Otto-Triin (partially found Estonian children's TV series; 1993-1998)

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This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its lack of formatting and fundamental features.


Background

Otto-Triin is a character created for Estonian TV station EVTV/RTV (later TV3) by Venno Loosaar and Hindrek Maasik.[1] A woolly dinosaur from “Misso-Masso land”, Otto-Triin quickly became one of the most recognizable children’s characters in Estonia during the 1990s, appearing at live events where he would hand out candy and hold contests, but also on dairy products, two cassettes, his own brand of chocolate[2] and a bedtime radioshow where he thinly veiled himself as “Mr. Misses-Secret.”[3] His third birthday party at the Club Hollywood in Tallinn alone attracted more than 1600 children.[4] and in 1995, Loosaar even took the character to the United States.[5]]


The series

Despite his massive success, the original TV show in which he first appeared remains completely lost, probably due to the fact that TV3 is a private, non-national channel with no archive to preserve its content. It’s especially strange considering not only Otto-Triin’s popularity but also that the series ran for five years from 1993 to 1998. There are no known VHS releases of the show. Notorious events surrounding production of the series may have also lead to it being hidden away years after originally airing. Producer Tõnu Paavo was involved in a car accident in 1997, killing two people,[6]. His trial began in 1998 and may have been the reason the show was quietly discontinued. Loosaar was accused of child abuse in 2019 and found guilty in December 2021.[7]

It is unknown how many episodes were produced or how exactly the show was presented, but based on what little remains of it, it appears to have been a combination human/actors in costume show similar to Sesame Street. After the end of Otto-Triin, Loosaar went on to work on his next show, Tibu ja Jäpe.

As of November 2022, the only things remaining of the TV series are two recipes from the show for “pig fillet a la Otto-Triin”[8] and an “Otto-Triin breakfast”[9] and two short clips, one from a guessing on old TV3 shows for the channel's 20th anniversary[10] and another on TV3’s “Seventh News” from September 15, 2016.[11]