Josh Semiosis

Doktor Bubó

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One in a series of posts dedicated to pop-culture depictions of owls — as stand-ins for educated, highbrow humans — from 1924–1983. The series derives its title from Owl’s home in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

Kérem a következőt! (literally: “Next one, please!”) is a trippy 1973–1974 Hungarian animated series produced by Pannonia Film Studio. The show was the most popular Hungarian cartoon of the era.

The show stars an owl psychologist, Doktor Bubó, who attempts to stop a trouble-making animal (an elephant suffering from an inferiority complex, say, or a megalomaniacal flea) via psychological methods. Like most pop-culture owls, he is a failure. Not only is Bubó incapable of curing his patients, because he misdiagnoses them every single time, but his proposed treatments invariably cause even bigger problems.

Each episode ends with a supposedly wise maxim from Bubó: “Don’t spread an infection just so you have something to cure”; “The best treatment for certain diseases is to keep the doctor away”; and so forth.

“Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo,” he says when thinking. His version of “Hmmmm.”

Note that the American horned owls and the Old World eagle-owls make up the genus Bubo; Bubo is Latin for “Eurasian eagle-owl.”

Tags: Owls