Fathers of clothes

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Fathers of oldies was a slapstick -Sendereihe, largely silent short film comedies of the 1910s and 1920s with new, of Hanns Dieter Hüsch or Hans Michael Rehberg presented spoken German commentaries and dialogues, sometimes Tonkurzfilme from the 1930s and 1940s. It was broadcast on the second German television from October 5, 1973 to May 31, 1986 . A total of 199 episodes of the series were produced, 150 of which lasted about 25 minutes each, 49 episodes had half the running time with about 12-15 minutes.

General information about the series

In the individual film episodes, the cabaret artist Hüsch commented on the events of the silent films, which were mainly made in the studios of Mack Sennett , Hal Roach and Al Christie as well as at Vitagraph . They showed the then famous stars Charley Chase , Snub Pollard , Billy Bevan , Ben Turpin , Larry Semon , Bobby Vernon and Jack Duffy , as well as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and, occasionally, Charlie Chaplin in the early stages of their careers. In addition to the synchronized dialogues, Hüsch comments were also added to the less frequently used sound shorts by Roach and RKO (with Charley Chase, Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol, among others ) (Hüsch was only used twice in Charley Chase, the rest of the Chase episodes received introductory comments made by Ernst Hilbich ). Heinz Caloué , Gert Mechoff and Eberhard Storeck were responsible for the series .

The opening and closing credits of the series consisted of slapstick scenes from various comedies, including the short films Manhattan Monkey Business (1935), A Night in the Show (1915), Knight Duty (1933), The Jolly Jilter (1927), Crazy to Act (1927), A Prodigal Bridegroom (1926), The Dare-Devil (1923), Whispering Whiskers , Wandering Willies , Circus Today , Masked Mamas (all 1926) and The Play House (1921). For the credits u. a. also exploited the feature film Jitterbugs from 1943; In the final scene, remembered by many viewers, comedian Andy Clyde tumbles out of a kind of switch cabinet (from Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies , 1925), whereupon a Billy Gilbert covered with spaghetti was cut (from The Nickel Nurser , 1932) , which one put the exclamation "Schöööööön!" in the mouth.

The title music , composed by Quirin Amper Jr. and Fred Strittmatter , began with the lines “Good evening, dear guests, we are delighted to give you the best. With clothes, comedians who already knew our fathers ”. The musical preparation was done by Jiří Kanzelsberger . The short episodes of the series had a shortened opening credits, in which the text was no longer sung, but the title melody was played with a saxophone. The credits stayed the same. In addition to Hanns Dieter Hüsch, these episodes were also commented on by the cabaret artist Hans Jürgen Diedrich .

In the early 1980s, some of the short films were reworked and shown as part of the series “ Meisterszenen der Klamotte ”. In 1984 and 1985, ZDF again showed 20 new 25-minute episodes in which some silent films were re-edited by men without nerves . A special feature is the episode “Gangsters on the Track” with Bobby Vernon and Jack Duffy, in which an episode of the fathers of clothes from 1978 was edited again.

In the mid-1980s, PKS / Sat.1 renamed Fathers of Clothes to “It is allowed to laugh” and almost all episodes were shown. In another repetition of Sat.1 in 1992, the program was called "Fathers of Clothes", but only a few selected episodes with team films by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy or episodes with Charley Chase or Billy West in which Hardy played a supporting role, were shown.

Others

After “Fathers of Clothes”, the series “ Men without Nerves ” was often broadcast with a similar concept. The background music during the individual scenes was partly taken over by “Fun with Charlie” and “ Dick and Doof ”.

A forerunner of the series “Fathers of Clothes” was the series “It may be laughed” with presenter Werner Schwier (who at least welcomed the silent film greats Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd as guests in his show ), which first appeared on May 14, 1961 in the second Program of the ARD was broadcast.

Critics see Hüsch's cheeky texts a typical example of the falsification of films through dubbing , as was often the case in Germany in the 1970s (“ Schnodderdeutsch ”). This practice was widespread internationally, and only after film historians objected were the films restored and made accessible in their original versions, thanks in particular to new DVD editions since the late 1990s.

A parody of “Fathers of Clothes” was part of the ZDF comedy show “ Sketch History ”. Slapstick silent films about Adolf Hitler as a soldier in World War I were shown under the title “Fathers of the Grenade” .

literature

  • Norbert Aping: The Dick and Doof book: The story of Laurel and Hardy in Germany. Schüren, Marburg 2004, ISBN 3-89472-356-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Väter der Klamotte, D 1973–1985, alternative title: It may be laughed, fernsehserien.de
  2. ↑ Fathers of Clothes - opening and closing credits on YouTube .

Web links