Monday, 3 November 2014
Sunday, 3 August 2014
German Children's Telly on the BBC
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| Patrick Bach in Jack Holborn |
As a rule, the only time we were allowed to watch television in the mornings when we were children was during the summer holidays. When we we were actually on holiday, staying in some ropey gîte in Normandy or whatever, we were from time to time allowed to watch French morning telly, which at that time of day at that time of year (in that part of the world) tended to consist of old British and American children's shows crudely dubbed into French. (I remember Super Grand-mère and Tortues Ninja, amongst others.)
Of course, we already knew about dubbing because we'd heard it explained on Blue Peter. And indeed some of our favourite TV dramas had been dubbed. The cartoons were mostly translated from French into American, but the live-action ones tended to have been dubbed into proper English from, oddly enough, German.
In actual fact there were only ever three German children's drama series dubbed into English and then broadcast on British telly. One was the TV-version of Timm Thaler - shown on CBBC as (for some reason) The Legend of Timm Thaler. And we of course loved it - the spooky, wistful theme tune, the lovely, weird Catholic/fairy-tale/science fiction world of the story itself, the gorgeously sinister, rich, blond baddy the Baron, and of course the fantastical wish-fulfilment character of Timm himself, the richest boy in the world, who wins every bet he makes, with the amazing laugh, and who looked gorgeous in his natty blue shorts suit.
Of the other two, one was Silas, which was also based on a children's book (although this time a Danish one rather than a German one), starring Patrick Bach as a similarly dark-haired, pouty-lipped eponymous Wunderkind who goes around having adventures, having run away from a circus. The other (which we never actually saw) was a follow-up vehicle for young master Bach, made by the same people who made Silas, based on Leon Garfield's book Jack Holborn. And this was 1982, three years before the BBC's own attempt at adapting one of Garfield's pseudo-Dickensian children's adventure stories with The December Rose.
So, three things at random: (i) For some reason Silas had the same theme as Buck Rogers. (ii) The series is now all on the Internet here - in the original German, of course. (And Timm Thaler must be around somewhere, probably on YouTube if one googles.) And (iii) I remember this episode the best (for, er, various reasons), though in truth I probably only ever saw the second half of the series, and even what I did see I don't remember especially well. Such is the disorganised wonderland of childhood!
To be honest, I suspect the point of the second Patrick Bach series was probably just that the producers wanted to capitalise on their young star before his looks went. (Mr Pascal Chuat has a nice article about the filming locations on his Cinema Lifestyle site.) Nowadays Mr Bach's still working in the industry, but as a "voice artist" - in other words an actor who's paid to dub over other actors' voices when translating from one language into another. So ah, sweet symmetry, that the boy whose beautiful German voice I never heard was paid to record over Ed Astin in the Peter Jackson Rings films!
Of course, we already knew about dubbing because we'd heard it explained on Blue Peter. And indeed some of our favourite TV dramas had been dubbed. The cartoons were mostly translated from French into American, but the live-action ones tended to have been dubbed into proper English from, oddly enough, German.
In actual fact there were only ever three German children's drama series dubbed into English and then broadcast on British telly. One was the TV-version of Timm Thaler - shown on CBBC as (for some reason) The Legend of Timm Thaler. And we of course loved it - the spooky, wistful theme tune, the lovely, weird Catholic/fairy-tale/science fiction world of the story itself, the gorgeously sinister, rich, blond baddy the Baron, and of course the fantastical wish-fulfilment character of Timm himself, the richest boy in the world, who wins every bet he makes, with the amazing laugh, and who looked gorgeous in his natty blue shorts suit.
Of the other two, one was Silas, which was also based on a children's book (although this time a Danish one rather than a German one), starring Patrick Bach as a similarly dark-haired, pouty-lipped eponymous Wunderkind who goes around having adventures, having run away from a circus. The other (which we never actually saw) was a follow-up vehicle for young master Bach, made by the same people who made Silas, based on Leon Garfield's book Jack Holborn. And this was 1982, three years before the BBC's own attempt at adapting one of Garfield's pseudo-Dickensian children's adventure stories with The December Rose.
So, three things at random: (i) For some reason Silas had the same theme as Buck Rogers. (ii) The series is now all on the Internet here - in the original German, of course. (And Timm Thaler must be around somewhere, probably on YouTube if one googles.) And (iii) I remember this episode the best (for, er, various reasons), though in truth I probably only ever saw the second half of the series, and even what I did see I don't remember especially well. Such is the disorganised wonderland of childhood!
To be honest, I suspect the point of the second Patrick Bach series was probably just that the producers wanted to capitalise on their young star before his looks went. (Mr Pascal Chuat has a nice article about the filming locations on his Cinema Lifestyle site.) Nowadays Mr Bach's still working in the industry, but as a "voice artist" - in other words an actor who's paid to dub over other actors' voices when translating from one language into another. So ah, sweet symmetry, that the boy whose beautiful German voice I never heard was paid to record over Ed Astin in the Peter Jackson Rings films!
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