''Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt'' ''(Help, my family is nuts)'' is a German

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

that first aired on RTL plus on 4 March 1993. The 26-part television series is an adaptation of the American

'' Married... with Children''.

Background

The series contained scripts and sets that were almost exact copies of the original American ones, lacking any cultural changes necessary to properly adapt it into German culture. Even the looks and gestures of the actors had to be exactly as those in the original US series. Further contributing to the series' failure was the fact that ''Married... with Children'' had already premiered in Germany a year before and was broadcast daily in the afternoon while ''Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt'' was broadcast once a week in the evening, on the same station.

Reception

The series was critically panned due to the poor translation and adaptation of the original scripts. German newspaper

taz Taz or TAZ may refer to: Geography *Taz (river), a river in western Siberia, Russia *Taz Estuary, the estuary of the river Taz in Russia People * Taz people, an ethnic group in Russia ** Taz language, a form of Northeastern Mandarin spoken by ...

called it "very boring", while 20 years later in a retrospective article on the show,

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

said that it "couldn't work". Christian Richter of ''Quotenmeter.de'' called it "the probably most colourless comedy series on German television". Moviepilot.de ranked it 1st on a list of ''"Top 7 German comedy series crimes"'', commenting: "That 26 episodes of this garbage were made only shows that on German television not everything was better in the past." The series received very poor ratings and was cancelled after the 26 episodes of the first season were broadcast.

References

External links

* 1993 German television series debuts 1993 German television series endings German-language television shows German television series based on American television series RTL (German TV channel) original programming Married... with Children remakes {{Germany-tv-prog-stub

Background

Reception

See also

References

External links