Take a bunch of puppets in the shape of forest animals, let them talk, film them, bring the show out on TV and there is De Fabeltjeskrant. Okay, it took a little bit more than that, so let’s take a look back at the history of this popular children’s TV show, which was really for adults as well.
The brain behind talking forest animals was Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1693). He wrote poems and fables that were meant as teaching material. His stories often had a pessimistic moral. It is needless to say that Fontaine had a negative view on the world.
De Fabeltjeskrant was first aired in Holland in 1968. The writer Leen Valkenier used thirty of Fontaines fables. When they run out, he started to write fables himself. He kept Fontaines formula, including the moral at the end, which was not a success. The storyline was too complicated for kids and therefore had no success.
The creatures were Jacob the wise owl, Lowieke the shrewd fox, Mister raven and Miss Stork. Valkenier added the brother Ed and Willem Beaver to the cast and represented workers, in the hope people would identify themselves with them to increase the popularity of the show. This was a great idea, because suddenly the show became extremely popular. Valkenier decided to create more new characters like Zoef the Hare, Bor the Wolff, Meindert the Horse and the sisters Hamsters. In the end the show had at least sixty different characters.
In the four years after the first episode, de Fabeltjeskrant became one of the best viewed shows of that time period with one to two million viewers a day.
The characters of de Fabeltjeskrant all lived in het Grote Dierenbos (the big animal forest) and had to cope with daily problems, just like humans do. They also shared the same emotions, skills and habits. In every episode the owl read a story from de Fabeltjeskrant out loud, with stories about what happened in the forest. Because people could relate to these animals the show was a big success. Not only in Holland, because forty different countries bought the rights of the show.
After four years and 1041 episodes Chanowski Productions pulled the plug of de Fabeltjeskrant, even though the show was still very popular.
On the 25th of June in 1970 the one and only movie about de Fabeltjeskrant premiered in 21 cinemas in 19 different cities throughout Holland. The movie attracted 212.015 visitors and made 500.000 guilders. The makers were a bit disappointed about the success, because the expectations were higher than that.
