In the twentieth century, the favorite cartoon characters were the heroes of Disney fairy tales, for example, Mickey Mouse, Donald and others. In the twenty-first century, they were replaced by minions. The cartoon with their participation captivated the audience. They are not like anyone else. How did they appear and who created them?

"Parents" of minions

To understand who minions are, you should learn about their creation. The characters first appeared in 2010 in the film Despicable Me. The cartoon was created by Pierre Soffin and Chris Renaud. Unexpectedly for the filmmakers, viewers showed incredible interest in the antics of the yellow-headed creatures. They decided to make them the main characters in several short animated films, and later released a full-length cartoon. The Minions prequel was written by screenwriter Brian Lynch.

The most difficult task for the creators was writing the dialogues. The fact is that the characters, in theory, speak their own special language. It was created based on the languages ​​of different countries. It is possible to understand the characters with the help of intonation and gestures, which the minions actively use. The director of the film was directly involved in dubbing the main characters.

What attracts viewers to yellow tadpoles? According to Janet Healy, who worked on the franchise, the minions are touching with their immaturity, sincerity, expressiveness and invulnerability. Who are minions from a moral point of view?

Cheerful characters strive to serve evil all their lives. At the same time, they are kind and sympathetic by nature. Such two-facedness lies in almost every person. They find their ideal home with Gru. A sincere, inextricable connection is established between the villain and the yellow pranksters. But who were they before meeting Gru?

Legend of the Minions

The villains' henchmen appeared on the planet millions of years ago. They came to earth from the depths of the sea as a result of evolution. Creatures cannot imagine their life without a master who must do evil. They help him with everything.

During the history of life on land, they were allied with the Tyrannosaurus rex, the caveman, the pharaoh of Egypt, Dracula and Napoleon. Thanks to the “help” of the yellow creatures, all the villains faced defeat and death.

Having lost all their owners, they move into an ice cave. Minions live for their own pleasure, but gradually lose the meaning of life. In order not to completely wither away, one of the minions decides to leave the shelter and find a new villain for his brothers. Two more minions go on the journey with him.

Finding themselves in New York in the sixties of the twentieth century, three friends find a suitable villain. Soon all the minions find the meaning of life in serving young Gru.

From the legend it becomes clear who the minions are. But what are they individually?

Characters

If you don't look closely, the minions seem similar to each other. They are all yellow and consist of a head and limbs. At the same time, they wear blue overalls. If you look closely, you can see many differences. Some have hair, others are bald. Some have one eye, while others have two. They also differ in height and, of course, character. To understand who the minions are, it’s worth getting to know the main characters.

List of characters:

• Stewart is a rebel and a tough guy. He dreams of becoming a rock musician and does not recognize the rules, so he can go against everyone. He's like a naughty teenager.
• Kevin is a leader by nature. It is Kevin who decides to go on a journey to find the owner. He is smart and balanced, his decisions are always balanced. Kevin can be called Bob's guardian, whom he cares about.
• Bob is the smallest minion, so he is considered a child. He is always running around with his toy. His little bear's name is Tim.
• Dave - loves to play pranks with Stuart.
• Phil - in one of the cartoons he shot from a bazooka and dressed up as a maid. It was he who was kidnapped by Dr. Nefario in order to make him evil.
• Karl - he ran around wailing the fire siren around Gru's house.
• George - I remember from the episode with the copy machine. He sat on top and made copies of his “butt”.

Whose voices do the minions speak in?

In total, more than ten people took part in voicing all the characters. However, the main characters, like all the minions, were voiced by Pierre Coffin. To do this, he wrote the image of each character in his head and was able to show their characters with the help of the correct intonations.

When dubbing cartoons into other languages ​​of the world, the voices of the minions were left unchanged.

Where can you meet characters?

The minions, photos of which are presented above, are the heroes of the franchise about the global supervillain Gru.

List of animated films of the project:

• "Despicable Me 1.2" (2010 and 2013);
• "Minions" (2015).

In addition, there are short animated creations, such as the cartoon “Minions: Monster”, as well as “House Makeover”, “Banana Fever”, “Bombs”, “In the Cinema”, “Dispute”, “Light Bulbs”, “Laughter from the Box” and others.

In 2020, the second part of the full-length film about yellow funny characters should appear. Work on the sequel has already begun.

2010 gave the world new favorites - characters from the animated film Despicable Me. Who are the minions that overnight won the love of millions of children around the world?

First appearance

For the first time, viewers saw minions in the cartoon Despicable Me, which tells about the supervillain Gru, who, to confirm his status as the most dangerous criminal, planned to kidnap the Moon. In many ways, Gru's numerous assistants - the minions - contributed to the enormous success of the cartoon. Funny yellow creatures, armed with huge lenses over their eyes and speaking an incomprehensible language, instantly won the love of little viewers.

But the main intrigue remained the question of the origin of the minions. Who are they - living creatures that have existed next to humans for thousands of years, or a product of genetic engineering? The answer to this question was received in 2015, when the cartoon “Minions” was released.

A prequel that reveals all the secrets of the origin

At the very beginning of the cartoon “Minions,” the viewer finds out where these funny creatures came from. As it turned out, minions, like all other living organisms on the planet, originated on Earth millions of years ago. They appeared long before humans and lived during the time of dinosaurs. From the moment of their birth, they served one purpose - the most vile villain. First it was the Tyrannosaurus, then primitive man, the Egyptian pharaohs and other famous attackers.

The cartoon "Minions" became a box office record holder - the story of the minions collected more than a billion dollars at the box office.

Appearance and abilities of minions

These are creatures of small stature and yellow color, similar in appearance to boxes of Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs. They have one or two eyes, wear large round glasses and blue overalls. Minions have several superpowers. They can do without oxygen and feel quite comfortable in outer space. Minions glow in the dark if necessary. They are unusually hardworking and have a sincere affection for their owner.

Without serving the villain, they lose interest in life and become apathetic. Minions love their work, but with no less pleasure they love to have fun and throw parties. The main delicacy is bananas. When they see this fruit they lose their self-control.

Minions are impulsive and easily lose self-control. At the same time, they are extremely simple-minded and look at the world like children, with their eyes wide open. Very curious and can be extremely annoying.

Minions can hardly be called a full-fledged people, since they do not have children or elderly people. Apparently they are all about the same age.

Minion language is an incredible mixture

The little henchmen of the villains speak a strange language that sounds very funny. It was not as carefully developed as, for example, the Navi language for James Cameron's Avatar, which was created by a professional linguist. But the speech of minions is not just a collection of sounds. To create their funny language, slightly modified words were used in Italian, Spanish, French, Indian, Japanese, Indonesian and English.

The minions in the cartoon speak in the voices of directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud. The characters were actually supposed to be voiced by actors. But when the creators of the cartoon tested how, according to their idea, the speech of the minions should sound, it was decided that no one could do it better than them. Coffen voiced the minions in all the cartoons.

Who are minions - good or evil?

Adults have a diametrically opposite opinion about these funny cartoon characters. Some parents consider them completely harmless and cute creatures. For some viewers, it's not that simple. They reproach the creators of cartoons about minions for the fact that their characters have many negative traits: unconditional submission to their master, inability to behave in a team, the struggle for the place of leader, which becomes threatening, selfishness and a love of cruel pranks.

For children, the answer to the question of who the minions are is simple and clear - they are the funniest assistants to supervillains, speaking in gibberish and performing many meaningless but funny actions.

Minions is one of the world's popular brands

As soon as they appeared on the screen, the little henchmen of the villain Gru turned into one of the most famous trademarks. Funny creatures have become characters in computer and mobile games; their images decorate children's clothes and dishes. There was even a new flying toy, released in 2015. The principle of its operation is the same as that of Flying Fairy. Kids can choose one of two characters - Dave or Stuart.

So, who are the minions? For children, these are one of the favorite cartoon characters. Funny and funny kids, simple-minded, impulsive and clumsy, they continue to be the favorites of adults and children.

Thanks to the minions, the Despicable Me cartoon and its sequels have become even funnier.

Some people on the Internet are debating whether the Minions are from Despicable Me.good and bad characters .

They are cheerful and funny, butthey serve exclusively the villains . Minions do dangerous and rowdy things all the time.

And with regard to gender, they have a completely difficult situation - it is not clear whether they are boys or girls, although by their behavior you can figure out who is who.

Let's look at some interesting facts about minions and try to understand were there minions in real life, and what the cartoon minions have in common with reality.

1. In the cartoon "Despicable Me" the minions' teeth are a little crooked, but in the second part ("Despicable Me 2") they are already aligned.

2. All minions have only 5 hairstyles, including no hair. For example, all the tall minions have the same hairstyles.

3. One-eyed minions are almost never tall.

4. According to the directors of the cartoon “Despicable Me,” minions were added to the film so that the main character Gru would fall in love with the audience.

5. Initially, it was planned to create the minions as huge as orcs, but as the cartoon was created, they were increasingly reduced in size.

6. The Minions were inspired in part by the short humanoid Jawas from Star Wars and the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

7. All minions have 3 fingers.

8. All minions who played an important role in the cartoon have male names.

Funny minions

9. How minions reproduce remains a mystery.

10. To promote Despicable Me 2, an airship painted like a Minion was used to fly over the United States. Later, 15 such airships flew over different countries.

11. Minions can survive in space. This means that they do not freeze and can live without oxygen.

12. Minions are now the main mascot of Illumination Entertainment.

13. The minions speak a language that is a mixture between Spanish, English and Italian, with some elements from Russian and Korean.

15. Evil minions are purple, since purple is on the opposite side of yellow on the color spectrum.

Who are the minions?

In the 16th century in France, the word “minion” was used to describe the favorites of noble people. At court, they could play the role of advisers, guards and even lovers.

From French "mignon" is translated as "baby", "cutie". The life and fate of these people completely depended on their patrons. Minions fulfilled any desires of the nobility, so soon the word “minion” was on a par with such concepts as promiscuity and corruption.

Minions of Henry III of Valois

It was these minions that achieved significant success in their difficult work. With their daring behavior and numerous intrigues, they worried the entire kingdom.

The minions loved to live in luxury, since they themselves did not grow up in the richest and most noble families.

It was customary among them to wear earrings, despite the fact that at that time it was very strange. It is worth noting that Henry himself loved to wear large precious earrings. He started wearing them after meeting Elizabeth of England.

This Minion portrait can be found at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The author of the painting is artist Lucas de Heere. The painting was painted around 1570 in oil on a panel made from natural slate. Henry and his minion in the painting are about 20 years old.

Since the minions wore slightly feminine outfits, the courtiers often laughed at them. However, many envied them, since the king loved to bestow various titles and lands on his favorites. Henry III even ordered the construction of a luxurious crypt for the minions killed in the duel.

What other minions are there?

Minion lamps:

Incandescent lamps. Characterized by low power and small base diameter.

Minion font:

Small font, which is often used in mini-books, as well as when creating advertisements.

Filet mignon:

Record - minion:

A gramophone record on which from 4 to 8 works were recorded (2-4 compositions on each side) with a total playing time of about 30-40 minutes.

Minion Dance:

Minion Abraham

17th-century Dutch artist, master of still lifes.

What are the names of the minions in the cartoon?

Kevin

An intelligent and balanced minion, capable of making logical decisions.

Stewart

Cool and independent minion. Rebel and rock musician. Often plays the role of a naughty teenager.

"became so popular that a separate full-length cartoon was dedicated to them, which was released on the screen quite recently and instantly gained enormous popularity, and its receipts have already exceeded 160 million dollars in the United States and almost reached 300 million outside their borders.

Let's learn together something interesting about these charming yellow and terribly funny creatures.

Pierre Coffin, the permanent director of all stories involving minions without exception, did not deny himself the pleasure of taking a direct part in the cartoon, where he voiced 899 minions!

What is "Minionese?" This is the language that these creatures actually speak. Although at first glance their dialect may seem like sheer nonsense, nevertheless, it is possible to clearly distinguish borrowings from a number of languages: English, French, Spanish, Indonesian and even Hebrew.

For example, "kemari" and "terima kasih" in Indonesian mean "come here" and "thank you", respectively. The use of this language is a kind of tribute from director Coffin to her Indonesian mother.

Kevin, one of the main characters of the new story, often says the phrase “se pa la”, which for the Spaniards sounds like “who knows”. They also clearly pronounce “Gracias,” which means thank you in Spanish. It is curious that throughout the film the minions speak the word “thank you” in several languages, including even Malay.

In another trailer, a minion, having received a banana, says “C’est banana.” Miam miam!" which in French literally means "This is a banana. Delicious!".

The background music in the scene where the heroes go to bed and the ox is shown is nothing more than the composition “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev, which he created in the USSR back in 1936 for a children's production of the same name.

It is interesting that the composition “Eruption” by the American hard rock band Van Halen, which Stewart performs on an electric guitar, was presented only in 1978, and the cartoon takes place in 1968, that is, a full 10 years before the release of the song.

The song referred to as "Abbey Road" is a reference to the Beatles' 1969 album of the same name. By the way, its cover can be seen on the streets of the city where minions walk.

A clear film blunder can be seen in the fact that the price for entering the Tower is set in decimal terms, although Great Britain switched to this currency calculation only in 1971, so the scriptwriters were mistaken for three whole years.

When the heroes were in the supermarket, footage from the famous TV shows “The Saint”, “The Dating Game” and “Bewitched” was broadcast on the TV screens.

The first minion in the British crown was Bob from the first Despicable Me in the scene where all the minions handed over the treasure they had obtained.

It is interesting that Sandra Bullock, who usually plays positive and kind heroines, voiced the main supervillain Scarlett Overkill in this film.

By the way, she came to the premiere in very funny themed shoes, which, however, do not at all fit with her villainous role in “Minions.”

As already mentioned, the cartoon takes place in 1968, or 42 years “before Gru,” since it was in 2010 that the world first became acquainted with these creatures in the film “Despicable Me,” which was released on the screen.

In general, the minions, as characters, turned out to be very successful, kind and funny, which are liked not only by kids, but also by adult people, causing them sincere laughter and positivity with their antics and jokes. It is not without reason that from the moment they appeared on the screen, their images are widely used in the field of entertainment and holidays; animators happily perform in minion costumes, and clowns include them in their acts, which invariably delights numerous spectators in various countries, and with Every year the popularity and demand for minions only grows.

Good afternoon friends!

Today we'll talk a little. About these mysterious, but very popular creatures that went to the people from the Despicable Me cartoon series, and not those that were from the French king Henry III.

Translated from English, the meaning of the word minion (minion) is closest to concepts such as “ assistant or henchman" Which, in fact, these creatures are, willingly serving all sorts of dishonest individuals. Although often, the origin of this word is linked to the French mignon - baby, baby, cutie. In other respects, both are quite true.

But where did these mysterious creatures come from?

And this story about Minions began quite a long time ago... in 2007. It was then that the Hollywood film studio Universal Pictures, to develop its animation business, invited the famous producer Chris Meledandri, who had previously released the super popular Ice Age franchise at the 20th Century Fox studio.

He, in turn, invited talented animation directors - Pierre Coffin - to work on the Despicable Me project

And Chris Renaud.

Having appeared in the process of creating the picture, the minions immediately became the favorites of animators. " The more minions, the more useful they are. There must be at least twenty of them. This means that twenty characters need to be brought to life. Almost every scene with them became massive, and this is not easy to do technically“says Chris Renaud, who came up with the original design of these characters, together with animator Eric Guillon, and also defined their task in the film as special agents carrying out various tasks and assignments for Gru. They are stupid, loyal and hardworking, they are tested with various poisons and weapons, and are paid in... bananas.

There is a theory that the Minions owe their unusual appearance to characters called Servbot from the computer game MegaMan Legends, who were inspired by Reno and Guilon.

Agree, they have common features, and the color palette is very similar... but this is just a theory.

Pierre Coffin, in turn, came up with a characteristic animation for them, and they received the majority of votes from him. While the team was trying out different voice tones for these characters, Coffin carried out an interesting experiment. He compressed the sound of his voice, as well as the voice of his colleague, Chris Reno, and the minions spoke in a very unusual manner. Coffin came up with a very complex minion language, similar to incomprehensible gibberish, in which, every now and then, a familiar word slips through. In this incomprehensible language, it is not the word itself that plays a more important role, but its sound.

« We liked the idea of ​​minions from the very beginning. Everyone had the feeling that they were slowly but surely trying to take over all the screen space. They combine naivety and the ability to cause harm. This makes them irresistible"says Meledandri.

Nevertheless, there is a certain morphology in the language of minions. Since this language is a kind of mixture of English, Spanish, Italian, French and even Russian!

For example, the phrase poulet tiki masala - nothing more than the name of a chicken dish with Indian seasonings))

If you want to understand these creatures more confidently, there is some minion dictionary. Learn, it might come in handy!

Bello- Hello
Bable-apple
Baboi- unicorn, children's toy
Banana - banana, crazy
Beedo - fire, fire
Butt-ass
Dibotada - spin, spin
Draka - fight
Idiot
Ikaikei - three hundred
Inaytoo- one hundred
Gelato - ice cream
Go- fast
Kenatsipoe - sucker
Ko pa - oh well
Labuboe - violation of the rules of the game
Lapati - work, love
Loka - give it here
Lok a me - look at me
Lukatomy-press
Lumai - envy
Maku- four
Makoroni - I protest
Makuyo- forty
Moka- ok
Naletuna - loser
No- no
Ou Poo! - oh Gods!
Paka - TV program
Pakafut- culinary program
Bye? - what?
Poopaye - bye
Pokatimona- muscles
Pakunemo-mata - super-man
Putam kara - kiss, let's kiss
Soveshchaniye - meeting, meeting
Spaghetti is a lie
Stopa! - stop! Stop!
Chasy-chair
Tatata bala tu- I hate you
Tru se la - I swear
Fut - food
Vipomos - injustice
Wolaka? - what's going on? What?
Boss - boss, boss

There are three types of minions in total:

1. Medium height. They come with one or two eyes.
2. Low and wide, with two eyes.
3. Long and thin, with two eyes.

From these three main types, you can combine approximately 48 different variations of minions, with different body types, heights and hair.

What are the Minions' names? All the minions have names, but only Gru knows them all. We can confidently identify only 8 of them.

In the first film, the main active representatives of this species were 7 comrades. Here names these minions: Dave, Stuart, Kevin, Jerry, Tim, Mark and Phil. Let's take a closer look at them:

Minion Dave

Minion Stewart

Minion Kevin

Minion Jerry

Minion Tim

Minion Mark

Minion Phil

And don’t blame me if you forgot someone.

Interesting fact:

In the first Despicable Me film, the minions had slightly crooked teeth, but in the second film, their teeth were straightened.
- It is assumed that they appeared as a result of a DNA mutation.
- All Minions have three fingers on their hands, from which they never remove gloves.
- Minion costume– the ever-present blue jumpsuit with Gru’s logo.

P.S.
Minion animated films have generated more than $1 billion in box office revenue, spawning numerous short films, Minion parodies, toys and other merchandise. After which, the Minions left the role of minor characters and in the summer of 2015 they went to the big screen as the main characters in the animated film of the same name. Did not see? Go and watch this interesting cartoon!

And a small bonus - minions, pictures for desktop, in HD quality