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Sound & Vision in Hilversum has four episodes of the popular youth series Will you tell me the way to Hamelin, sir? was found “A special find of historical value,” according to the media museum“as this makes the series complete again and secure for the future”.
In the 1970s, the popular Dutch series kept an entire generation of children glued to the TV. The series is based on the German fairy tale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin and is about a group of children. Together with several adults, they try to find their way back to the small German town of Hamelin.
The main roles were played by Rob de Nijs, Ida Bons, Loeki Knol, Ab Hofstee and Martin Brozius. John Lanting, Leen Jongewaard, Hetty Blok, Berend Boudewijn and Rita Corita played key supporting roles. The series contained 45 episodes and over a hundred songs by Joop Stokkermans.
Black and white
Last year, Sound & Vision acquired the archive of technician Barry van der Sluis. It turned out that there were recording tapes of the writer of the series: Harrie Geelen. The writer had recorded the series on an Akai VT100, a black-and-white video system.
These black-and-white videotapes were transferred to VHS tapes in the late 1980s and later ended up in the Van der Sluis archive. Four episodes on the Akai tape, which have now surfaced, appear not to have been made into VHS copies. So these four events were always considered lost, until now.
Soon, the media museum will digitize all Akai black-and-white tapes, so that the series will be complete after fifty years.
In the Sound & Vision archives there are only six programs that still have their original broadcast quality in colour. “The rest was washed away,” said Jennemiek Leijssen from the museum.
Just for example Yes sister No sister the series was recorded on Ampex tapes. These tires were often reused because of the high costs. As a result, a lot of material was lost.
Below is a small glimpse of what the events looked like in color:
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ANP Kippa
Ab Hofstee (left), Rob de Nijs, Loeki Knol and Martin Brozius (right) -
ANP Kippa
Marnix Kappers, Ab Hofstee and Martin Brozius -
ANP Kippa
Ab Hofstee, Martin Brozius, Rob de Nijs and Ida Bons -
ANP Kippa
Six years ago Geelen talked about how television in those years was bound by the laws of cardboard sets. “There was almost nothing possible in a series like this at the time,” he said at the time NOS With an eye on tomorrow. “Sets had to be installed in a studio that was 15 by 15 meters. Then you couldn’t have the characters walking on ravines or on long forest paths.”
That made no difference to the popularity of the children’s series. At its peak, each episode averaged around four million viewers.
2024-05-08 12:38:17
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