Original question by @Justathroughdaway@lemmy.world
Ask any Australian/New Zealander who grew up in the late 2000s or early 2010s what they’re favourite show was and they’ll probably say something by Chris Lilley. In particular Summer Highs High or Jonah From Tonga. I used to love watching these shows when I was younger and Lilley is such a great actor. To this day there still quoted in schools all over NZ and Australia.
When it was released, Alfred J Kwak was wildly popular in Germany and I think the Netherlands, too. I still consider it to be one of the most beautifully produced European animated shows from that era. DVD releases were sparse and I don’t think you can stream it anywhere (except some shady YouTube channels that probably are only left alone because the whole thing has pretty much disappeared into obscurity).
Something that I guess is only popular over here is Tatort, which is essentially your typical crime solving series. It’s released every other Sunday and always plays in some German speaking city or town. Quality varies wildly, but that is also sort of what makes it nice to watch, Tatort just hits differently depending on whether it’s the one from Münster or from Wien.
Wildly popular over here is also “die Sendung mit der Maus”, “the mouse program”, maybe. It’s usually a set of entertaining animated or puppeteered shorts, educational segments and few-seconds-long animations of the mouse. It’s been on air for decades.
Alfred J Kwak is actually a Dutch series.
I am Dutch btw. My parents always watched Tatort and any other krimi on ARD and ZDF, like Derrick, Cobra 11 and Kommisaris Rex. I learned to speak German at a young age thanks to the TV 😄
Alfred J. Kwak was actually a co-production of VARA (NL), ZDF (DE), TV Tokyo (JP) and TVE (ES). Lots of people involved ;).
Didn’t know those German series were popular across the border! Very interesting. And hey, learning a language is never a bad thing, I guess. Sometimes I wish the Germans wouldn’t dub everything.
I didn’t know it was a co-production, but I knew it was Herman van Veen! That guy had the weirdest kids show ever: “Daar komen de Clowns” (Here come the clowns) about a group of clowns flying through space in a giant top hat.
I’m watching Tatort Münster to learn German. Love Thiel and Börne.
Alfred J Kwak started as a performance by Herman van Veen. I still have the record.
En het orkest riep “boe”. Oh jee, dacht Alfred, wat noe.