Moomin (1990–1992) User Reviews

The greatest show created in the history of the universe.

[Torgo_Approves · 10/10 · 26 June 2006]

No phenomenon has had such a large impact on my childhood as the Moomins. I was a sucker for the awesome comics by Lars and Tove Jansson, I bought tons of little models of the cast of characters, my family even took me to Moomin Valley in Nådendal, Finland (of course, a human-sized Muminmamma trying to hug me was a bit too much for a 5-something-year old like me... brrr...). As I grew older and a brain, I read through all of the wonderfully atmospheric novels which, after all, started it all. But the single most powerful thing about the Moomins was the TV show. It had it all.

Horror! The scene where Moomin was transformed into a monster when he hid in the Wizard's hat scarred me for life. I still shudder as I see the Groke outside the Moomin valley, staring at the poor sods. I don't care if the Groke was a pitiful and sad creature who only wanted to make friends, to me she'll always be the greatest movie monster that humanity has ever created. Monsters like King Kong or Freddy Krueger are barely a 0.5 out of 10 on the Groke scale.

Comedy! Sniff and Little My, the hotheaded redhead, cracked me up.

Drama! The sorrow Moomin feels when his best friend the Snusmumrik leaves for the south during the autumn is something anyone can relate to.

Characters! The Moomin family, the Snorks, the Sniff, Little My, Snusmumriken, The Hemul, The Groke, Too-ticky, Stinky, Ninni, the Witch, etc, etc, etc, there were a myriad of multi-layered characters in these stories, none of them a stereotype or a one-note character, each with a billion times more depth than any of the "deep" Hollywood dramas.

As I grew a little older I left Moomin and started watching a more "badass" show that actually had some action in it - Pokémon (although it sucked in retrospect, it was a Saturday morning fave for me). But the Moomin series has stayed with me and it is, in some way, a part of me. As awful, dumb and naive series like Pokémon or Moomin may seem to adults, it's all us kids of the nineties have. When you were five, did you really want to watch Goodfellas or Nattvardsgästerna? No, you wanted to watch The Transformers, or Flash Gordon, depending on how old you were when they aired. Pretty lame as they may seem today, they were great when you were a kid, and classic today for anyone who grew up with series like these.

Ramble ramble... to sum up: This is a great show and I love it with all my heart. It's been a while since I saw it but I'm positive even adults will be able to enjoy it - unless you're scared of losing your status. Moomin is awesome. That's it. (r#38)

This series is first about the atmosphere and then the plot

[MrJukka · 10/10 · 22 November 2003]

The first commentor complitely missed the point. It is, however, refreshing to see someone who apparently did not like Moominland stories.

The Japanese TV series is amazingly close in atmosphere to the original books. Much of this is assumably because of the author, Tove Jansson, spent a lot of time looking over how her characters are treated by others.

Let's look at it from this point of view: isn't it nice to see a show where each character is an individual. Not everyone is either picture book good or simply bad. Amidst all the adveture, dangers, monsters, comets, and unexpected events there is an overall atmosphere of love and acceptance the characters feel for each other. This is completely opposite from Pokemon that I would not let my children to watch.

And one more possibly important item: Moominland stories are children's stories that adults like to read and watch as well. Children, at least in Finland, are simply hypnotized by them.

My only wish is that these will come out on DVD before my children have grown up.

The moomins are among the greatest... hell, it's the best show ever!

[henrik-andler · 10/10 · 6 February 2007]

First of all, I have to say that I just can't give enough credit for this cartoon. Good, now we can start.

This is a show that every kid should see, and I mean every episode of it (I did). This show is funny, exciting and above all, it's deeply meaningful. It really gives you an idea of the important things in life: love, friendship, teamwork, happiness, adventures, ...

If you're thinking you're too old for this kind of show, you're just wrong. While it's the greatest thing for a kid to watch on TV, it's also good for everyone from teenies to grown ups. And another thing is that it doesn't get boring! I have seen every episode more than 5 times but that doesn't bother me, while there are some quite boring episodes, the majority is just awesome, magical at best. You won't live a complete and good life without having seen the moomins, maybe it's just my opinion... maybe it's the absolute truth.

While it's always scary when the groke shows up, you should look at it this way: If you see the first groke episode as a kid, you'll be scared and have nightmares, but you'll get over it (not completely, but still). Now after that, nothing will seem as scary as that. Other monsters from other movies and series will seem laughable. For example, zombie movies. While quite scary, you know they're just infested humans. But the groke, you know nothing about it, it just appears rarely and then disappears into the dark woods... it's always so mystically freaky: you think "what is that? Where does it harvest it's power? What does it eat? Why is it in the moominvalley? will it show up now, when I most expect it?" I don't know why, but you always kinda sense that the groke is about to appear. Even if it doesn't appear, you have the strong feeling that it's out there somewhere. I can't really describe why it's so scary, it just possibly is the scariest thing I know. Still I really like the groke-heavy episodes and would like to see more of it.

Given that I wrote very much about the groke, it's not even a major character. It's just something that has affected me much. Almost everyone is affected by the moomins, but in oh so different ways. It has something for (again, almost) everyone.

Watch.

...then watch it again. ...and again. Then, show it to your kids someday. I highly recommend it.

childrens programming at its very finest

[deansaunders · 11 December 2003]

Proper storylines with good animation and SUPERB characterisation, I was overjoyed to see this was back on the BBC. Check it out on SAT early mornings and you will not be disappointed- it is much better than the sh*t which passes for kids shows these days. It is sacrelige that Dick and Dom in da bungalow are employed by the same channel which broadcast this wonderful programme.

Sweetest children's TV-show ever!

[emtjenare · 10/10 · 24 March 2005]

When I was small Muumilaakson tarinoita was my favorite TV-show by far, and I wasn't the only one. Based on the books and comics of Tove and also Lars Jansson, the stories are about Moomin, his parents and his many friends and the adventures they have, and every episode is quite unique and never boring! All the characters are lovely and even the "bad" ones turn out to be not so bad at some point and Moomins are always nice to them! The voices do a good job and the music is wonderful. The episodes might be sad, funny or teaching, and I have never seen a bad Moomin episode except the "new episodes" made later are nothing compared to these, these are the original ones and people should start with watching these! This is not an average children's TV-show, this is better!

I loved it!

[zub_razi · 10/10 · 24 April 2007]

I remember this show when i was a kid and i loved it!

It was very creepy at times, especially the Groke *shudders* but it was so memorable that it sticks with me even till today.

Its just one of those shows that sticks with you your whole life. I really wish i could get the whole thing on DVD form somewhere, but its very hard to find. It just gives me that feeling that is so hard to describe, i miss it so much.

Anyone form the early 90s will remember this classic! 10 out of 10 form me!

Totally awesome!

30 years... And it's still my favorite

[Jaggermaster · 10/10 · 14 January 2020]

Like the title says, I just love this show. Everything in it is just as right as possible. Voice actors, script, dialogue, comedy mixed with pure horror elements (The Groke, Vampire, Witch), JUST everything!

I'm 34 years old and I've watched this since it started to air in 1990 and even today at this moment I'm watching with my son an episode where Snufkin is leaving and Moomintroll plans to leave with him but Snufkin rejects his plan.

BUT, this review is only for season 1, episodes 1-76. Season 2 changed the characters and series tone so much it didn' t feel the same show at all. Actually, it didn't even look the same. Animation style changed too. Take a note, watch only season 1. AND check the movie, Comet in Moominland from 1992.

Excellent!

[julia-reijonen · 10/10 · 4 December 2021]

I'm from Finland so my whole childhood is this show. It's funny, cute, heartwarming although sometimes a bit scary. The animation is excellent and you can watch this even when you're older.

Insufferable and Mean-spirited

[strife82 · 1/10 · 9 June 2022]

I have never heard of Moomin. Never heard of the stories, never heard of Tove Janssen, never even knew this was a thing back in the 80s. But it was a thing, and apparently it was huge for a handful of folks both here and abroad, and if it wasn't for a simple YouTube collection of clips I would have gone the rest of my life still ignorant on it. Maybe that would have been for the best...

So I'm still not entirely sure what this show is or what is about. Near as I can tell it's based on a family of hippo-like creatures called the "Moomins" who live in "Moomin Valley" (...right), where the child of the family Moomintroll (called simply "Moomin" here) gets into mischief and adventures with his parents and/or his friends in Snufkin, Little My, Snork Maiden and Sniff. There are also other secondary characters who come and go throughout the series; the botanist Mr. Hemulin, the inventor Snork, some grody brown thing called Stinky, and whatever else was going on at the time. It sorta runs the standard episodic animated series trope with a singular central plot and a few forays into side tales, yet every once and again some interesting stories bleed over with occasional recurring themes, thereby keeping this as a simple one-shot program.

But it's so, just...BAD. In a lot of ways. The animation is sticky, cheap and a bit creepy; backgrounds are repeated (NOTICEABLY!) as characters walk, every person/beast has this glazed over expression regardless of what they're saying or the action presented on-screen like they were all fully dosed with premium valium, and everyone for the most part is, underneath, just so mean to one another. It's probably not intentional, but save for the Moomin parents, Moomintroll and Snufkin it seems like everyone else secretly can't stand each other (in particular the petulance of Little My and Sniff).

The English voice-acting is interminably awful in almost every capacity in differing values of annoying, from the simply bothersome (Moomin, the police chief, Mr. Hemulin) to the insufferable and shrill (Little My, Sniff, Alicia), with the lone exception being John Chancer putting on quite a show as Snufkin. And it's so poorly done; you can clearly notice cues being missed and characters speaking when the lip-syncing has stopped. No correction, no new takes, just one go and you're done, I swear.

There's really no character that stands out as important or memorable in any positive way, though I supposed the aforementioned Snufkin, with this world-weary wisdom and rich tone of voice, is enough to make him as popular as he is with a lot of people. But the rest? I dunno...Moomin is precocious and naive (of course...), Moominpappa is the bumbler ham (of course...), Moominmamma is quiet and even keel, Little My and Sniff I want to punch in the mouth for their endless, air-raid sireny shrieking and whining, just...my poor, poor ears. And it's not terribly memorable; stories and plots just come and go, with the only ones worth noting or remembering being the tales that take more than one episode to finish. Really, that's it. It just comes and goes, leaving no impact, so I really don't understand why its fanbase is so rabid and obsessive.

In the end I found this too loud, annoying, insufferable and mean-spirited to appreciate. I don't get the hype, nor do I get the nostalgia, and even back in my 80s youth I'd've found this not worth my time.

Nostalgic

[nazarapex · 10/10 · 30 March 2020]

Oh! However, Whatever be the situation, I always remember the MoominValley

The Best Animated Show Ever.

[Landkrabben · 10/10 · 21 October 2019]

This show had me glued to the screen when i was a child. I loved the characters and i loved the atmosphere. It was very scary at times! Mostly the episodes featuring The Groke. I had nightmares about that eerie creature and it scarred me for life in some way, because i never forgot it and i never will. The look of it's eyes in the dark outside the Moomins house. And the terrifying sound it made... Kayako from The Grudge has nothing on The Groke.

As another reviewer stated you always fear that it will pop out and scare the living crap out of you. You feel it's presence even though it isn't there. The way they set up the first appearence of The Groke was simply awesome, with the two small creatures Thingumy and Bob on the run from something and the fear they feel for it was unnerving to say the least. She's coming.

I can recommend it to everyone who hasn't seen it yet. You won't be disappointed. You'll be taken back to a time when tv animation still had heart and soul. A must watch! Go see it.

Great Show!

[aydennightingale · 10/10 · 31 March 2021]

This Show Is Beyond My Favorite Moomin Shows Of All Time!

My earliest memories

[askeland89 · 10/10 · 4 May 2023]

This show was a big deal in Norway in the early 90s. It created some controversy because it was often deemed too scary for children. Lots of complaints from angry parents. Some of the episodes were actually banned and never shown on Norwegian television again. And I'm not gonna lie.. The Groke still scares the living !%&? Out of me even to this day.. When the music kicks in I start to freeze.. It sounds demonic, as if it was composed by The Devil himself.

Watching this as a child was absolutely amazing. It felt like an adventure and you never knew what was gonna happen next.

I often dreamt about living in Moomin Valley and I still do.

Tove Jansson created something special here and this is in my opinion the best adaption of her work. Am I biased for giving it 10/10? Maybe, but this little cartoon means a lot to me and if I ever get kids myself I'm gonna force them to watch it with me! ^^

Probably one of the best anime TV series of all time

[Josephpr1990 · 10/10 · 6 November 2023]

I remember watching this 1990 Dutch-Japanese-Finnish anime TV series when I was younger. It was shown on the BBC as a part of their children's block CBBC and RTÉ 2 years ago. I know it's based on beloved Moomin characters by a Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson. Back in the late 2000s, I looked up on the Wikipedia about Moomin and I revealed that Moomin comic strip series was originally made in Finland. I thought I did not know that. It sounds pretty interesting.

I always loved that anime series. It's probably one of the best anime TV series of all time. It never gets old. It will always be a timeless classic.

If you're a fan of Moomin, you'll love this anime series.