Czech fairy-tales, cartoons and puppets

Many visitors of Prague say that it looks like a fairytale. But it was not the charm of Prague or the highest density of châteaus in the world which led to a fairy-tales boom. It was rather the Communist Regime (1948-89) which forced many talented artists to fled to fairy-tales making as other genres were deemed to political. Thanks to this circumstance has Czechoslovakia became a fairy-tale powerhouse. Although this blog is about city of Prague - this post is rather an introduction to the Czech (fairy tale) culture. On the other hand, it is also a good inspiration for some original Czech souvenirs as you may see and buy a lot of fairy tale characters in Prague as well. Furthermore, since the end of 2016 is the Czech and Slovak puppetry listed on the UNESCO World heritage list as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity which may hint to a possible renaissance of Czech puppetry.

Kašpárek is a typical character of Czech puppetry (more about its history here),
which was added to the UNESCO list of intangible world heritage

Actually, most of German speaking adults have grown up with some of Czechoslovak fairy-tales. Czechoslovak animation was famous also in the English speaking world during the Cold War (e.g. Andy Warhol was referencing to it). This is probably the reason why my dear Canadian-Swiss friend asked me if I could recommend her some animated fairy tales for her daughter. Therefore this article focuses on fairy-tales without speaking or available in English or German. Here we go:

Večerníček for every evening

The first source of animated films any Czech immediately will think about is Večerníček which is a short evening (= večer) fairytale. It has been broadcasted since mid 60's thus already my parents have grown up with his stories and he is clearly part of Czech cultural identity.

"Currently, Večerníček is aired in the Czech Republic at 18:45 every day,
when children are expected to go to sleep." Wikipedia

Among series most popular abroad are stories in which the characters do not speak. Probably the best example is Krtek, The Little Mole, Der kleine Maulwurf. Typical for Czech cartoons in comparison with the US ones is that they are not so aggressive - there is usually no beating, also emotions are much more positive and whole style is more poetic. Krtek is for sure accessible for the youngest children.

"Over 40 of the shorts (films) were eventually made, spanning nearly fifty years."
More about those short films on BCDM.com

Second fairytale where characters do not speak is Pat a Mat about two DIY handymans (which represents quite well Czech character). It has a specific humour due to its topic. Interestingly, my friend saw it when he was flying with Iranian airlines.

Another Večerníček available in German are the puppets of Spejbl & Hurvinek (originating in the inter-war period). They have their own theatre in Prague 6 - Dejvice and have also shows for grown ups.

"Spejbl and Hurvínek – a father/son team representing the differing views on the world between the generations." WikiFun.com

There is a list of Večerníčku by Expats.cz although most of them are probably not available in English. Which is a pity since for example one of my favourites is Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát, Hey Mister, Let's Play! which is one of the most imaginative cartoons I know. It seems they were available in Japanese but not English (as Cartoon Brew writes).

And when we talk about Japanese there is the Maya the Honey Bee which is Japanese-German series, but since the title song was sung by Czech icon Karel Gott (very famous in German speaking world) we tend to appropriate it as ours :D

Classics: Jiří Trnka & Karel Zeman

Another two animated films which I can suggest are rather for schoolchildren. First is Carodejuv ucen, The Sorcerer's Apprentice which is little bit scary and done by the Mistr of Czech Animation Karel Zeman (can be bought with English subtitiles, or watch for free the YouTube video with subtitles bellow). Second, is half real actors - half animated Ukradena vzducholod, Das gestohlene Luftschiff (available in German).

The father of Czech animation is Trnka who actually started its boom and made Czech animation famous after the Second World War, he was sometimes called Disney of the East (if you want to know more about heritage of Czech animation read this interview). At Cannes and other festivals was praised his Midsummer Night's Dream, here a part of it with English subtitles:

Best series - Czech creativity with German money

Thanks to the fact that the Communist Czechoslovak production of fairy-tales was often sponsored by West German TV, many of fairy tales series and films are available in German.

Among the best one is Pan Tau (Herrn Tau) and Arabela (Die Märchenbraut), but those series are rather for school children, I believe. Description of series in German can be found and bough on Amazon.  Description in English with links to buy Czech DVDs with English subtitles on Expats.cz.

Czech Christmas = fairy-tales

Another Czech speciality is the tradition to watch fairy-tales on Christmas Eve (more about this in article by Radio Prague). You would almost not find any other genre of films around Christmas in TV. Therefore there is a number of Christmas hits. The most famous is the fairytale which Germans tend to appropriate - Tři oříšky pro Popelku, Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella, Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel. My personal favourite is the musical Šíleně smutná princezna, The Incredibly Sad Princess, Die wahnsinnig traurige Prinzessin with the main characters played by leading pop-singers of 60/70's Helena Vondráčková and Václav Neckář (known from Miloš Forman's Ocar Winning Closely Watched Trains). A list of Czech fairy-tales in German with possibility to buy them can be found here.

Fairy-tales after the Revolution

To choose from the production after the end of communism in 1989 is more difficult as fairy-tales ceased to be the refugee of talented artists as the Revolution opened a possibility of doing freely whatever genre artists wanted to (which was not the case during communism).

Among my favourite is a film by Oscar director Jan Sverak called Kuky se vrací, Kooky which has a lot of traditional Czech poetics and is in my opinion a film for all generations. It is available on iTunes as well Amazon. See the English trailer bellow:

I would like to recommend Fimfarum with traditional animation and lot of humour, but unfortunately I could not find it in German dubbing, just DVDs with English or German subtitles.

 

Another new animated film about which I have heard and I wanted to see (but didn't managed) is Na Pude, In the Attic which was called 50% Toy Story and 50% Terry Gillim's Brazil or 50% Jan Svankmajer (leading surrealist and inspiration for Monthy Python's Terry Gilliam). Brit expat in Prague liked it, on Rotten Tomatoes it has interesting reviews. Na Pude has been also listed on the web Weird Movies (with a number of other Czech movies, notably from Svankmajer). So it would be best to see it on your own to decide how much creepier it is that Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas ;)

If Czech animation got you excited you can read and see more on this overview of 10 leading Czech animators which present also work for grown ups.

Let me know in the comments bellow which of those fairy-tales you have seen or you want to see and how you liked them :)