Welcome to the Heart of Europe

Developing innovative, constructive and concrete ideas is a good basis for strategies to increase efficiency and productiveness by utilizing limited resources up to a perfectionism that allows the maximization of the achievable result. Doesn't that sound nice? "Thinking out of the box" was exactly what the little boy Vicky did better than all the surrounding senior Vikings. Let us regard his example of boyish innovation both as incentive and obligation to challenge ourselves and our environment to proactively identify new opportunities, put their feasibility to a test and then use them to strive for excellence.

Hey, Hey, Vicky and the Strong Men

Collective Memory. The barbaric foray of the anchient Norsemen is somehow trivialized in the adventures of a Viking chief called Halvar of Flake, commander of the amusingly dreadful Vikings and father of Vicky, in German known as "Wickie und die Starken Maenner (Vicky and the Strong Men)". They belong to an era, where the weekly cartoon shows represented something special, concluding the weekend on an early Sunday evening. In the absence of alternatives, they achieved dream results on TV viewer shares and became part of a collective memory among youths.

Flash Idea. In one way or another, the moral of the story is that people, who use their head, usually triumph over sheer barbaric strength. "Ich hab's - I got it" became something like a battle yell among the intelligent, a relief following a time of intensive thinking about the possible solution for a problem. And so we find ourselves in a waiting position until we have to watch that cartoon classic once more with the next generation, which will need to be educated and entertained by jester-hero Kasperl as well as the bright Viking boy Vicky.

The Boy who would be Viking

Japanese Cartoons. Remember the kids' TV shows from the early 1970's? At first there was the usual broadcast of American productions from "Porky Pig" (in German: Schweinchen Dick) to the "Pink Panther" (in German: Der Rosarote Panther), which during synchronization inherited the first name "Paulchen." The little black chick "Calimero" (in Japanese: Karimero) though was a precursor for the following Japanese animated series made from popular books for youngsters. Originally an Italian cartoon figure, distinctive for wearing a half-hatched eggshell on its head, its name sounded similar to "kalimera", the Greek word for "Good morning".

Literature Classics. "Vicky" (in German: Wickie, in Japanese: Bikke) marked the starting point of German-Austrian-Japanese co-productions. Based on the book "Vicke Viking" by the Swedish author Runer Jonsson, the series aired for the first time in 1974/75. Second was "Maya the Bee"(in German: Biene Maja, in Japanese: Maya no boken) with her lazy fried Willy, after the book by the German author Waldemar Bonsels, broadcasted in 1976/77. Then the earlier soley produced Japanese take on mountain girl "Heidi" (in Japanese: Haiji) with her friend Goat-Peter, by the Swiss writer Johanna Spyri, hit the local television screens in 1977/78 in parallel to the third co-production, "Pinocchio" (in Japanese: Pikirio). Especially Heidi's popularity in Japan has a long tradition for representing the concept of simplicity and naturalness in the Swiss Alps in contradiction to urban modernity and Japanese industrialization. The little boy, however, had been the first one, trendsetter of his time and adored shooting star at a time, when the 1970's brought first colour into a black & white world.

Viking of Flesh and Blood. From time to time there are surprises. One of them occurred, when we saw those funny teasers for an upcoming live-action take on the Wickie-cartoon. There had been many attempts, also on European ground, to base movies with real actors on toons, such as Asterix, Lucky Luke and Prince Valiant. Obviously they didn't achieve the same level of response as those huge Hollywood successes with The Flintstones and 101 or 102 Dalmations. Would it be different this time? So many years after the first show had flickered over the TV screens in February 1974 to fascinate everyone from the youngest kindergarten kid to the almost-adult, the series would be still present on the kid's channel and even form the base of a live action movie, released in September 2009. The movie was put on by "Bully" Herbig, who had already held responsible for the Winnetou-spoof "Manitou's Shoe (Der Schuh des Manitu)," top grossing movie of 2001. The nation laughed and flocked to the cinemas, just the original brave Indian-actor Pierre Brice was not amused.

Vicky and his dad Halvar of Flake, cult stars of the 1970's.

Hope from the Nose. Up to this day, Vicky stands out among them as a unique kid hero. In the most hopeless situations that little boy would just rub (not pick) his nose and usually come up with a bright idea to save his father, without making him look bad in front of his men from the village of Flake. Merchandising included stuffed dolls, audio plays on LP and music cassette, collector's figurines, pyjama patterns, sticker albums with stickers that had to be glued in by hand. This little guy was something like a rock star back then!

Vicky, Slime, Ice Cream. In the Internet forum "Wickie, Slime and Paiper", 30 year olds let free their nostalgic craze and exchanged memories from their youth. In 1999, books and CD compilations were all named after the same cartoon character Vicky, the mud-toy Slime and an ice cream brand Paiper, which was relaunched following a petition by the movement. In clubbings, grown up kids would sing along the TV theme song: "Hey, hey, Vicky. Hey, Vicky, hey. You and your Viking friends... Nananana na nananana nana Wicky! Hey!"

Spanish Bee. Speaking of themes from kids favourite TV shows, unforgotten is also a Spanish colleague singing to me from the wonderful land of the little bee called Maya: "En un país multicolor nacio... Y a la pequena abeja le llamaron Maaaaya!" Even years after that, at the airport we spent our waiting time with further translation of "Maya the Bee": In Russian called "pchela maja" and in Ukrainian "bdzhola maja", the same in Dutch would be "maja de bij", in Hungarian "maja a mehecske", in Romanian "albina maia", in Slovene "cebela Maja" and in German most familiar "Biene Maja". But that is a different story.

Go to the next page with all about soccer and the Vicky-radio spoof Hicke.
So much for unusual webpages, and license plates...