Nino Pagot was an Italian comics artist and animator known primarily as a co-creator of the character Calimero, who later became the star of several Japanese anime television series. Born in Venice in 1908, Pagot began his career as an illustrator for various Italian magazines in the late 1920s before moving into comics and animation.

Pagot's early work included drawing adventure comics for publications such as Argentovivo and creating stories for the Disney-licensed Italian magazines Topolino and Paperino between 1937 and 1941. During this period, he collaborated with writer Federico Pedrocchi on stories based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, including Biancaneve e il mago Basilisco. This experience with animated film characters inspired him to pursue a career in animation.

During World War II, Pagot worked with his brother, Toni Pagot, on the animated feature I fratelli Dinamite (The Dynamite Brothers). The film's production was interrupted when a bombing destroyed their studio and the original drawings, forcing them to restart the project. Released in 1949, I fratelli Dinamite is recognized as the first Italian feature-length animated film and the first Italian film produced in Technicolor. In 1946, the Pagot brothers founded the animation studio Organizzazione Pagot, which produced advertising films, short cartoons, and television series.

Pagot's most famous creation, Calimero, originated as a series of animated advertisements for Miralanza soap products, broadcast on the Italian television program Carosello starting on July 14, 1963. The character, a small black chicken who wears half of his eggshell on his head, was created jointly by Nino Pagot, Toni Pagot, and Ignazio Colnaghi. The popularity of the advertising shorts led to a licensing deal in Japan, resulting in the first Calimero anime television series produced by Toei Animation, which ran from 1972 to 1975. A second Japanese anime series, produced by Telescreen, aired from 1992 to 1993. The character's signature line of complaining about being treated unfairly due to his small size has left a lasting cultural impact, including the term Calimerocomplex used in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Beyond Calimero, Nino Pagot co-created another animated character that crossed over into Japanese animation. Grisù il draghetto, a young dragon who aspires to become a firefighter, was created by the Pagot brothers and first appeared in 1964 as a series of commercials for Carosello. The character later starred in a television series of 52 episodes that aired from 1972 to 1975. Pagot and his studio also produced cartoons featuring other characters, including Cocco Bacillo, Omino-goccia, and Gelsomina, as well as commercials with established characters like Cocco Bill and Warner Bros. characters. Nino Pagot died in Milan in 1972.