Whenever he took pills

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Television series
German title Whenever he took pills
Original title Mr. Terrific
Country of production United StatesUnited States United States
original language English
year 1967
length 25 minutes
Episodes 17 in 1 season
genre Comedy , sitcom , science fiction
idea o.A.
music Gerald Fried
First broadcast January 9, 1967 (USA) on CBS
German-language
first broadcast		 January 20, 1970 on ZDF
occupation

Whenever He Took Pills is a 1967 CBS- produced American television series .

content

While researching an anti-cold pill, scientists accidentally invent a miracle pill that gives extraordinary abilities. To the chagrin of the inventors, however, the pill only works on a few animals and is ineffective on humans - with one exception: the weak and shy gas station attendant Stanley Beamish. After taking the super pill he develops self-confidence, super powers and can even fly - but not without restrictions. The super pill is available in a large 1-hour version and a smaller 10-minute version. Stanley is allowed to take a maximum of one large and two small super pills per day, otherwise he has to reckon with extreme health consequences (he could then explode). Thanks to his superpill tolerance, Stanley is occasionally recruited by the secret service and now has to solve all sorts of tricky problems for Messrs. Reed and Trent. His partner Hal, with whom he runs a gas station together, knows nothing about it. However, Stanley solves all cases despite his clumsiness - or rather, thanks to his clumsiness.

Opening credits

Each series episode began with the same poem. The English original spoke about the opening credits; in the German version of the series, the following poem was spoken about a cartoon opening credits:

“A chemist who tried to bend nature
simply wanted to defeat the cold.
He whisked, stirred and mixed
and found a pill, but a darned one:
Because a sheep that she accidentally swallowed
turned out to be a lion shortly afterwards.
The force of gravity outsmarted
and started to fly high.
No steel structure could withstand its impact.
That was the day the super pill was found.

But people did not seem susceptible,
the pill made them sickly.
With many computers, powerful and clever,
one looked for one that could take them.
It took days to finally find him:
gas station attendant Stanley Beamish was the only one in the country.

Stanley, a delicate and weak gnome,
the pill made him a phantom.
He could fly like an eagle
and defeat any villain.
Because his big hour
always came when he took pills! "

In the first few episodes, however, the last two lines were different:

"In short: Stanley Beamish, otherwise limp and lame,
became Mr. Fabulous - whenever he took pills."

Trivia

  • Actor Alan Young played Stanley Beamish / Mr. In a first unsent pilot episode. Terrific (dt: Mr. Fabelhaft) . Since he was not convincing, another pilot episode was shot in which Stephen Strimpell took over the part.
  • Actor Dick Gautier , who played Stanley's friend Hal Walters, was also remembered by German audiences as the robot hymn from the 1965-70 television series Mini-Max or The Unbelievable Adventures of Maxwell Smart (orig .: Get Smart ).
  • The dubbing voice of Stanley Beamish is also known from Mini-Max , as the same speaker (Gerd Martienzen) took over the title character Maxwell Smart.
  • In addition to the series, there is also the television film The Pill Caper , which was cut from four episodes (episodes 1, 3, 5 and 9). However, this film has not yet been broadcast on German television.
  • At the same time as Whenever he took pills , the US rival broadcaster NBC started the series The Secret of the Blue Drops ( Captain Nice ). It too is about a rather average and skinny US citizen, the police chemist Carter Nash, who develops superhuman strength with the help of blue drops.
  • Most of the episodes were directed by Jack Arnold .
  • Only 13 episodes were broadcast by ZDF, in 1992 RTL broadcast the remaining four episodes.
  • The German producer Torsten Fenslau (1964-1993) released the dance track Always when he took pills in 1992 under the pseudonym Out Of The Ordinary . In this a sample of the German synchronized opening credits of the series was used; this was a reference to the drug MDMA (Extasy), which is common in dance clubs .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Reufsteck, Stefan Niggemeier: Das Fernsehlexikon, pp. 583-584, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-30124-6
  2. ↑ Out Of The Ordinary - Whenever He Took Pills. In: Discogs. Retrieved September 23, 2016 .