Prelude: The Movida -- in which the young citizens gather festively, unaware of what is occurring in the castle

Cartoons on the Bay was marked by a series of unfortunate events, including a political dust-up over Pulcinella winner Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the World. © Logo.

Salerno is a town of the real south of Italy, with barber shops and stationery stores unaltered since the '30s, tiny alleys strewn with absurd balconies trimmed in wrought iron and strung with laundry. All of this is readily available if you step off the main seaside drag and into the old quarter.

Oddly, few at the festival do, caught up as they are in the events up on the hill at Lloyds Bahia hotel, or in running to catch a screening at the retro modern theater in the center of town.

On Saturday night, however, teens from all up and down Campania suddenly appeared, filling the alleys and streets with laughter, movement and even song. It is called the "Movida," the movement, kids in search of fun.

Fun was to be had in Salerno, but the kids in the street saw little of the festival type. Due to a perfect storm of entirely Italian snafus, this year's Cartoons on the Bay was a kind of out-of-the-body experience for the city of Salerno. In an operatic Italian fashion, tragedy has a way of transforming itself into a comedy, so let us here recite the story in four acts.

Act I: Lord Raitrade's Challenge -- in which the political appointee shoots the festival in the foot

Cartoons on the Bay is organized by RAI Trade, the sales arm of the Italian public broadcasting colossus. The bosses at the top of RAI Trade were busy taking gratuitous moralistic potshots at the competition. Carlo Nardello, the managing director of RAI Trade, intoned his dislike for two of the festival's entries before the start of the festival, distancing himself politically from the "inappropriate" stop-motion Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the World episode in competition. He also had words for the Spanish series Friends and Chips: The New Pope. "As to the cartoon with the theme of a future pope, I find it offensive and wrong-headed."

So the managing director of RAI Trade created a political brouhaha. He would later be forced to eat his words, as the former series won the Pulcinella for best series of the year on flat-out merit: Rick and Steve had simply the best-written script at the festival.

"What is it about the show he finds so offensive?" puzzled Adam Shaheen, executive producer of Cuppa Coffee Studios, the series' producer. "We've sold the show everywhere, to major networks that have nothing to do with the gay and lesbian community… " As to the quality, Shaheen points to the fact that Cuppa Coffee has won twice and been a finalist once in the last few years of Cartoons on the Bay. "He's entitled to his opinion," Shaheen shrugs. "Series two is on the way."

Well, most everyone else shrugged as well. A tempest in a teapot. But that was not the worst that the RAI Trade management had in store for the festival.

RAI Fiction took home awards for Gladiators (l), set in ancient Rome, and Water and Bubbles, a domestic comedy starring two fish in an aquarium. Courtesy of RAI Trade.

Act II: Triumph of the Knights of RAI Fiction -- in which the heroes of Italian (oh yes, and international) animation are recognized

And so the festival commenced, with heavy action in the press conferences, and the producers and artists making their case to the galleries as the judges scrutinized their works. The producing arm of RAI, RAI Fiction, always plays on their home court at Cartoons on the Bay. This year they garnered six nominations and took home prizes for best action series with Gladiators, set in ancient Rome, and won best series for all ages with Water and Bubbles, a domestic comedy starring two fish in an aquarium.

Gladiators vindicates Italian production house Mondo TV's long tradition of investing in this genre and improving their quality of product. "We're very happy about this," admits Gian Claudio Galatoli, director of production at Mondo TV. "It's the first international recognition of our staff of layout artists, character designers and musicians who have worked so hard on this project." He also points to the fact that Mondo has been hiring top Italian directors such as Maurizio Forestieri (Gladiators) and Giuseppe Lagana (Sandokan, Kim) as a part of their strategy. Mondo has undergone a unique expansion recently, buying a company in Hamburg to form "Mondo Eagle," and opening branches in France and Spain as well.

Water and Bubbles won on the basis of strong direction and character design by Guido Manuli, who has given the two fish protagonists extremely expressive eyes. It also shows the chops of up-and-coming Italian production house Maga Animation Studio, justifying their investment in 3D. We also got a look at their new series work with Bruno Bozzetto, PsychoVip, based on Bozzetto's 1968 spoof The SuperVips. In this series, Bozzetto's runt superhero recounts his daily humiliations to a psychologist who seems bent on... humiliating him.