The artist who turned Topo Gigio the mouse into an internet star, with cute, amazing and fun photos

Ask your grandmother or aunt: they were probably Topo Gigio fans as a child. The mouse was created in Italy in 1958 and was successful on television in several countries, including Ed Sullivan Show, one of the most watched variety shows in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. In Brazil, it gained its space in 1969, on Rede Globo. In the 1980s, it returned to the air on Band.

Topo Gigio dolls became a craze around here and all the children wanted to have theirs as a mascot. The restorer and plastic artist Miguel Anselmo is a fan of the mouse to this day and maintains a fun and very cute page on Instagram, showing Topo Gigio living various adventures, visiting people, seeing exhibitions and traveling the world. It’s to fall in love!

O awesome.club made a selection of some of the best moments from the Gigio Ratinho page and tells the story of this passion. As bonuswe have clicks from other mouse fans across the planet.

Miguel Anselmo, author of the photos in this post, says that he became a fan of Topo Gigio when he was very young, watching the doll on television, on the Rede Globo program in which the mouse played opposite comedian Agildo Ribeiro.

Miguel did not let go of his Topo Gigio: he went with him to school, to the doctor and to the dentist.

“Gigio became a companion, I told him things and he also answered for me when I got scolded by my mother”, remembers Anselmo.

As an adult, Miguel wanted to have his childhood favorite toy again, but the price of the doll in antique stores was prohibitive. “They even asked for 200 reais for a Gigio with two right arms”.

To give you an idea, an original Italian Topo Gigio from the 1960s can reach 1,000 reais in the antiques trade. Dolls made in Brazil and in other Latin American countries where Gigio was successful are usually worth less, but that’s not why they’re cheap.

One day, however, luck came to Miguel: “I was upset because I hadn’t been able to go to a show and ended up in a bar that was also an antique shop. There, I saw a Gigio without clothes and all dirty”.

As Miguel is a restorer and knows how to behave when it comes to dealing in antiques, he disguised his excitement well when finding the doll. “If you show a lot of interest, the price can go up right away.”

That’s how Miguel managed to buy the vintage doll for 60 reais.

That same night, the restorer took the doll to a restaurant and displayed it to his friends.

The next day, he left the doll clean and visited a well-known seamstress to order clothes that were very faithful to the original Topo Gigio costume.

Since that reunion with Topo Gigio, Miguel’s collection has only grown. He has other dolls, as well as books, records and VHS tapes with the adventures of the mouse.

Miguel’s Gigio has a little friend nicknamed Gildo, who, from time to time, also appears in photos on Instagram.

In São Paulo’s antique and handicraft fairs, it is common to find Miguel and Gigio.

“Some people already know me and even find it strange when I go somewhere without Gigio. They ask where he is,” says Miguel.

“With the Instagram page, I made a lot of friends on the Internet, people from all over the world. There are even those who send gifts to Gigio by mail”.

One of Gigio’s first trips was to Germany, where Miguel dealt with mixed reactions: “Some people came to ask me what an adult man was doing walking with a doll and even the friend who traveled with me was finding it a little strange. But a lot of people stopped me on the street and said: ‘Gigio! Gigio!’ They were people who, like me, liked Topo Gigio in their childhood. Italian, Spanish and South American tourists, Latinos in general, are always the ones who get excited when they see Gigio”.

In this photo, in Hong Kong, China

Above Lake Como, Italy

In Busan, South Korea

Belgian football player Eden Hazard (above), left winger for British club Chelsea, recently celebrated his first goal in a match against West Ham by putting his hands over his ears. It is the “Top Gigio style” of celebration, created by Argentine player Juan Román Riquelme (below) in a Boca Juniors game against River Plate in 2001, in the city of Buenos Aires. Hazard paid tribute to his Argentine idol with the gesture and ended up winning a Boca shirt autographed by Riquelme.

What did you think of Gigio’s adventures? Did you have a doll as a child that you liked a lot and went for walks with it? Tell your story in the comments!