Vicky the Viking, known as Wickie und die starken Männer in Germany and Austria and in Japan, is an Austrian-German-Japanese cartoon series which tells the adventures of Vicky, a young Viking boy who uses his wits to help his Viking fellows. It premiered in the German TV channel ZDF on January 31 1974.

Script and realization

The script was developed from children's book Vicke Viking (1963) written by the Swedish author Runer Jonsson, who won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Children?s Book Award) for it in 1965. The Japanese animation studio Zuiyo Enterprise Company (later renamed to Nippon Animation) adapted the original version (1972-1974) and developed from it an 85 minutes long movie (original title: Chiisana baikingu Uiki) as well as the series with 78 episodes, each 25 minutes long. The series' Japanese roots are clearly visible in its styling and character design - this led to the series being a first unwitting brush with Japanese animation for those who would become anime fans later in life.

Responsible for the German dubbing was Eberhard Storeck, who spoke one of the characters (Snorre) himself. The music in German version was composed by Christian Bruhn and Karel Svoboda. The text of the title song (Hey, hey, Wickie! Hey, Wickie, hey! ...) was written by Andrea Wagner. The English dubbing was largely poor, with characters talking endlessly to fit the lip movements of the characters, not pausing for breath or using verbal punctuation. Unfortunately, in the years that followed, this became something of a standard for some voice actors who dubbed Japanese-produced series.

The series was produced for the German TV network ZDF and Austrian TV network ORF. In the United Kingdom, it was shown on ITV.

Film adaptation

German director Michael "Bully" Herbig is set to film a live action adaptation of the series. It will be produced by Christian Becker of Rat Pack Filmproduktion, intended for a 2009 release.^[1] Now, almost all main actors of the movie have been established. Günther Kaufmann portrays Sven, the antagonist of the vikings. The vikings of Flake will be acted by Jörg Moukkadam (Faxe), Mike Maas (Gorm), Christian Koch (Snorre), Nic Romm (Tjure), Patrick Reichel (Ulme) and Olaf Krätke (Urobe). ^[2]

Primary literature (German)

• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und die starken Männer. München: Herold 1964.
• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und die Blauschwerter. München: Herold. 1966.
• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und die großen Drachen. München: Herold. 1967.
• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und die Rothäute. Ravensburg: Ravensburger Buchvlg. 1984. ISBN 3-473-38776-2
• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und das hölzerne Pferd. Ravensburg: Ravensburger Buchvlg. 1984. ISBN 3-473-38791-6
• Runer Jonsson: Wickie und die Stadt der Tyrannen. Ravensburg: Ravensburger Buchvlg. 1984. ISBN 3-473-38822-X

Secondary literature (German)

• Ina Kurth/Joachim Schmaeck: Wickie und der dänische Zoll. Arbeiten mit Anteilen und Prozenten. Appelhülsen/Mülheim: Verlag "Die Schulpraxis". 1990. ISBN 3-927279-64-1
• Susanne Pauser/Wolfgang Ritschl: Wickie, Slime und Paiper. Wien: Böhlau. 1999. ISBN 3-205-98989-9
• Wickie und die starken Männer, Kinderkochbuch. Frechen: Schwager & Steinlein. 2001. ISBN 3-89600-450-6
• Wickie und die starken Männer - Pop-Up Masken Spielbuch. Frechen: Schwager & Steinlein. 2003. ISBN 3-89600-554-5
• Wickie und die starken Männer - Geschichtenbuch. Fränkisch-Crumbach: Verlag EDITION XXL. 2003. ISBN 3-89736-417-4
• Wickie - Stanzpappe Buch Fränkisch-Crumbach: Verlag EDITION XXL. 2004. ISBN 3-89736-652-5

References

External links

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• Vicky the Vicking song in mp3
• fernsehserien.de: Episodenführer

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