More orphan-tainment.
Made in 1974, and directed by future Ghibi founder Isao Takahata. Like a lot of the top 20 shows this was enormous all over the world.
Except places that spoke English.
Instead growing up I had to endure a live action, dubbed Heidi that the BBC seemed to use to fill up their summer holiday schedules all the time. Oh how I hated it so.
Interestingly the wiki page for Heidi itself confirms my belief that the Heidi movie DID get an English translation. So I'm not going mad after all.
Yes, anyway, in case you were never a child here's what goes down in this story by 19th century swiss person, Johanna Spyri: Heidi, an orphan goes to stay with her grandfather in the Alps. Then goes to Frankfurt and acts as a companion for an invalid girl. Then goes back to the Alps. Something remarkable happens. The end.
I remember especially hating the Frankfurt parts of the dubbed live action version the BBC had.
Some people list this as being part of World Masterpiece Theatre, and some don't. It's that not made being made by a company called Nippon Animation thing going on, and the fact the WMT name hadn't been coined then. It's like bands being retroactively declared “emo”.