Have most people in your country ever heard of... (movies, school)

[Acajack]

OK, I've been wanting to start this thread for a while.

It's about what could be called our cultural blind spots.

So, I'll start with a timely one.

Tintin - Belgian comic strip character, now featured in a big Hollywood movie.

So, people, had you ever heard of Tintin *before" Spielberg decided to make a movie about him?

And secondly, would you say most people in your country had heard of Tintin? Was he a household name?

I will provide other examples of (perceived) cultural blind spots as well and hopefully others will too.

[cry_havoc]

I've never heard of tintin until now.

[swisswife]

We had TinTin comics as children in England.

[Zembonez]

I had not heard of Tintin.

After seeing the promo for the movie... I wish I had not heard of it now.

[Average Fruit]

I live in Canada, and yes I know Tin Tin. I never read the books, but when I was a kid in the early 90s, there was animated television series. I don't know if many Canadian know about tin tin or not. Couple of weeks ago on the amazing race, they were in Belgium and one of the task had to do with dressing up as one of the tin tin charterers. My best friend had no idea who tin tin was. I think if Canadian around my age know about tin tin, it will more from the cartoon than the books.

[danielsa1775]

I used to read Tintin comics all the time as a child in Australia during the 80's, they were very common in school and city council libraries. Lets hope the tintin movie is better than the Asterix one.

My wife (a south Korean) has never heard of Tintin.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Average Fruit

I live in Canada, and yes I know Tin Tin. I never read the books, but when I was a kid in the early 90s, there was animated television series. I don't know if many Canadian know about tin tin or not. Couple of weeks ago on the amazing race, they were in Belgium and one of the task had to do with dressing up as one of the tin tin charterers. My best friend had no idea who tin tin was. I think if Canadian around my age know about tin tin, it will more from the cartoon than the books.

I live in Canada also but in Quebec. Here Tintin along with Astérix are the kings of comic strips. Marvel Comics and DC Comics (small and soft-cover) have only limited popularity compared to large hard-cover European comics like Tintin, Astérix, Lucky Luke, Gaston Lagaffe, and others.

My experience in travelling abroad and hanging out with young people from lots of countries is that Americans and English-speaking Canadians are among the people least familiar with Tintin. (Probably because of DC and Marvel's dominance of that market.)

Although some English-speaking Canadians I gather do know him because their French teachers used the books in class.

[Vichel]

Originally Posted by danielsa1775

I used to read Tintin comics all the time as a child in Australia during the 80's, Tintin and Asterix where by far the most common comics you would find in any library I went to. Lets hope the tintin movie is better than the Asterix one.

Same here, although I was a child in Australia earlier than that. When we moved to Canada in the 70's my anglo-Canadian friends were not familiar with nor were fans of Tintin.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by danielsa1775

I used to read Tintin comics all the time as a child in Australia during the 80's, they were very common in school and city council libraries. Lets hope the tintin movie is better than the Asterix one.

My wife (a south Korean) has never heard of Tintin.

I have Australian friends and they know Tintin also but I never knew if they were representative or not. I am kind of surprised to hear from you that Astérix is known in Oz, though.

And some Astérix movies are a lot better than others!

[nedergras]

I used to watch the adventures of Tintin on Nickelodeon back in the 90's... I loved that show along with Gumby.