The beaver brothers

Television series
German title	The beaver brothers
Original title	The Angry Beavers
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Year (s)	1997-2001
length	22 minutes
Episodes	USA : 63 (including pilot episode), Germany : 62
genre	Children's series , comedy
idea	Mitch Schauer
music	Charlie Brissette
First broadcast	April 19, 1997 (USA) on Nickelodeon
German-language first broadcast	May 2nd, 1998 on Nickelodeon Germany
synchronization

The Beaver Brothers (original title: The Angry Beavers ; literally translated: The Angry Beavers ) is an animated series created by Mitch Schauer . The series was produced in 1997-2000 by Gunther-Wahl Productions for Nickelodeon .

Like other animated series (especially those that have emerged since the late 1990s), The Beaver Brothers were no longer fully animated , but partly animated by computer .

action

The series is about the Biber brothers Daggett and Norbert Biber, who have had two little sisters and were therefore put outside the door by their parents. Now they live as bachelors in their own dam and experience bizarre adventures there and in the surrounding area. Occasionally the two brothers are out and about in town or in other places that a beaver has never seen before. In their experiences, they often get into violent disputes and then show their unsightly sides, which explains the original title. Norbert and Daggett are often mistaken for weasels by the people they meet . In fact, with their pointed noses, they look more like these animals than a real beaver.

With numerous word and language games and cultural allusions (to books, film scenes, etc.), the series relies on a somewhat more sophisticated, rather "adult" sense of humor, but is at the same time slapstick-like and unrealistic enough to inspire children as well.

characters

Daggett

Dag is the younger of the two brothers by four minutes. His trademark is the cry “That was crazy!”. Dag has a very childish character and is not characterized by particular intelligence. He is very impulsive, nervous, always extremely excited and impatient. He can quickly become enthusiastic about something, but just as quickly loses interest again. His "hobbies" are collecting useless and gross things and annoying people. If you threaten your plush teddy bear, it can be very dangerous. To the chagrin of his brother, Dag occasionally thinks of himself as a “muscle beaver,” a superhero from one of his comic books. Dag has brown fur and a red nose.

Norbert

Daggett's opposite pole is his older and far more intelligent brother Norb. He acts deliberately, is calm and serene and usually has the situation and his brother completely under control. Norb pursues a large number of demanding hobbies; from classical and jazz music to model building to exploring the flora and fauna of the local lake. He is particularly proud of the secret rooms that he built into the dam. Norbert attaches great importance to the care of his hair and teeth. If he loses a game or a competition or shows other weaknesses against Dag, whose stupidity he likes to exploit, he is prone to serious panic attacks. To combat Dag's alter ego "muscle beaver", Norb occasionally slips into the role of "Baron von und zu Böse". Norb's fur is ocher, his nose purple.

More figures

Numerous animal and human supporting characters appear repeatedly but irregularly in the series:

Barry

Barry the Bear is a professional soul singer, for whom being cool and having the right groove are very important. The character is obviously based on Barry White , who in the original version also gives Barry his voice in some vocal passages. The sight of clowns brings back bad childhood memories of Barry as a circus bear. (First appearance in episode 7a: Ninja Beaver )

Bing

Dag seems almost balanced against the tree lizard Bing: Bing speaks very quickly, is incredibly hyperactive, more affectionate than a burdock and very sensitive. He therefore gets on the nerves of all other animals; this only changes after he wrote a bestseller about his contact problems. (First appearance in episode 12a: Everyone loves Bing )

Stump

Stump is an oak tree stump that Norb met one day. He does remarkable things for a piece of wood and can even “speak” in a mysterious way. He is a good friend of the beavers and is very attached to his family. (First appearance in episode 10b: My friend, the stump )

Treeflower

Biber-Girl Treeflower is Norbert's great love. She used to be a hippie and is professionally very versatile: Among other things, she composes elevator music and fights fires. (First appearance in episode 13a: Pity of love . - Before her official introduction, she was briefly at the Get-rid-of-Bing-party in 12a: Everyone loves Bing .)

Truckee

Truckee the mouse has huge ears and is quite cocky. He drives a big truck ; all his life and thinking revolves around trucks. He hates Dag and Dag hates him. (First appearance in episode 17a: ... maybe next time . - Before its official presentation, in 7a: Ninja-Biber a mouse (nameless there) with a similar appearance and character was shown.)

Scientist # 1 and Pete

You can tell that they are scientists by the fact that they wear chic white coats. They use beavers for their strange experiments and are the personification of the destruction of nature by humans. No. 1 is the spokesman for the duo and as incompetent as it is arrogant. In the original version, his name is "No.1", which can also be pronounced "no-one" (German: "nobody"). From the 3rd season of the series he wears a name tag with a "1" on his lapel. Pete is his constantly mumbling and mostly submissive assistant. (First appearance in episode 9a: Stinkezeh )

Oxnard Montalvo

Norb's and Dag's favorite actors. He stars in most of the old black and white horror "B-movies" that the two beavers idolize. The Oxnard-Montalvo sequences are usually not drawn in the look typical for the series, but imitate the style of the old Superman comics. (First appearance in episode 1b: in the evening when it gets dark )

El Grapadura

The best wrestler in the world, for the beavers and especially for Daggett. The name 'El Grapadura' is Spanish and means 'The Tacker'. Dag owns a signed copy of his board game "El Grapadura and Ladders". (First appearance in episode 14a: Revenge is Sweet )

Bill Licking

News anchor and presenter, not just from TV shows. He is the prototype of the pushy salesman and wears a black wig with a huge quiff. (First appearance in episode 2a: The Taming of the Shrew )

Stacy and Chelsea

They are Norb's and Dag's younger twin sisters. Because of her, the brothers had to move out of their parents' house. Stacy is very similar in appearance and personality to her brother Norbert, while Chelsea comes entirely to Daggett. The two are much more familiar with each other than their brothers and like to make fun of their arguments. (First appearance in episode 23a: Sister Herzchen . - Before their official introduction, they were briefly seen as babies in 1a: Born to be a beaver .)

"Mum" and "Dad"

The parents of the beavers. Their first names are unknown. Ms. Biber has brown fur like Dag, but her intelligence is apparently more likely to have inherited from Norb. She is officially a housewife, but works as a secret agent for the government. With his ocher-colored fur, Mr. Biber looks more like Norbert, but Dag in character and intellect: he is quickly overwhelmed and helpless and overcomes this with actionism and rubbish. (First appearance in episode 23a: Sister Herzchen . - Before their official introduction they were briefly seen in 1a: Born to the beaver .)

Trademark of the series

• “Sputtelig” (in the original: “spooty”) is Norb's and Dag's universal swear word that they apply to everything and everyone and, above all, to each other. The meaning of the actually fictional term starts with "annoying" and "stupid" and probably leads to the grossly offensive vocabulary. The word is also used as a noun ("Sputtel") and in various other variants, occurs in episode 9a: Stinkezeh as a company name ("SPOOT"), as well as in the original titles of three other episodes.
• Speaking French and using complicated foreign words is “en vogue” with Norb. Whenever it seems appropriate to him, he briefly flashes his language skills. Dag usually reacts irritably and tries to counter it with Spanish.
• Horror films play a very important role in beavers' recreational activities. This is obviously a reference to the cheap black and white scary movies of the 1950s. From microphones hanging in the picture to the most absurd and obviously made of paper mache monsters, no cliché is left out. The actors who appear are of particular importance: Oxnard Montalvo , whose biggest fans are the beavers, plays the hero. His job is usually limited to letting a nameless professor explain to him what happens and what he has to do. Toluca Lake plays the always completely helpless woman whom the hero has to save and protect.
• Inside jokes appear in many episodes. So is z. B. in 36a: Feeling fatherly in the mirror of the bathroom cabinet that Norb opened, seeing a cameraman briefly as an apparent mistake in the direction . Dag's personal logo in 53b: I like myself is strikingly similar to that of the singer Prince . In addition to such comparatively subtle jokes, some episodes are quite openly based on the plot of well-known films or television series. This principle becomes clearest in 44a: Dagski & Norb and 59a: Die Reise in den Riesen-Dag .

synchronization

role	English speaker	German speaker
Daggett	Richard Steven Horvitz	Kim Hasper
Norbert	Nick Bakay	Frank Schaff
Barry	John Garry	Raimund Krone
Treeflower	Cynthia man	Heath Bartholomew
Truckee	Mark Klastorin	Tilo Schmitz
scientist	Edward Winter	Klaus-Dieter Klebsch
El Grapadura	Luke Torres	Michael Pan
Bing	Victor Wilson	Oliver Field

German version

In Germany , the first 10 episodes ( 1a to 5b ) were initially on Nickelodeon Germany . After the station was discontinued, the remaining episodes were shown on RTL in 1999 and 2000 and later repeated on Super RTL . Until May 2007 the series could be seen again on the Nickelodeon successor NICK . Also in the Austrian ORF eins and the Swiss SRF two are The Angry Beavers to see again and again. The remaining episodes of season 1 ( 6a to 13b ) were first broadcast in German on SRF two. In addition, in 2008 the Biber Brothers were repeated on the Nick program window after eight on Nick . As part of the Xmas Classic Battle , Nicknight showed the episodes Zum Biber born / Evenings when it gets dark and Des unruly Taming / Total Dental on December 24, 2014.

The German title was subsequently changed for some episodes: z. B. From now on , film is usually called ... and Äction! sent, Alle Nine under the original title Alley Oops .

The complete series, which has now been released completely on DVD in the USA, was also released in Germany on February 7, 2014, limited to 2,222 copies on DVD. Due to the great demand, the series was released on April 24, 2015 in a regular DVD edition.

Episodes

The 63 episodes are each about 22 minutes long. With the exception of the full length episode 26: The day on which the earth was totally contracted out , each episode contains two stories of approx. 11 minutes each.

In addition, there is a pilot with the title Snowbound - only shown in the USA and not dubbed in German . In it, Norb and Dag do not yet have their familiar look from the series. The episode is 9 minutes long. The pilot Snowbound is included in the German area on the complete box of the series in English with German subtitles. As it turned out, this episode was found in the German Nickelodeon archive in good time before the release of the German DVD box and was able to take it with you on the DVDs.

After the end of the series, some scripts that had already been written but were no longer realized, and others. a. for Tree Flockers , in which the beavers sell Christmas trees in the summer; and for Magnum Opus aka The Beavers Rock Opera : after episode 26 , this would have been the second story over a full 22 minutes.

Producers vs. Nickelodeon

The production of the series was stopped after episode 62. In the planned episode 63, Bye-Bye Beavers , Norb receives a letter from Nickelodeon. In it he learns that he is not real, but only a character in a series of animations that is to be discontinued as well. He tries to explain this to Dag, who finds it difficult to understand that the broadcaster is stopping production, but wants to keep making money from repetitions. When he asked whether the broadcaster would pay some of the money to the scriptwriters, Norbert had a fit of laughter.

In the words of script supervisor Micah Wright , who also wrote the script for some of the episodes, Nickelodeon was not thrilled:

“Nickelodeon hated this episode because it actually told the kids the truth: that the show was ending! Nick likes to just rerun their shows forever and pretend that they're still making new episodes and this show idea drove them up a wall! ”

“Nickelodeon hated this episode because it actually told the kids the truth: that the show was ending. Nick wants to repeat his series endlessly and pretend there are still new episodes to be produced. This script idea pissed her off! "

- Micah Wright on his website - Original English text

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christian Bartsch: NICKTOONS from Turbine: ROCKOS MODERNES LEBEN and REN & STIMPY . In: forum.cinefacts.de . December 13, 2013. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 19, 2014. 
2. ^ ^{A b} Micah Wright: Television Writing. The Angry Beavers. Retrieved December 3, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Micah Wright: Script from 'Tree Flockers' (PDF; 192 kB) ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Official website at Nick.de
• The Angry Beavers in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The Angry Beavers in the Big Cartoon Database
• Episode guide at Animation Series
• Episode guide at tv.com (English)