Kartapus (Unresurfaced Mid-90s TV Series)

Kartapus was a French live-action children sitcom TV series, produced by media company Carrere Group D.A., that aired in the mid and late 1990s on French channel TF1. It was made of 40 episodes that were 10 minutes long each.

It was about a big magical friendly bear, Kartapus (whose name sounds like "carte à puces", meaning "smart card") who came out of a computer and have fun with two children, a boy and a girl, who were the only ones who could see him, as Kartapus was invisible to adults. Episodes would have Kartapus cause some mischief, intentionally or not, and having the adults risking discovering his existence.

Kartapus was portrayed by a person in a still-faced full-body costume, and sequences from the point of view from adults would have simple special effects of objects moving or floating around (as manipulated by Kartapus) with some Chroma-key techniques. Although Kartapus is quite tall in "person", the show's opening theme shows him being originally a small bear cub in a sidescrolling computer game, being pursued in the forest by a much taller nasty-looking human.

Very little evidence of the show subsists today; it still has an (almost empty) IMDB page and a section on the Carrere website, but the named people who worked on it are only known to have been into minor projects. Even in active "remember nostalgic shows" forum, it is hardly mentioned, if at all.

Of course, there is no known video to see of the show as of late; only the Carrere website has kept a promotional picture (which illustrates this article).