture, and is a common talking point of French nostalgia communities.

In its later years, however, production decided to shut the show down, because of its cost, although it claimed the children audience was apparently getting tired of it. Les Minikeums was retooled into MNK and given much more less original footage and a more restricted set until it disappeared in 2002. In 2003, a new all-CGI kid show block replaced it, called TO3, but completely failed to gain the same appeal as Les Minikeums, lasting barely a year.

Because of its popularity, taped footage of Les Minikeums keeps on circulating on video-sharing websites. However, the list of found videos and of what is still yet to find is far from exhaustive.

Adding to their original skits and parodies, the show also had a lot of different redubbed/retouched footage used to introduce a cartoon/TV show they were going to air, lasting less than half a minute. These tend to be the most rare.

Available videos

1994 version of the opening sequence.

Another 1994 version of the opening sequence, a skit, intermissions and ending theme.

Ma Mélissa, their most popular original song, parody of late '90s boys bands.

Short self-promotional music video.

On va la gagner ("We're going to win it"), a song made for the 1998 World Cup.

Coco plays soccer.

Terrible news: Nag leaves.

Parody of gameshow Questions pour un champion. Incomplete footage.

Unavailable videos

  • "Jojo Vador tousse": In this skit, Coco Skywalker (Coco as Luke) is in a lightsaber fight with Jojo Vador (Jojo as Darth Vader). Jojo tries to tempt Coco into joining the dark side. Because of his raspy voice, Coco tells him he must be smoking at least one pack of cigarettes per day. Jojo replies he actually smokes two, that he is still powerful with it, but he has a huge coughing fit that prevents him from attacking Jojo. He offers "Death Star" cigarettes to Jojo, but he refuses. Jojo remarks that the Force is truly with him, and he has a coughing fit again. Jojo remarks "Say hello to the Dark Side of the lungs!"
  • M'sé does a short rap song about Casper The Friendly Ghost, while an animated Casper is moving in the background. In the end, M'sé looks embarrassed, takes off his cap and asks if Casper wants it.
  • Parody of The Weakest Link with Zaza as the host.
  • Complete footage of the Questions pour un champion parody.