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Pipo and Mammaloe accompany their Indian friend Klukkluk on his way home to Berezonië and find themselves racing against the greedy circus director who wants to claim the leadership of Klukkluk's tribe for himself.

Pipo de Clown (Cor Witschge) first appeared on Dutch Television in three preview episodes in 1958, which were followed by his first serialized adventure. Together with his wife Mamaloe (at this time played by Christel Adelaar) and daughter Petra (Petra Barnard) he lived up in a attic and worked at Circus Frivola for the greedy director (Willy Ruys). His co-worker and best friend was a clumsy Indian (though apparently not precisely native American) called Klukkluk (Herbert Joeks). So right from the start, writer Wim Meuldijk had all the elements that would define the series for 22 years in a neat package. Or so it seemed. Since this is the premiere Pipo serial, naturally there are a lot of firsts. As noted, Pipo and Klukkluk still work for the &#39;Dikke Deur&#39; at the start of the series, and it is actually Klukkluk who mispronounces the word &#39;Directeur&#39; as such, though Pipo and the others soon begin using this nickname as well. Then the cowardly Indian receives a letter from his mother Ugh asking him to come home to Berezonië and lead his tribe. It turns out he&#39;s been carrying a map along with him for years, hidden in his one and only arrow. Pipo and Mamaloe decide to go along – on their first big trip abroad – which would inspire them to live a life on the road from then on. Little Petra is left to stay with Auntie Anouska (who is a fortuneteller at a fancy fair) as she would be in most of the early Pipo adventures. The circus-folk convert the Director&#39;s trick airplane and use it to fly to Alpinolië, but find themselves followed by Dikke Deur in his own hired flyer. You see, he wants to take Klukkluk&#39;s place as Indian Chief and be pampered with cake and sweeties day and night. From the hills of Alpinolië they have to pass through Calypsonië in order to get to the wild west country of Berezonië (Wim Meuldijk obviously loved making up silly country names). Our three heroes find help in the shape of a small boy guide, Carli. It is a recurring aspect of these early Pipo stories that they meet up with a small boy over the course of the tale (while poor Petra is out of the picture listening to other people&#39;s fortunes as told by her aunt). Having survived many adventures along the way, all six characters finally arrive in Klukkluk&#39;s birthplace, where Mother Ugh and medicine man Moki-Pil have to decide which one of the travelers (Klukkluk or Dikke Deur) is the rightful heir. It is ironic that many of these story elements were used again in what would turn out to be Pipo&#39;s final television adventure, 1980&#39;s &#39;Pipo in West-Best&#39;. In that story Klukkluk also has to find his way home after a twenty year absence, though this time it is situated in the &#39;reasonably wild west&#39; instead of Berezonië. Mother Ugh and Moki-Pil also appear in the later series. It might even be possible that Ugh was portrayed by Riek Schagen on both occasions, though I cannot be certain of this as details on the 1958 cast list are sketchy. A big difference between the first and last adventure however is that * SPOILER * Klukkluk stays to rule the Indian tribe in the 1958 series (only to return to Pipo&#39;s life during the 5 minute daily period that began in 1966) while in 1980 he decided to stick with Pipo&#39;s small circus, leaving his mother in charge instead. * END SPOILER * Another, more obvious fact is that the West-Best serial survived intact while the 1958 series was completely wiped from existence. Luckily I was able to track down Wim Meuldijk&#39;s abbreviated novelization to use as the basis for this comment. 8 out of 10

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Pipo de Clown

While this VHS and DVD title for this series is &quot;Dag Vogels, Dag Bloemen, Dag Kinderen&quot;, which was Pipo de Clown&#39;s way of saying goodnight, this daily five minute show was originally referred to as simply &#39;Pipo de Clown&#39;. Pipo, his wife Mamaloe and his daughter Petra had already appeared in five serialized adventures starting in 1959 and one environmentally sound TV special in 1964. Two years after that, writer Wim Meuldijk was asked to come up with a short story to be broadcast every night just before young children went to bed at 18.50 - on both Dutch channels simultaneously. If I am not mistaken, this was the first programme shown in this a time-slot and with this frequency. Setting the stage for many successful five minute shows such as De Fabeltjeskrant, Ti-ta Tovenaar, Paulus de Boskabouter and De Bereboot. Over 555 bedtime stories were produced in glorious black and white. Each episode would start with Mamaloe telling Pipo it&#39;s Petra&#39;s bedtime. Sat beside her, the fatherly clown would recount something funny that happened to him that day. Because many of these tales were shot on location (mostly Wim Meuldijk&#39;s backyard), as well as the daily aspect of the show, this was probably the first Pipo series that was entirely pre-recorded. The result of this was that most if not all of the episodes were archived and are still in existence today, which can not be said of most of Pipo&#39;s other adventures made before 1975. Next to Pipo&#39;s family, returning characters from earlier series included Willy Ruys as our hero&#39;s nemesis Dikke Deur, Herbert Joeks as the silly circus Indian Klukkluk and pearl obsessed thief Snuitje (Rudi Falkenhagen). Chances are Snuitje&#39;s partner in crime Snuf also appeared. Pipo&#39;s former traveling buddies Felicio (Jan Pruis) and Mik (Donald Jones) could be glimpsed in a framed picture hanging above little Petra&#39;s bed. However, the original Mamaloe, Christel Adelaar, who had been absent from Pipo en de Waterlanders in 1963, had left the show. This was apparently because of a pregnancy according to her replacement, Marijke Bakker. While the actor behind the clown make-up, Cor Witschge never had any children of his own, his love for the little girl playing Petra is clearly apparent every time he wishes her goodnight. As always, Joop Reynolds provided incidental music on his organ. Wim Meuldijk clearly had no problem coming up with countless bedtime stories for Pipo to tell, even if the actors didn&#39;t receive their scripts until the day of shooting, and on some occasions, the episodes were still being edited an hour before being broadcast. The daily frequency gave the already very popular clown an enormous boost. His catchphrases, as well as those of Kluk Kluk and Dikke Deur&#39;s becoming ingrained in the Dutch language for all eternity. Two volumes with 8 episodes each were released on VHS and more recently, a further two on DVD. This reviewer hasn&#39;t been able to compare the digital versions with the taped ones to see if all the episodes are the same, but either way, there are over 500 more stories to go. Most of these are listed on the Beeld &amp; Geluid database (where they can also be converted to DVD individually on request) so maybe somebody will transfer all that information to IMDb one day. It&#39;s on my to do list, but any help would be much appreciated... 8 out of 10

I was born in 1971 and grew up with a number of wonderful TV series. &quot;Pipo de clown&quot; was possibly one of the best. It was an exciting, fairy-tale like adventure about a group of traveling companions who were faced will all sorts of problems and dangers. Pipo the clown and mama Lou were traveling around in a 19th century circus wagon, pulled by a single mule. They had a close friend in Kluk-kluk the Indian, and were often harassed by the mean circus director who wanted them back in his circus. Unfortunately, most episodes were not taped and virtually all tapes that did exist have been destroyed. I saw one of the very few that remained in a rerun a couple of years ago. It was an episode where Pipo the clown and mama Lou meet king Winter in his castle of ice, and Pipo persuades him to loosen his icy grip on the land. Aside from this episode, I don&#39;t remember a single episode of the series. I just remember the faces, the names and the fact that is was such a wonderful experience.

When I was younger ( about the age to watch &quot;Pipo De Clown&quot; ) and sat myself down to watch my favourite program it wasn&#39;t really started without hearing the Piposong that was played at the beginning of the program. I found out later that all the music that was played in that TV-series was composed by a dutchman by the name of JOOP REYNOLDS. Whenever they&#39;re mentioning this particular program his name is rarely mentioned and I think he deserves better because he wrote the music for all those years the series was running and rarely was credited for his work later on! So, Mister JOOP REYNOLDS should you ever read this, I want to thank you and I am sure many others would like to do so for you effort! Hans van der Vlist.

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Pipo de Clown

This is how it all began:

Bedtime stories and a new Mamaloe

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