Orchesta Castellina-Pasi - Lupin/Lupin

Back to Romagna.

Romagna is the birthplace of ballo Liscio, a kind of folk dance based on Mazurka, Valzer and Polka.

TV shows in Italy have always been dubbed, and so were animated cartoons. Not only they were dubbed, but also their theme music was completely redone by local artists, probably in order to avoid buying rights to the originals.

Often the artists redoing cartoon themes were actually pretty good, and many of these old songs became great classics. "What is your favourite cartoon theme song?" is a great conversation starter with most Italians.

For Lupin the Third part II they contracted a ballo liscio orchestra, Orchestra Castellina-Pasi, who ended up creating one of the most widely known liscio songs: Lupin/Lupin, although since it's usually associated with animated cartoons and not old people dancing in folk festivals, few people would actually recognise it as liscio.

Another anecdote on Lupin theme songs is the song used for the first season: strangely they didn't commission an Italian song, but they used a song called Planet O, by Daisy Daze and the Bumble Bees.

The lyrics of that song are inspired by Histoire d'O, and definitely not targeted at children. Nobody really spoke English in Italy, so I wonder if that has been somebody's prank.

Then again, the first episode of Lupin featured a scene of tentacle rape, so, uhm, whatever.