Anabel (Brazilian TV series)

Lore & Background

Set in contemporary times (2000s), the show follows a 7-year-old girl named Anabel, who lives with her unnamed parents in São Paulo and travels to school by tramcar. She frequently enters fantastical and supernatural adventures drawn from literary novels, encountering monsters and creatures, and also solves mysteries and stops dangers in the city. Anabel is named after the titular figure in Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'Annabel Lee,' and her appearance resembles Wednesday Addams. Her father is a pharmacist (later a cook in season 2) and her mother is a history teacher; in the first episode, both parents had designs similar to Gomez and Morticia Addams, but those were changed for the rest of the series.

Reader's Guide

Anabel holds significance as the first Brazilian animated series on Nickelodeon Brazil, marking a milestone for domestic animation on an international children's network. The show's first season, set in the 1930s, deliberately avoided electronic media and clichés like a villain seeking world domination, instead emphasizing literary themes, radio dramas, and supernatural elements. The second season shifted to modern times and slice-of-life stories, introducing the character Ulisses as Anabel's best friend and a magical crow named Théo. A comic strip adaptation ran in the children's magazine Recreio from 2008 to 2011. The series was financed by the Rouanet Law and TV Cultura in 2000.

Did You Know?

• Anabel was a live-action series, not animated, and premiered on TV Rá-Tim-Bum in 2007.
• The show's protagonist is named after the titular figure in Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'Annabel Lee.'
• A comic strip adaptation of the series ran in the children's magazine Recreio between 2008 and 2011.
• The second season moved the setting to modern times and introduced a magical crow named Théo.

Creative Origins & Production Philosophy

Lancast Mota first conceived Anabel during the 1990s, building a concept that would not reach audiences until the new millennium. The project was ultimately financed through Brazil's Rouanet Law alongside a partnership with TV Cultura in 2000, with Sergio Martinelli serving as producer. Mota deliberately anchored the story in the 1930s, a period he felt possessed a rich popular-culture landscape that stood apart from the electronic media—television, video games—dominating contemporary life. This era also justified a protagonist whose imagination was fed by books and radio dramas rather than screens. The creative team set out to exploit storytelling tools that other animated productions largely ignored, leaning heavily on literary themes and even depicting violence in ways uncommon for children's animation. Mota was equally committed to steering clear of familiar cartoon tropes, explicitly rejecting the archetypal villain bent on world domination. The result was a show whose narrative engine ran on literature, mystery, and the supernatural, giving it a distinctly bookish flavor that set it apart from the broader landscape of Brazilian children's television.

Narrative World & Seasonal Evolution

The first season places its story in 1930s Porto Alegre, where seven-year-old Anabel shares a home with her unnamed parents and commutes to school aboard the city's tramcars. Her days, however, are far from ordinary. Drawn into the worlds of literary novels, she encounters monsters, supernatural creatures, and other fantastical beings, while also stepping in to solve mysteries and neutralize threats in her own neighborhood. Inspector Crab, a somewhat bumbling local detective, frequently calls on her for help with criminal cases. The second season, which premiered on February 5, 2011, marked a significant tonal and temporal shift. The narrative leapt forward into the modern era, and the emphasis pivoted away from monster-filled literary excursions toward grounded, slice-of-life storytelling. New characters entered the cast to support this change: Ulisses, Anabel's overweight best friend who stumbles into trouble almost by accident, and Théo, a magical crow visible only to the two children who possesses the ability to open gates into other worlds.

Character Design & Literary DNA

Anabel's very name is a nod to Edgar Allan Poe's gothic ballad "Annabel Lee," and her visual design draws a clear parallel to Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family. Her parents, introduced in the pilot episode "O Cachorro Escritor," initially resembled Gomez and Morticia Addams before their appearances were revised for the remainder of the series. The father works as a pharmacist in the first season and as a cook in the second, while the mother teaches history. Ulisses, the round, accident-prone boy who becomes Anabel's closest companion in season 2, carries a visual echo of Pugsley Addams. Inspector Crab, a detective stationed in Porto Alegre, is portrayed as somewhat incompetent and dependent on the young girl's investigative instincts; he appears in only a handful of episodes across both seasons. Théo, the magical crow, serves as a bridge between the mundane and the fantastical, creating portals to other realms that only Anabel and Ulisses can perceive. Together, these characters form an ensemble steeped in gothic and literary imagery while remaining rooted in a specific Brazilian city.

Broadcast Journey & Cross-Media Presence

Anabel holds a notable place in Brazilian television history as the first animated series produced for Nickelodeon Brazil. Its journey to the screen began in 2004 with a run of short animated segments that aired during commercial breaks. The full-length series made its official debut on February 26, 2005, as part of the programming block Patrulha Nick. The following year, the show was relocated to the children's block TV Rá-Tim-Bum, where it continued to find its audience. The second season arrived on February 5, 2011, on the same block. Beyond Nickelodeon, the series also broadcast on TVE and its successor channel TV Brasil, broadening its reach across public and commercial networks. Anabel's presence extended beyond the screen as well: a comic-strip adaptation ran in the popular children's magazine Recreio from 2008 through 2011, allowing young readers to follow the character's adventures in print. This multi-platform footprint—shorts, full episodes, multiple channels, and a magazine strip—gave the show a sustained cultural presence over roughly a decade.