3/22 Moment of Zen: Cheburashka & the Russian Birthday Song

Every Friday morning, the school where I teach has an all-school assembly. Part of this includes honoring those who have had a birthday during the week by drawing out of a basket one of several birthday songs other than the highly recognizable but still under copyright "Happy Birthday." Last Friday, I taught a common Russian birthday song, "Пусть бегут неуклюже" (Pust' begut neukljuzhe), which has its origins in a 1970s era Russian animation called "Чебурашка"(Cheburashka). I showed them this clip before teaching the song.

Russian band Гродень (Groden') does a loving skacore cover of the song, too.

Cheburashka himself, the cute little protagonist of the show with the singing, accordion-playing crocodile, isn't in the clip with the song though, so here he is. Click the picture above to read more about Cheburashka's ongoing influence, including a renaissance in Japan, where cute things live forever.
Here's a few more pictures (click for full-size):

There's quite a number of stylings of Cheburashka as Che Guevara and vice versa, which makes far more sense than it seems at first.