Pittiplatsch
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
fictional kobold
Kobold
The kobold is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialise in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size...
character who was very famous in East Germany (German Democratic Republic), especially as a puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
character on children's television. He first appeared in 1962 in the television series Meister Nadelöhr erzählt ("Master tailor Needle Eye tells"), later renamed Zu Besuch im Märchenland ("Visiting Fairyland"). The character was co-created by the writers Ingeborg Feustel and Günther Feustel, the sculptor Emma-Maria Lange, and the puppeteer Heinz Schröder
Heinz Schröder
Heinz Schröder was a German puppeteer. He became known in East Germany for puppeteering popular characters such as Pittiplatsch and Herr Fuchs in the children's program of the East German television...
. The Pittiplatsch hand puppet was puppeteered and voiced by Heinz Schröder until 2009, who died unexpectedly in April of the same year. Norbert Schwarz succeed Schröder as Pittiplatsch's puppeteer in 2009. In May 2010, it was reported that Christian Sengewald took over the role.
Today, the short puppet colour films created for East German television
Deutscher Fernsehfunk
Deutscher Fernsehfunk , known from 1972 to 1990 as Fernsehen der DDR , was the state television broadcaster in East Germany.-Foundation:...
are still broadcast on the Sandmännchen
Sandmännchen
Unser Sandmännchen, Das Sandmännchen, Abendgruß, Sandmann, Sandmännchen is a German children's bedtime television programme using stop motion animation...
("Little Sandman") children's TV program, but there are no new productions for TV. However, new merchandise
Merchandising
Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer...
is still produced. Since 1993, the puppeteer
Puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...
ensemble also has been performing live. The death of Pittiplatsch's puppeteer Heinz Schröder in April 2009 caused the show to take a break until August of the same year.
Concept and creation
On November 23, 1955, the first episode of the long-running television series Meister Nadelöhr erzählt was broadcast, starring Eckart Friedrichson as the master tailor Meister Nadelöhr, who lived in his tailor parlour in fairyland and told stories to the viewers. In the beginning, he was accompanied by the (real) canariesDomestic Canary
The Domestic Canary, often simply known as the canary, is a domesticated form of the wild Canary, a small songbird in the finch family originating from the Macaronesian Islands ....
Zwirnchen and Röllchen ("Little Thread and Little Bobbin"), but later, they were replaced by puppet characters. In February 1958, the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous bear mascot of the children's magazine Bummi was added to the series. Another puppet joined in 1958, Schnatterinchen the duck. Both characters were portrayed as very dutiful and honest.
Heinz Schröder
Heinz Schröder was a German puppeteer. He became known in East Germany for puppeteering popular characters such as Pittiplatsch and Herr Fuchs in the children's program of the East German television...
got the idea to create a character based on the kobold
Kobold
The kobold is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialise in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size...
, a sprite of German folklore
German folklore
German folklore shares many characteristics with Scandinavian folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters associated...
. Schröder imagined a naughty little boy who didn't age, had magic
Magic (fantasy)
Magic in fiction is the endowing of fictional characters or objects with magical powers.Such magic often serves as a plot device, the source of magical artifacts and their quests...
abilities and didn't need to be parented. In cooperation with the writers Ingeborg Feustel and Günther Feustel, the designer and sculptor Emma-Maria Lange created a first model. The work resulted in a black-skinned boy with full hair and long legs wearing patent leather
Patent leather
Patent leather is a type of japanned leather that has been given a high gloss, shiny finish. The process was brought to the United States and improved by Newark-based inventor Seth Boyden in 1818, with commercial manufacture beginning September 20, 1819. Boyden's process, which he never patented,...
shoes. But this design didn't appeal to Schröder who thought it as too cute. Therefore, most of the hair was removed, the legs were crooked and the leather shoes got replaced by felt
Felt
Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can be of any colour, and made into any shape or size....
shoes.
Pittiplatsch, as the kobold was named, also needed an appropriate voice. A whole night, Heinz Schröder and the other puppeteers tried all possible pitches of voice they could think of without success. At the end, Schröder almost gave up and shouted "I can no longer" (Ich kann nicht mehr) with a squeaky voice. Then his colleagues and the director Erich Hammer agreed that this squeaky voice was just right for Pittiplatsch.
In 1962, Pittiplatsch debuted on television as a new companion of Meister Nadelöhr, puppeteered and voiced by Heinz Schröder. Unlike Bummi and Schnatterinchen, he was introduced as a more naughty and cheeky character. In his first appearance, Pittiplatsch took Schnatterinchen's toys and stole pudding. Some parents and teachers were outraged because they thought children could only learn bad behaviour from Pittiplatsch. This caused Pitti to be removed from the show after a few broadcasts. However, because of a lot of support from children who protested against this decision by mailing the East German television, Pitti returned. Since then, he became a recurring character on the show Meister Nadelöhr erzählt, which was later renamed Zu Besuch im Märchenland, and also appeared in other East German shows and media. A lot of the Pittiplatsch-related stories in numerous media were written by the writer pair Ingeborg and Günther Feustel, who created many other works for the country's children's media as well.
Appearances
Pittiplatsch was a recurring character on the show Zu Besuch im Märchenland, originally Meister Nadelöhr erzählt. Because of Eckart Friedrichson's retirement, who died in 1976, Meister Nadelöhr was replaced by the character of Fabian in September 1978, played by Klaus-Peter Pleßow.The kobold was present almost one thousand times in the Abendgruß ("evening greeting") of the daily children's show Sandmännchen
Sandmännchen
Unser Sandmännchen, Das Sandmännchen, Abendgruß, Sandmann, Sandmännchen is a German children's bedtime television programme using stop motion animation...
, the first time on June 17, 1962. These stories were only a few minutes long. In the early 1970s, Pittiplatsch and the duck Schnatterinchen started to appear solely in the short stories. The makers searched for a third character, which had to be a dog. At first, they reused the puppet Struppi known from the older defunct show Flax und Krümel
Flax und Krümel
Flax und Krümel is a German television series....
. He was later replaced by the newly created dog character Moppi, who debuted on April 3, 1976 and starred alongside Pitti and Schnatterinchen in more than 400 Abendgruß episodes. As with Meister Nadelöhr, Pittiplatsch and his friends also still starred alongside their human companion Fabian in some Abendgruß episodes. Many of the short colour films are still shown on TV, but not the black and white films.
There were also longer Pittiplatsch films produced, called Pittiplatsch reist ins Koboldland ("Pittiplatsch travels into Koboldland"), where Pitti experienced adventures with his siblings in Koboldland.
Several books and audiobooks starring Pittiplatsch were released in East Germany, often being written by Ingeborg Feustel. Many of them have been re-released in reunited Germany, new Pittiplatsch-related works have been published as well. Series of Pittiplatsch comics under the titles Pittiplatschs neueste Abenteuer ("Pittiplatsch's newest adventures") and Pittiplatschs Abenteuer ("Pittiplatsch's adventures") were printed in the listings magazine FF-Dabei in the 1970s and 1980s.
After the East German television stopped broadcasting in 1991, there were no new productions for television. Since 1993, there have been live performances featuring the original puppet characters, nearly only in the formerly East German states of Germany
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
. The show, commonly known under the names Zu Besuch im Märchenland and Pittiplatsch und seine Freunde ("Pittiplatsch and his friends"), is run by Show-Express-Könnern
Könnern
' is a town in the district of Salzlandkreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the river Saale, approx. 15 km south of Bernburg, and 25 km northwest of Halle ....
. The puppeteers Heinz Schröder and Bärbel Möllendorf performed live along with the musician Henry Kaufmann, whose role was taken over by Helmut Frommhold in 2005. Schröder's death on April 22, 2009 caused the show to take a break. In August 2009, it continued under the name Wenn der Zirkus kommt ("When the circus comes"), with a new focus on circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
elements. Pittiplatsch was absent, and other classic puppet characters were added instead, including Moppi. In November of the same year, Pittiplatsch returned. The show's name was changed to Pittiplatsch auf Reisen (roughly "Pittiplatsch is travelling"). The first performance with Pittiplatsch after Schröder's death took place on November 7. Pittiplatsch was then puppeteered and voiced by Norbert Schwarz. The ensemble stated that they chose him for the role since his voice was "very similar" to the original voice of Pitti. In May 2010, it was reported that Pittiplatsch's puppeteer had changed again. Christian Sengewald took over the role after he replied to a want ad. The reasons for Schwarz's leaving were not revealed.
Reception and impact
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Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
in that region.
Many different Pittiplatsch articles were made in East Germany, such as dolls, stuffed toys, hand puppets, board games and sweets. In reunited Germany, various new Pittiplatsch merchandising is still on sale.
In 1964, Pittiplatsch was printed on a postage stamp on the occasion of Children's Day
Children's Day
"Children Day", as an event, is celebrated on various days in many places around the world, in particular to honor children. Major global variants include a Universal Children's Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation...
, among several other stamps depicting characters from East German children's television.
A techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
song titled Ach du meine Nase ("Oh you my nose", from Pitti's trademark phrase) was released in 1994, as part of the project Sandmann's Dummies. The song used many phrases from Pittiplatsch (spelled "Pitty Platsch") and Schnatterinchen (spelled "Schnatte Rienchen") and remixed them in a comical way, causing the characters to say sexual innuendos
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...
. Another song in a similar fashion based on Herr Fuchs und Frau Elster, also from East German television, was made as well. The two singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
were commercially successful, selling around 270,000 copies combined in 1994.
The Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
-based ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
team Eisbären Berlin
Eisbären Berlin
' are a professional ice hockey team based in Berlin, Germany. The team competes in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga , the highest level of play in professional German ice hockey and is also one of the league's founding members...
uses Pittiplatsch's phrase Ach du meine Nase as part of their song when scoring a goal during home advantages.