Schipper naast Mathilde ('' Skipper next to Mathilde'') was a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium ...

sitcom A sitcom, a Portmanteau, 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 troup ...

, broadcast between 1955 and 1963 on the Flemish

public service A public service is any Service (economics), service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through pub ...

TV station N.I.R. (nowadays the VRT). At the time it was tremendously successful and it is well regarded as the first classic TV series of Flemish television. About 185 episodes were made, but since many of them went live in the air without recording a copy the majority are lost today. Another part was lost in a fire. In 2005 a DVD was made available which contains all the remaining episodes, nine in total.

Concept

''Schipper naast Mathilde'' took place in a typical Flemish village. It revolved around a former skipper ( Nand Buyl), his sister Mathilde ( Jetje Cabanier), their adopted daughter Marianne (

Francine De Weerdt :''This is a disambiguation page for the common name Francine.'' Francine is a female given name. The name is of French origin. The name Francine was most popular in France itself during the 1940s (Besnard & Desplanques 2003), and was well used in ...

, later Chris Lomme), the nosy neighbour Madame Krielemans, the

stuttering Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the ...

and posh Philidoor, the stupid Sander and his friend Hyppoliet Maréchal, who tried to talk French, but always made language mistakes. When people corrected him he always replied: "That's what I said!". The family also had a

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittaco ...

, Jules, who often commented on the proceedings in the house.

Behind the scenes

Originally the N.I.R. only planned 13 episodes. The series was originally going to be named "Het Koperen Anker" or "De avonturen van kapitein Biebuyck," centering around a former army colonel. Since there was an actual military captain with that name who overheard the plans this idea was scrapped. In 1959 the character Marianne was written out of the series and replaced by a new character, Marieke. The actress who played Marianne, Francine De Weerdt, was replaced by Chris Lomme. Nand Buyl, who played the skipper, developed a love affair with Lomme and the couple later married. Theologian Max Wildiers wrote scripts for the series, as well as Anton van Casteren, Rik de Bruyn, and Gerard Walschap.

Cast

* Nand Buyl – Matthias * Jetje Cabanier – Mathilde * Chris Lomme – Marieke (1959-1963) *

Tuur Bouchez Tuur may refer to: *Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Tuur (1931-2003), Somalian politician *Regilio Tuur (1967), Dutch boxer *Regillio Tuur (1986), Belgian-born Surinamese footballer *Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959), Estonian composer *Mihkel Tüür Mihkel Tüü ...

– Philidoor *

Jan Reusens Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article N ...

– Sander * Fientje Blockmans – Jules the parrot *

– Marianneke (1955-1959) *

René Peeters René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminine ...

– Hyppoliet *

Josée Puissant Josée is a given name and can refer to: *Josée Auclair (born 1962), Canadian explorer *Josée Beaudin (born 1961), Canadian politician *Josée Chouinard (born 1969), Canadian figure skater * Josée Corbeil (born 1973), retired female volleyball ...

– Madam Krielemans

Popularity and legacy

The series' popularity thrived on farcical situations and the fact that all the characters spoke in the

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

of the province Antwerp. While ''"Schipper naast Mathilde"'' was very popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s the program has seldom been repeated on TV since. This has to do with the fact that only nine episodes remain available today, but also because the show itself is extremely out-dated. In terms of television direction it's comparable to a filmed theatrical play. In 1955

Willy Vandersteen Willy Vandersteen (15 February 1913 – 28 August 1990) was a Belgian creator of comic books. In a career spanning 50 years, he created a large studio and published more than 1,000 comic albums in over 25 series, selling more than 200 million co ...

made a

celebrity comics Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

newspaper comic strip based on the success of the TV show, drawn by his assistants Eduard de Rop and Gene Deschamps, but it didn't last long. In 1960 Eddy Ryssack and Johan Anthierens also made a comic strip based on the show, ''De geheime avonturen van Kapitein Matthias'' (''The secret adventures of Captain Matthias''), which was published in

Humo ''HUMO'' is a popular Dutch-language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close rela ...

. A series of novelisations was also published, as well as an

audio play Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...

released on vinyl record.

Sources

{{Reflist

External links

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240294/ Flemish television shows Belgian television sitcoms 1955 Belgian television series debuts 1963 Belgian television series endings Television shows adapted into novels Television shows adapted into comics Television shows adapted into radio programs Black-and-white Belgian television shows Television shows set in Belgium Works set in Flanders Eén original programming