A je to on Croatian television, 1985

I just love thinking of new places to look for hidden gems and immediately striking gold, that is finding something new in my different researches. I was browsing the digital archive of Split’s paper Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia, once an important and respected newspaper, today an also-ran) for something unrelated when it struck me – in the many years of its circulation, Pat and Mat were surely featured at some time, right? So, I set off on my search. But, the search function of the site is very clunky and completely useless for multi-word entries. What to do? Of course, search for BENEŠ. After various references about Czechoslovak president Edvard and Croatian boxer Marijan, I found mention of a certain L(j)ubomir Beneš on a page of the December 6, 1985 edition:

Here’s the article enlarged:

Translated, it reads: 

“It’s how it is"

On Sundays, at 19 o’clock, in the animated shorts slate on Channel 1, among others, we watch a puppet series whose original title is “It’s how it is”. The series was made by the television in Bratislava, and is directed by Lubomir Beneš, who also wrote many of the episodes, together with Jiri Kubiček. Two heroes, two neighbors, try to convince us that there are no unsolvable problems, although the way in which they do that seems to tell us otherwise.

The somewhat misguided translation of the original is amusing. The correct Croatian translation would be “(i) to je to” (i.e. “(and) that’s it”), which is even occasionally used nowadays. But, the real reason I am dedicating a post to the article is the publicity shot from Zahrádka. It’s – quite strange!

Everyone who has watched the episode (and I recently went through it in my minutiae series – on halt at the moment) knows we seem to have two Pats, which does not make much sense. Is it from an alternate universe where the episode is extended? After making a huge garden gnome, do Pat and Mat decide to make plaster replicas of their own selves and are not trapped as we are led to believe?

Pat is positioned quite suspiciously. Maybe that’s actually Pat’s evil twin (who can, of course, only be named Rat) who has escaped from prison to trap his brother in plaster and take over his free, peaceful cottage life along with fellow felony Tat. Maybe (I’d say, probably) the picture is cropped, so we won’t know the rest of it until we discover the original in another unexpected place. Slobodna is also missing many publication years on its archive for the time being. It’s how it is…

Plug: Toadette on B. Pojar's "Bears" series

It is a coincidence that the first film outside of the Pat & Mat series that was discussed at greater length was Narkoblues, but it's not much of a coincidence that it was a film directed by Břetislav Pojar. Pojar was one of the best and most famous Czech stop-motion directors of all time and many would say he was second only to Jiří Trnka, his mentor. Pojar, however, lived much longer (1923-2012) and so was part of almost the whole history of the art form in Czechia, which is why he cannot be skipped in any story about Czech animation. He even had direct involvement in one Pat & Mat episode, writing 2003's Natírají podlahu.

Pojar's most famous directorial work, both home and abroad, is the Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát (Hey Mister, Let's Play!) series of shorts about two teddy bears. If you haven't seen these films before, well, what are you waiting for?!

If you aren't familiar with this series, here is a brief comparison with Pat & Mat. Both feature two main characters, but here our heroes are younger and also different from each other, much of the humor coming from their interaction, penned by Ivan Urban. They encounter other animals throughout in their forest-like worlds. An important difference is that the two bears speak, which, I presume, is one of the reasons why this series didn't receive that much international success. However, that won't be a distraction to you (see why down below).

One year of the blog

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you are spending your holidays in the best possible way.

A year has passed (December 22nd) since I posted the first entry to this blog, a filmography of the series, the first iteration of which I compiled on my long-since discarded PC about nine years ago. I kept that post offline for most of the time until January 3rd, making small changes on the way, so maybe that should be seen as the true birthday for the blog. However, let's keep the blog's inception out of 2020, it was bad enough already!

Although 2020 really was nasty (and we still have six more days) on the whole, when it comes to Pat and Mat, for me it was truly extraordinary. I got to open up this blog and connect with fans of the series around the world, but also got the chance to communicate with (and even meet some) people whose work on the series I've long admired. As such, I can only wish more of the same in the next year. I have some things in the locker for all of you as well and hopefully, some will come out soon.

Let's take a look at a couple of stats for the blog. Here is the overall view count... currently at 44K and still going!

Pat and Mat are popular all over the world, so it's only natural that the blog will also have visitors from different cities, areas, countries, even continents. Which country has the worst handymen in the world? Poland. I'm kidding, of course. The fandom in Poland makes up for almost half of the pageviews alone. This is an expected result of different factors: a huge fanbase for the series, Poland being a large country, but also being home to some dedicated readers and friends of the blog. Next up is Czechia, the home of the series, then the Netherlands (another huge fanbase) and then the US. I presume Croatia's position is somewhat skewed as the blog often unintentionally counts my own views and I've also sent links to the blog to several friends. The only surprise is Portugal, where I seem to have a super fan as well. The list is continued by Saudi Arabia, Germany, Slovenia...

Back when I could still see all pageviews in a day (another feature Blogger has degraded), there were some real peculiar and exciting countries to prop up from time to time, like Brazil and Argentina, India, China (is it someone from Steamworks?!), Zimbabwe and the United Arab Emirates. It's a real honor to be able to reach so many different people. I hope you have liked what you have seen so far and let's all hope for many happy returns!

Scenes from Narkoblues (1997)

Things have been going slowly on this blog. Unfortunately, I don't have that much time to devote to it at the moment, so posts will appear less frequently. Some things are on the way, but I don't know when I will get them out. I'd like to say that I'm feeling fine and hope you are too in these unpredictable circumstances.

Recently, thanks to a friend, I got to see Narco Blues (or Narkoblues, the title in Czech) for the first time. This film was made in aiF Studio in 1997 as, I believe, aiF's only completed one-shot puppet short film, not tied to character series. Directed by famed director Břetislav Pojar together with cameraman Ivan Vít, it was part of Rights from the Heart series, which highlighted different problems children face when their rights are violated. This film dealt with drugs - here is a synopsis from the NFB of Canada, which co-produced the film with aiF and Czech Television:

On summer vacation a young teenager finds himself hanging out alone on the streets of his neighbourhood, all his friends having gone to the country with their parents. Near his home he meets a disturbing character, a drug pusher looking for clients, who introduces him to an artificial paradise. The teenager discovers a seductive and terrifying world that frequently draws him back to his neighbour. To buy the drug, he empties his piggybank, pawns his favourite possessions and finally goes into his mother's purse where he finds her wallet empty. The pusher is unscrupulous. Unable to pay, the young teenager lets himself be persuaded into committing a theft. The duo is surprised by the police, but the boy manages to escape. The incident leads to a bad trip, which ultimately has a salutary effect on him. An animated film without words for twelve to seventeen year olds.

title card

2018-20 animation credits

Martin Kublák working on Plot in 2018 (source: pro-miminka.cz)

As I' ve mentioned in a few other posts, a list of animators on the 2018-20 episodes would be useful for future reference, so here it is. These episodes all have the same group animator credits (with all the Czech and Chinese animators listed on every episode), which are annoying when you want to see which people worked on which episode exactly. The credit usually goes:

Animation: Jan Smrčka, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Wang Peipei, Xiang Weiwei, Li Xiangyuan, Yu Huagong, Xiao Xieliang

Martin Kublák, seen above, appears in the credits on seven episodes from 2018, but worked on only one of them, Plot. The group credit means that it is impossible to discover anything purposeful about the styles of various animators in the Chinese Steamworks studio. When it comes to style, though, I can see Steamworks' animators mostly tried to copy Jan Smrčka's animation and presumably watched a lot of his Venkovĕ episodes. Steamworks did their jobs well enough that 'ordinary' viewers won't spot many differences between their and Czech works, but we are not ordinary viewers. So, I've produced a list of 'who animated what' on these episodes. Unfortunately, for Steamworks' animators, I can only write the name of the studio, not the animators involved. Of course, this is all guesswork (albeit educated, experienced guesswork based on many instances of watching the episodes), so please report any inaccuracies if you find them. I have already gone through this list with a reader of the blog (Buurman) and none were found, so I am not expecting any. For episodes with multiple known animators, screenshots are included. AMP is short for Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly. The animator credits have been added to my episode list. Thanks to Buurman for all of his help in making this post.

• Včely – Steamworks
• Sekačka – Steamworks
• Krtek – Jan Smrčka, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Steamworks; Smrčka does the scenes in front of the fence, while Mensdorff does those on the houses set. Steamworks was given a 20-second sequence inside the workshop.

Smrčka

AMP

Steamworks

A je to minutiae #4: a trip to the countryside

Lubomír Beneš at the wheel, circa 1981

Moving on into episodes with 1982 copyright dates, this time we will discuss the final batch of episodes completed at Studio Jiřího Trnky's Čiklovka branch, which consists of the unusual triplet of Sťahovanie, Voda and Záhradka.

These episodes feel interconnected. Although a long way off from being part of a real sequence of episodes, they are still the closest the series has at any point come to follow-up episodes. Even though all three end in complete catastrophes, it is easy to imagine Pat and Mat quickly fixing the mess they made by their moving expedition and continue with managing the water supply the next day. They mess that up as well and move on to gardening another day and so on. The connection is, of course, that all of the episodes take place on the newly-introduced countryside set. A good question to ask is: why not include Skokani? Although that episode is the only spiritual successor to these three, it was not filmed at Čiklovka, but at Wenzigovka (as confirmed by Jan Klos) so I will talk about in the next post. This one is too long as it is.

The upper image shows director Luboš Beneš working on the stone bridge. I've put the image as being shot circa 1981 because it appears to show the set and props in preparation. The 1982 episodes brought a change in the characters' appearance. They now sported thinner eyes and no longer utilized different face expressions. I wrote about how this led to them acting a bit differently back in February. If you take a closer look at the photo, you will notice (apart from it being scanned improperly - I noticed this too late and will fix it when the opportunity arises, sorry) that the puppet still has the old face on. I say 'the puppet' because I can't name it Mat - it is wearing a yellow shirt! All this makes me believe the photo was snapped in the middle of preparation.

The set is the original series' most ambitious. It is a big change from the confined surroundings of a typical flat or, at most, the back yard. Some of the details on this cozy, homey set are marvelous, like the stone walls and bridge, or the tree stumps scattered around, which I only noticed by watching TDK's masters. It is fun how they contrast with the ragged, barely standing chaloupka reused from 1975's Kouzelný dědeček, whose erratic movements are also charming in their own way, or the ridiculously redundant front gate. It is a neat link of the characters' clumsy, but optimistic nature. 

It is interesting to note how both Sťahovanie and Voda feature a solo writing credit for Beneš, while his usual colleague in that section, dramaturge Vendulka Čvančarová, was paired with Vladimír Jiránek for Záhradka. This makes me wonder whether the two episodes were prepared in advance. The 1981 episodes have more things in common with the 1979 episodes and feel like a holdover from that era. 

A je to: minutiae #3 (Čiklovka: Gramofón, Grill - Jan Klos steps onto the scene)

Gramofón

In 1981, the series moved from the "mother" studio in Bartolomějská to the studio's Čiklovka branch, most likely to save space. Only two people followed the series there: director Luboš Beneš and animator Karel Chocholín. The rest of the crew consisted of Čiklovka members, all new to the series. One of the most important members of the new team was cameraman Vladímir Malík. In Croatian as well as in Czech, there's saying that if you know something thoroughly, you have it in your pinkie finger. Malík could definitely claim that, not only because his surname translates to pinkie, but because he was the best cameraman of the three on the original series. Camera errors (such as shots out of focus) were at a minimum when he was behind the scenes, while his work is also full of intricate details like lush shadows. Since the early 1970s, Ivan Vít, who later returned to the characters in 1989, was his assistant.  Malík had bags of experience at Čiklovka - he was there when directors Břetislav Pojar and Josef Kluge opened the branch in 1959. However, his work on ... a je to! was among his last at Čiklovka, as he was shifted to the main branch in 1982. Here is a wonderful short documentary about his life made in 2011. Malík was born in 1931 and is currently 89 years old, hopefully still going strong. His predecessor in the role, Jiří Šafář, died in 2018 aged 97, so maybe being cameraman on the series is a good omen for a long life.

CHRONICLE OF CINEMATOGRAPHER VLADIMÍR MALÍK from Jaro Waldeck on Vimeo.

And here he is working in the studio (year unknown):

Gramofón is the episode where Malík's imprint is most felt. Remember, ... a je to! was made on a shoestring budget, often with time constraints, so not many innovations and time-consuming methods could be utilized. Still, the crew managed to make this episode look very atmospheric.

In accordance with the new surroundings, the titles got a makeover.

 Pat looks at his shiny gramophone. Unlike some episodes, this one features technology which is a relic of the past. Still, I don't think children would have much problem understanding what a record player does after watching it. The wallpapers and a lot of the props would later be reused in Křížovka, an episode which looks entirely different. Take a look at the detailed windows - to me, the setting looks as if Pat's flat is on a high skyscraper and has a view to lower ones.

A je to: minutiae #2

Hojdacie kreslo

Mat is watching some dog. Unfortunately, it is not Dášeňka.

Edgar Degas' The Dance Class is hanging on the wall. Pat had it in the previous episode.

A je to: minutiae #1

In this series of posts, I will discuss minutiae from the ... a je to! series. One definition of the word minutiae reads as precise details; small or trifling matters and that is what this is all about. Small or not so small details you probably never even noticed or you didn't think about them. The TDK masters made me rewatch the entire series a couple of times, this time in a new light, and these are some interesting bits and pieces a person who has watched these episodes so many times thought it would be nice to share. The screenshots are all raw, as they are on the DVDs, without any editing.

Tapety

No, the title card for Tapety is not green, but grey! The titles on the TDK masters look unusual for the 1979, almost as if they were sourced from different materials than the rest of the films, especially on the next episode.

a bit of a scratch, as if somebody sprayed the frame with gulaš

Mat has so much junk in his kitchen. I wish some other episodes also showed their homes full of items which don't belong there. It doesn't sit well with me when their living spaces are tidy. Previously, I didn't notice how the iconic gulaš can (that is, two cans, but you'll have to wait for another edition of minutiae to see an explanation) has a dark blue, not black outline around the words.

I already mentioned how Mat's living room looks very drab at the beginning, as if the crew did not yet have a sense of how to light up the set and started with too much white light. They gradually dialed it back a bit and introduced warmer colors, even in the same episode.

on the contrary, this shot needs some more light!

gulaš and bread, classic. or is it a croissant?

Pat & Mat: the TDK collection

NOTE: In case you haven't read them yet, I started my discussion of these DVDs in two previous posts. Here's a post about the different masters of the same episode over the years which showcases just how much better TDK's masters are. In my most recent post (link), we saw how the Japanese audience experienced Pat & Mat in cinemas from 1999 to 2001, which must have been a big incentive to produce a DVD collection of the episodes.

This is an overview of five Pat & Mat DVDs released in 2001 by TDK Deep Impression. First of all, I have to yet again thank Jürg Schaeppi, without whom I would never get to know about these DVDs.

So, after a couple of years of theatrical shows, the time came for the series to receive a DVD release. This was one of the earliest, if not the earliest (I don't have data on South Korean DVDs) release of episodes produced prior to the 1990s on DVD. As this lovely promo found on eiga-chirashi.jp shows, the DVDs (and VHS tapes, as the collection was also issued in that format) were released on November 29, 2001, a week after a similarly high-profile release of another classic series from the same studio, Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát, which you should definitely check out.

The contents

Pat and Mat in Japanese cinemas

Japan has often been mentioned as one of those countries where Pat and Mat have achieved unexpected, even enormous success. However, little of that success seems to be found on online platforms. When you type in パットとマット (the Japanese name for the series, which translates just as Pat and Mat), not many results show up. Google can muster only a couple pages of images and very few YouTube videos uploaded from Japan. This was always strange to me - were Pat and Mat not as popular in Japan as is often claimed? The truth is that I don't know and it's hard to tell. Maybe they were more popular with older generations which don't have as much of a presence on social media. Maybe Google's algorithms just aren't that powerful when it comes to Japanese sites? That argument doesn't hold up for South Korea, where a ton of material related to the series is easily accessible online. In any case, Czech animation (particularly people deemed to be auteurs like Jan Švankmajer) seems to be very successful in Japan, so the success of Pat and Mat can be seen as an extension tof that. I would love it if someone from the country (or someone who is more knowledgeable) could provide us with some more info - when were our beloved handymen shown on TV in Japan, how popular and known the series has been etc. Going by the available data, it seems unusual that undoubtedly the best DVD collection (unless some are hiding in places like Zimbabwe!) of the series was released in Japan.

Nonetheless, a clear backstory for the collection can be constructed thanks to Wayback Machine's archives, which saved many of TDK's web pages from the early 2000s. From my rummaging through these auto-translated sites, I gathered that TDK Deep Impression (or Deep Impression TDK) owned or were close associates of RandomでEvolvingなNetwork, or REN Corporation for short. REN, in turn, founded Open Cinema Network to release both domestic and foreign films in Japanese cinemas. After a successful festival of Czech animation in 1997, another one followed in 1999. By 1999, Pat and Mat's stock was quite high as they were awarded a couple of prizes at the World Animation Celebration in the USA in 1997. They were the 1999 festival's main attraction. This is the poster for the Czech Festival of Cartoons and Puppet Films '99 and its reverse side (source: page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/):

I know what you're thinking - Karty in Japan?! Well, by all official records, no. It doesn't seem Karty was actually shown on the festival even though a promotional shot from the episode was omnipresent. My guess is that maybe Karty was originally supposed to be featured, but copyright disputes didn't allow for it to happen. The promo photo was even featured on the festival's website and, ironically, was the only one on the index page saved by Wayback Machine:

The festival's website contained specific information about which films were going to be shown in three "programmes", A, B and C, which were to be presented around Japan from August 1999 to February 2001. Each programme featured five Pat & Mat films together with classics from authors such as Švankmajer, Trnka, Barta and Jiránek. The programmes premiered at the Nakano Musashino Hall in Tokyo, with A being shown August 14-August 27, B August 28-September 10 and C shown September 14-September 24. The featured films (it's sounds wrong to call them episodes in this sense) were, by programme:

A: Klíč, Dveře, Střecha, Nábytek, Generální úklid

B: Sušenky, Cyklisti, Dlaždice, Parkety, Kabriolet

C: Nehoda, Kulečník, Trezor, Modeláři, Windsurfing

As you can see, most 1989-90 and aiF episodes, the most recently produced at that time, were shown. I am quite jealous of the people who got to experience these on a cinema screen. It must have been a special feeling and, of course, copies made to show the episodes must have been of highest possible quality - you would never screen a cheap TV master tape in a cinema, especially for such a long period of time. The festival traveled all around Japan. The screenings continued next year: this is the schedule for 2000 taken from the site (apologies for errors in names due to auto-translation):

Saturday, April 29-Tuesday, May 16 Kichijoji Baus Theate

May 30 (Tue)-June 4 (Sun) Shiga Kaikan Cinema Hall

July 8th (Sat)-July 14th (Fri) Matsuyama Cinema Lunatic

Saturday, July 29-Monday, July 31 Oita Prefectural Cultural Center

Another festival was set for 2000. (source for the poster: page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/):

Next to the promo image for Kabriolet, you can (barely) see a photo of Beneš and Jiránek. Although the 2000 festival featured six programmes, only the first two contained Pat & Mat episodes and, this time, it was the rest of the episodes from the aiF and Krátký film packages:

A: Kuťáci, Sekačka, Vrata

B: Okap, Živý plot, Blatník

The inclusion of aiF episodes is interesting. Although they were already in distribution limbo by 2001 (probably by 2000), maybe the disputes around aiF's legacy weren't valid in Japan or weren't important for theatrical rights. In any case, ... a je to! episodes were not yet shown at any date. That finally changed in 2001:

In 2001, the festival's headline was Hey Mister, Let's Play, or Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát, after the eponymous 1960s series which was the star of that year's festival. However, there was time for 12 Pat & Mat, or should I say, ... a je to! episodes. They were, in order of programme:

A:Veľké pranie, Telocvičňa, Vinári, Výlet

B: Gramofón, Korčule, Hrnčiari, Raňajky v tráve

C: Krížovka, Dážď, Jablko, Porucha

Again, the programmes premiered at Nakano Musashino Hall, from Saturday, July 7 to Friday, August 17. The 2001 festival was, it seems, the last (not counting a festival of new Czech animation in 2002). Even though there were future screenings of classic Czech animation, they weren't billed as "festivals". It seems that Pat and Mat weren't part of future screenings, but it's not impossible that I missed something on various iterations of REN's website. In any case, future screenings are not important for our story. By 2001, Pat and Mat had amassed a large enough audience in Japan and it was time for a DVD/VHS collection of their films! Read about them in my next post...

Záhradka: episode masters over the years

Here's a blast from the past: a VHS tape! Some of you have surely already forgotten this relic of the past. I still used VHSs about ten years ago, mostly to record cartoons. Nowadays, my VCR is, although still completely usable, retired. I have had this tape for many, many years, since around 2003. It was part of a 7-casette collection which included the first 35 episodes of the series. Let's see its covers:

I am sure you recognized the promotional photo as being from Střecha. Indeed, that's the final episode on this VHS. It is preceded by, in order, Obraz, Záhradka, Dážď and Hrnčiari. However, this is not a post about this VHS or my VHS collection, for that matter. The topic of this post concerns the second episode featured on the VHS, Záhradka (or Zahrádka in Czech - or The Garden in English). In fact, what I will be talking about today is how this episode has been presented on home video and other official releases throughout the decades.

More from Steamworks Studio

Just a small post today. As I've said, more behind-the-scenes photos are bound to come from Steamworks Studio, who animated many of the 2018-20 episodes in China, which I talked about in my previous post. These photos come from an article on the Chinese website new.qq.com. I didn't want to just copy every single photo here, so here's a link to the place where I found these and all the rest of them: https://new.qq.com/omn/20200731/20200731A0BSF100.html