' (''The Show with the Mouse''), often simply ' (''The Mouse''), is a German children's television series, popular nation-wide for its educational content.Bernhard Borgeest
"Von Mäusen und Machern"
'' Focus, official website. (March 12, 2001) Retrieved November 21, 2010 The show first aired on 7 March 1971. Originally called ''Lach- und Sachgeschichten für Fernsehanfänger'' ("Laughing and Learning Stories for Television Beginners"), it was controversial because German law prohibited television for children under six years of age.Dennis Pumm
"Das Interview mit dem Christoph"
''Pumm & Behrmann''. Retrieved October 27, 2010 "Gespräch mit Armin Maiwald"
(PDF) Köln im Film, official website. (December 2003) Retrieved October 30, 2010 The program was initially condemned by teachers and childcare professionals as bad for children's development,Felix Helbig

Frankfurter Rundshau, official website. (November 11, 2009) Interview with Armin Maiwald. Retrieved October 26, 2010 but is now hailed for its ability to convey information to children,Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism: Special Prize for Successful Knowledge Transfer to Children
Veranstaltungsforum der Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH. Retrieved October 27, 2010 Florian Freistetter
"Sendung mit der Maus erhält Medaille für Naturwissenschaftliche Publizistik"
German science blog. Retrieved November 5, 2010 having received over 75 awards. On 7 March 1999 the program's Internet site was launched and received 2,400 e-mails and 4 million hits on the first day. Die Maus 2007 DEKT

Format

Aimed at young children, the program has a magazine format, with several segments, some humorous, others educational presented in a simple, straightforward manner.Stephanie Diana Storch
"''Die Sendung mit der Maus'' – ein Wissenmagazin für Erwachsene?"
(PDF) Bachelor thesis (September 27, 2007) University of Augsburg. Retrieved October 25, 2010 Many of the show's early viewers are now adults whose children are forming the second generation of viewers. It is not uncommon for children to watch the program with their parents
Bistum Mainz, official website. (May 1, 1999) Retrieved November 7, 2010 or for children to stop watching around the age of 10 or 12 and then come back at the age of 18. The German newspaper '' Welt am Sonntag'' found that although the target age was from about four to eight, the average age of viewers was 39. Each show consists of several segments, the ''Lachgeschichten'' purely to amuse, and the ''Sachgeschichten'' ("non-fiction stories"), short educational features on a variety of topics, such as what must be done before a plane can take off or how holes get into Swiss cheese or the stripes into toothpaste. These are punctuated by a short cartoon with the mouse, often with one or more of its friends.

Mouse-spots

* The mouse is orange with brown ears, arms and legs. In order to solve problems it can stretch its legs as long as it wants, jump a rope with its detachable tail or fetch tools from its body. * The elephant is blue with yellow toenails and is smaller than the mouse. It can be characterized as curious, very strong, spontaneous and faithful. When it appears on the stage it trumpets loudly. It likes to sleep, or to laugh when the mouse has done something wrong. It appears in many of the Mouse-Spots. * The duck is yellow (with orange beak and feet), smaller than the mouse but larger than the elephant, so that their relative sizes are exactly the opposite of those of their real-life counterparts. The duck is naughty; always when it appears on the stage, "chaos comes onto the stage". It is less frequently in the mouse-spots than the elephant. Wdr maus

Introduction

The show starts with its theme music,Prof. Dr. Lothar Mikos and Dipl.-Medienwiss. Claudia Töpper
"Analyse dramaturgischer und narrativer Strukturen erfolgreicher 'Familiensendungen'"
(PDF) Internationales Zentralinstitut für das Jugend- und Bildungsfernsehen, Dr. Maya Götz" (2009) Retrieved November 17, 2010 unchanged since 1971 and recognised throughout the German population.Manuel J. Hartung
"Die Mensa mit der Maus"
''Die Zeit'', official website. (February 18, 2009) Conversation with Armin Maiwald. Retrieved October 25, 2010 The introduction consists of a few bars of the theme and a German voice-over describing the topics in that week's show. The voice-over is then repeated in a foreign language. Initially, Turkish, Spanish and Italian were used, in order to include the children of foreign guest workers ( Gastarbeiter),Dirk Oetjen
"Die Sendung mit der Maus"
Hörzu, official website. (April 12, 2010) Retrieved November 14, 2010 but now, other languages are used as well. The foreign language changes every week. After the theme music ends, the foreign language is identified.

Animated interludes

Between the show's segments are "mouse spots", hand-drawn cartoons of 30 to 100 seconds that feature the orange mouse and its friends, a small blue elephant and a yellow duck. None of the characters speak."Die Sendung mit der Maus"
(PDF) University of Cologne, official website. Retrieved November 6, 2010 Rather, sound effects and music comprise the soundtrack as the characters interact and solve problems. The animated interludes serve to separate the segments, offering young viewers a moment to relax, avoiding sensory overload from too rapid a succession of input.

Educational film shorts

The idea for the educational

film short A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s came from one of the founders of the series, who noticed that children were very aware of the advertising on television. They were very well-made with very good photography and he got the idea to make "commercials" about reality. The first production answered the question, "Where do hard rolls come from?" Some 400 letters a week arrive at the production office, and a large part of each show is used for such features, often answering questions asked by viewers.Anna v. Münchhausen
"Die erste Maus, die zwanzig wird"
''Die Zeit'' (March 8, 1991) Retrieved November 3, 2010 Segments have covered such topics as: *How re-usable hand warmers work *How the Internet works"Die Sendung mit der Maus erklärt das Internet"
www.wdrmaus.de. Retrieved January 7, 2013 *How a hot-air balloon flies *How to make electricity from lemons, enough to light a light bulb *How a

cell phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

works *How solar cells work D-AIRY

A stuffed toy "Mouse" flew into outer space and was a "guest" on board the Russian Mir space station, where it appeared in an educational segment. The stuffed toy was later brought back to the producers on earth. A number of the educational segments have also dealt with difficult topics, such as life in Germany in the aftermath of World War II, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and death. Care is taken to explain things in a way that is comprehensible to young children."Interview Christoph Biemann"
Interview with Christoph Biemann at the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair. (October 10, 2003) Retrieved November 5, 2010 Analogies are used to explain concepts, and often everyday items already known to most children are used to illustrate. For example, a segment on the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was produced using Playmobil figures to represent the three Roman legions involved, a total of 16,500 soldiers. Wanting to convey how large a force that was, the program purchased 16,500 Playmobil toy figures and dressed them up as Roman soldiers, lining them up into columns as they would have appeared in real life. The columns of toy soldiers took up 200 meters.Interview with Armin Maiwald
Köln Inside, historical photo archive of the Cologne region. Retrieved November 2, 2010 These toy Roman legions are now housed in three museums in different parts of Germany. A segment on the internet shows messengers running through the hallways of a large building, delivering messages in envelopes (

data packets In telecommunications and computer networking, a network packet is a formatted unit of Data (computing), data carried by a packet-switched network. A packet consists of control information and user data; the latter is also known as the ''Payload ...

) from the user to servers and back. The hallways represent the data lines and the offices were internet hosts. In just eight minutes, the program accurately describes how the internet functions in a manner simple enough for children to understand. In the case of industrially produced things, each step is shown in great detail, so one can actually see how, for example, a piece of metal is formed by a tool. If something happens too fast for the naked eye it is shown filmed in slow motion. After each step, usually the previous steps including the new one are recapped briefly to help children remember what they already saw. Concepts which are not visible at all are explained with some form of analogous portrayal. Accordingly, the language used in the narration is kept very simple. The segments are usually narrated by an off-camera voice. Sentences are short. "Big words" are not used, and difficult concepts are broken down and described while they are being shown on camera.Meike Braun, ie Lerneffekte der"Sendung mit der Maus" aus der Sicht der kognitiven Entwicklung nach Jean Piaget"GRIN Verlag (2003) page 10. Retrieved November 21, 2010 This is designed to free children from the more abstract concepts and devices of language, thus giving their minds space to comprehend the concepts explained rather than having to struggle comprehending the language of the explanation. Nonetheless, the educational film shorts are such effective presentations of their subject matter, a number of them are used as teaching tools at universities and colleges.

Cartoon

Every show also has at least one cartoon. Some are old classics, like the adventures of Zdeněk Miler's Mole or newer cartoons, like

Charlie and Lola Charlie and Lola are fictional children created by the English writer and illustrator Lauren Child in 2000. They were introduced in a series of picture books and later adapted as animated television characters. Lola is an energetic and imagina ...

Käpt'n Blaubär

As the last part of every show, Käpt'n Blaubär (Captain Bluebear) tells his pink, green, and yellow grandchildren a cock-and-bull story, which his grandchildren always doubt to be true. His sailor side-kick, Hein Blöd (Hein Stupid), a rat, was created as a buffoon, a device that allows freedom for his character to express things other characters cannot. The characters of Käpt'n Blaubär, his grandchildren, and Hein Blöd were created by

Walter Moers Walter Moers (; born 24 May 1957 in Mönchengladbach) is a German comic creator and author. Life and work Moers held odd jobs after leaving school before starting a commercial apprenticeship. He taught himself how to draw, and has been publis ...

and made popular by Moers' book, '' The Lives of Captain Bluebear'' and Blaubär's appearance on ''Die Sendung mit der Maus''. Käpt'n Blaubär is voiced by veteran German actor Wolfgang Völz, with deep timbre and an

accent Accent may refer to: Speech and language * Accent (sociolinguistics), way of pronunciation particular to a speaker or group of speakers * Accent (phonetics), prominence given to a particular syllable in a word, or a word in a phrase ** Pitch ac ...

of the

Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middle L ...

common in coastal area of Germany. The scenes on board Blaubär's ship are made with Muppets-style puppets, while his stories are short animated films.

Shaun das Schaf

Käpt'n Blaubär is sometimes replaced or complemented by the

stop-action Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animation, '' Shaun the Sheep'' ("Shaun das Schaf"), and one episode of ''The Mouse'' featured a visit to Aardman Animations, showing how ''Shaun'' is produced. This educational film short, broken up into segments because of its complexity and length, showed the various stages of production and the amount of work required to create a single episode of ''Shaun''. The episode of ''Shaun'' seen in production was then broadcast in its finished state at the end of that ''Mouse''.

Schnappi

One episode featured a little crocodile named

Schnappi Schnappi das kleine Krokodil (''Snappy the Little Crocodile'') is a cartoon character originating from the German children's show ''Die Sendung mit der Maus'' (''The Show with the Mouse''). The cartoon's introductory song, "Schnappi, das kleine K ...

(Snappy) singing about his life in Egypt on the Nile. The song went viral in Germany and became a hit in other countries as well.

Awards

''Die Sendung mit der Maus'' and its creators continue to receive high praise from both television critics and pedagogic experts. The most notable of the roughly 75 awards won by the show and its creators are: *1973 Golden Bambi *1985 Ernst Schneider Award *1988 Adolf Grimme Award in Gold *1993

Deutscher Fernsehpreis The Deutscher Fernsehpreis (''German Television Award'') is an annual German award for television programming, created in 1999 by German television channels Das Erste, ZDF, RTL and Sat.1. It was created to be an equivalent to the Emmy Awards, t ...

, special prize *1995 Bayerischer Fernsehpreis awarded for the special ''Postwar Mouse'' (

Armin Maiwald Armin Maiwald (born 23 January 1940) is a German author, television director and producer. Maiwald is one of the founders of the award-winning German children's television program, '' Die Sendung mit der Maus''. Often just called ''Die Maus'' ( ...

) *1995 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to Armin Maiwald and

Christoph Biemann Christoph Biemann (born 6 August 1952) is a German writer, director and producer and one of the presenters of the award-winning children's television show, '' Die Sendung mit der Maus''. Also known as ''Die Maus'' ("The Mouse"), it has been on the a ...

*1996

Goldene Kamera The Goldene Kamera ("Golden Camera") is an annual German film and television award, awarded by the Funke Mediengruppe. The award show is usually held in early February in Hamburg, but has also taken place in Berlin in the past. The gold-plate ...

*2002 Ernst Schneider Award *2005 Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism *2006

IQ Award The IQ Award is a prize donated by the high- IQ association Mensa to honor people and organisations who have made remarkable contributions to public welfare by an intelligent idea, scientific research about human intelligence or the positive imag ...

International versions

The program is today seen in almost 100 countries."Google ehrt die Maus mit einem Doodle"
''

Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

'' (March 7, 2011) Retrieved March 10, 2011 In countries outside of Germany that carry the English-dubbed version of the show, ''Die Sendung mit der Maus'' airs under the title of ''Mouse TV''. The program retains much of its original format, but the dialogue and narration have been dubbed into English. The English version was created in Australia and aired in the United States as part of the Nickelodeon series '' Pinwheel'', on

Astro TVIQ Astro TVIQ (formerly known as TVIQ) was an English-language (formerly both hybrid language Malay-language and English-language) channel. This channel was free as it was grouped under the Astro Family package. The viewership target was for childr ...

in Malaysia and Brunei, ABC TV in Australia, TVRI in Indonesia,

Kuwait Television Kuwait Television is Kuwait's official state-run television station, and part of the Kuwaiti Ministry of information. Kuwait Television has 9 channels and a satellite channel: KTV1, KTV2, KTV Sport, KTV Sport Plus, KTV Kids, alQurain channel, A ...

in United Arab Emirates and

State of Palestine Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), Legal status of the State of Palestine, officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state (polity), state located in Western Asia. Officiall ...

TVE1 La 1 (, ''The One'') is a Spanish free-to-air television channel owned and operated by Televisión Española (TVE), the television division of state-owned public broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). It is the corporation's flagship te ...

TVE2 La 2 (, ''The Two'') is a Spanish free-to-air television channel owned and operated by Televisión Española (TVE), the television division of state-owned public broadcaster RTVE, Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). It is the corporation's secon ...

ETB 1 ETB 1 is the first television channel from the Euskal Irrati Telebista group in the Basque Autonomous Community, Navarre and the French Basque Country. The channel broadcasts entirely in the Basque language. History In 1979 the Statute of Aut ...

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso *Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala *Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...

and

Clan TVE Clan is a Spanish free-to-air television channel owned and operated by Televisión Española (TVE), the television division of state-owned public broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). It is the corporation's television channel for ki ...

in Spain, Rai 1 in Italy, France 3 in France, RTP1, RTP2 and Canal Panda in Portugal, Thai PBS in Thailand and TV Cultura in Glub Glub on Brazil To encourage French children to learn German and vice versa, the program began airing on Arte, a Franco-German television channel, on Sunday mornings, beginning October 2005. In Germany, the show is dubbed into French and in each country, subtitles appear in the local language. In French, the program is called ''La souris souriante'' (''The smiling mouse''). In

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

and in El Salvador, the show aired in Spanish as ''El cajón de los juguetes'' (''The toys box''). In Japan, a part of short films was broadcast by NHK ETV and

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

as ''Daisuki! Mausu'' ( だいすき!マウス) as part of the "2005/2006 Deutschland in Japan" bilateral exchange programme between WDR and NHK. This Show was also aired in Dutch Called ''Het Programma met de Muis'', was aired on Nederland 1 As Part Of Nederlandse Omroep Stichting in 1976 until 1980.

Spin-off

''Die Sendung mit dem Elefanten'' (The show with the elephant) is a spin-off aimed at pre-school children, which started in 2007 and consists mainly of little stories, songs and games.Sonja Pohlmann
"Das blaue Wunder"
''Der Tagesspiegel'' (August 8, 2007) Retrieved October 28, 2010

References

External links

Christoph Biemann's English web pages
*
''Die Sendung mit der Maus'', official Homepage

''Die Sendung mit der Maus'' podcasts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sendung Mit Der Maus, Die ARD (broadcaster) Animated television series about mice and rats 1971 German television series debuts German children's television series German children's animated television series German educational television series 1980s German television series 1990s German television series 2000s German television series 2010s German television series 2020s German television series German-language television shows Das Erste original programming Television series with live action and animation Flash television shows