Pipo en de P-P-Parelridder (English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 translation: Pipo and the p-p-Pearl Knight) is a 2003 Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 movie based on the children's television show Pipo de Clown

Pipo de Clown

Pipo de Clown is a character created by writer and artist Wim Meuldijk, which became famous as the lead character of a popular early Dutch television series also written by Meuldijk, and which was subsequently popularized in movies and on records...

. The film received a Golden Film

Golden Film

The Golden Film is a film award recognizing domestic box office achievements in the Netherlands. The Golden Film is awarded to films from the Netherlands once they have sold . The award is an initiative by the Netherlands Film Festival and the Netherlands Film Fund to increase media attention for...

 for having drawn 100,000 visitors.

Background

From the late 1950s on, Pipo de Clown was one of the earliest and most popular children's television shows in the Netherlands. The show finally ended in 1980. In the late 1990s, the return of Pipo was touched upon when television talk show host Ivo Niehe

Ivo Niehe

Ivo Johannes Ignatius Niehe OON is a Dutch radio and television presenter, television producer and actor.Niehe was born in Amsterdam in 1946 he studied French at the University of Amsterdam and received his MA in French Language and Literature in 1973...

 interviewed Belinda Meuldijk

Belinda Meuldijk

Belinda Meuldijk is a Dutch actress, writer, and activist. She has performed in Dutch television shows and movies, and is also a song writer...

, the daughter of Pipo's creator (Wim Meuldijk

Wim Meuldijk

Wim Meuldijk was a Dutch writer, illustrator, and screenwriter. He is the creator of Ketelbinkie, one of the most popular Dutch comics after World War II, and of Pipo de Clown, the star of a television show that ran from 1958 to 1980 which Meuldijk produced, filmed, and for which he wrote the...

), and her husband, singer Rob de Nijs

Rob de Nijs

Rob de Nijs is a Dutch singer and actor, active since the 1960s.-1962-68:De Nijs, backed by The Lords, released his first single in 1962, Ritme van de Regen. In 1966 he embarked on a joint circus-tour with Johnny Lion...

. Niehe tried to sell the idea to various broadcasters but without success, and the rights were bought by Endemol

Endemol

Endemol is an international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands, with subsidiaries and joint ventures in 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Poland,...

. Auditions were held, and Joep Dorren was chosen as the new Pipo. The script for a pilot and for six episodes was written, and the 40-minute long pilot (filmed in 1999 on Rob de Nijs's estate) proved very popular, selling 100,000 copies on video; still, the public broadcasting corporations had no faith in Pipo's chance of success and thought it would be too expensive. In the end Endemol

Endemol

Endemol is an international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands, with subsidiaries and joint ventures in 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Poland,...

 decided to make the series into a feature movie, Pipo en de p-p-parelridder, directed by Martin Lagestee and with a script by Wim Meuldijk.

Production and cast

The script is loosely based on a 1960 Pipo TV series, Pipo en de Slaapridder, which was filmed on location for 9000 guilders. The movie was filmed in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 for around €3.5 million and premiered in November 2003. The role of Snuf, one of the two crooks, was played by Rudi Falkenhagen, age 72. Falkenhagen was the last survivor of the original television show and Snuf was his first big role. He died two years later. Tara Elders, who starred in a number of Theo van Gogh

Theo van Gogh (film director)

Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims...

movies, plays the part of the titular character's lady lover.

Plot

Pipo receives a letter from Aunt Anouschka, asking him for help with mysterious events in a nearby castle which appears to be haunted. Pipo leaves the circus in the hands of his wife Mamaloe and daughter Petra, to the chagrin of circus director Dikke Deur--a circus without Pipo sells fewer tickets. When Pipo arrives at the castle there is no ghost; instead, he finds a knight who has been asleep for 500 years. He is awakened, but the next problem is finding and waking his lady lover, who has also been asleep that long.

Investment and payout

The movie cost about €3.5 million to make. It brought in €692,665 in 2003 and €815,120 in 2004.

Sequel

In 2007, rumors circulated that a second Pipo film was to be made, Pipo & Het Geheim Van De Barkini Driehoek, written by Meuldijk and directed by Lagestee, with Joep Dorre returning as Pipo. The Indian Klukkluk, notably absent from Pipo en de p-p-Parelridder, was to make his return. The movie, according to Meuldijk, was to be released at the end of 2008. However, Meuldijk died in 2007, and though a musical, Pipo en de Gestolen Stem, was produced in 2009, no movie has been released.