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.

 Mat's head is somehow too big to fit down there. As a kid, I always thought his head was stuck in the in the lowest board of the cupboard, not under it.

 Glass objects were really made of glass and as such reflected large amounts of light.

Interesting remnant of editing. Maybe something was cut between these two scenes.

I always liked how Pat obtains a saw out of nowhere.

the zavojs (bandages), one has an expiry date of 3 years

Before watching the TDK master, I never noticed how the TV is actually flickering all the time, a wonderful detail.

Quite probably the most bizarre ending of an episode. No to rational conclusions, well-thought-out ideas to solve a problem; yes to flying off, destroying the flat while flattening your neighbor. Also, inflating your neighbor with a pump afterwards. You can see how Vladimír Jiránek had a wonderful time writing this - I wish there were more episodes that went into such extremes. 

I've just flattened my neighbor, what to do?! Step over him, of course!

In one of the previous shots, it seems an object is left on the set for a brief moment.

The TV is, again, flickering.

first episode animated soley by one person

Obraz

I remember always being confused with this scene: why did Mat intentionally break part of the picture? In fact, I presume the intention was to show him accidentally doing it, but the positioning of his hands and the animation did not come out as planned.

This is an interesting shot. Similar wallpapers later appear in 1982's Maľovanie. Those are later reused in 1990's Střecha.

Here is Mat being brought back to consciousness. Everything seems normal...

... but then this abomination shows up! It seems it is an enlarged version of half of Mat's head. Really strange. Thanks to Buurman for this discovery.

The rest is again as expected.

Another strange animation choice. For a frame, Mat is visibly moved away from the wardrobe. I don't know if there was intention to show him using more oomph to push the wardrobe or if it was just a mistake.

animation by Xenie Vavrečková...

and this is the lady herself (still from ČT)

Garáž

Detailed work on the set during filming which I only noticed after watching this episode the third or fourth time from the TDK DVD, so about the 30th or 40th time overall, hah. When Mat hits the wall with his fender, a part of the plaster is removed from that spot!

The car's original color. I am very glad that they changed it to red in 1982 because red suits it much better. The car's plates are PF 79 80. I did some searching and found that this was almost a possible Czechoslovak registration plate of the time. The combination is formally correct, but the first two or three letters were a code for the district (okres) and PF was not any of them. PF, however, does mean something in Czech: it is short for a New Year’s card, derived from the French pour féliciter (felicitations), so there may have been an inside joke here after all. The car itself is a mishmash of automotive elements from different decades.

This appears to be the same tyre from Koberec, only repainted.

This gesture I never understood. Pat and Mat go for a non-touching high five, or high four to be exact. Why without touching? Is it a Czech thing? Anyway, it seems rather suitable in these dark, Corona times.

Here are two more visible traces of gluing some shots together in the editing room. Perhaps the close-ups were done at a later time and had to be inserted.

Here's an almost identical pattern in 1990's Sekačka.

The speedometer seems to have gibberish inscriptions, except for Prag, which is the name for Prague in several languages.

The animation in the scene before P+M move the garage is very choppy, with some movements cut by Karel Chocholín. These below are consecutive frames. I think this is deliberate and it works - we are shown just how recklessly the two decide to move the garage without thinking about its entrance.

D'olive paint.

The lock says TOKOZ and of course, there is a Czech company that produces just that, currently celebrating their 100th birthday! The detail on some props is truly amazing.

Svetlo

The package says barvy na vejce - paint for eggs. I tried to decipher the rest of the packaging, but no luck. Watch out for the light switch.

Is this first time we see the kitchen window? It is good to note the plain background and the curtains, which are from the same fabric as the entrance to the kitchen. They both change in 1981.

Is BOPO another company which existed sometime? Whatever they were selling cost 310 Czechoslovak koruna. The box previously made an appearance in Koberec.

Bobby Fischer vs Boris Spassky (1979, colorized)

Longtime fans of the show are well acquainted with The Scissors safety matches. Of course, they are a famous Czech brand, one of the many which were produced in the town of Sušice during a couple of centuries, for the majority of the time by the Solo company. The full story can be found here. Another household name from Sušice? Břetislav Pojar.

photo: matchboxmuseum.blogspot.com

Why did I mention the light switch? Well, after this shot, it is moved from the kitchen to the living room.

Let's take a moment to briefly return to Tapety. The light switch also makes an appearance there, but only in a close-up of Mat, which was obviously not animated at the same time as the wider shot and quite possibly used a different puppet.

This shot is out of focus. It was definitely difficult to organize the lightning with all the light bulb problems.

Look at that: no, not the chess game which Pat cannot win. The damage made by the car in the previous episode is there! The shadows in this shot are beautiful.

As I've mentioned, the titles on the TDK DVDs seem to tell a strange story. Compare these two screenshots from Svetlo and Obraz. The first credits roll is much lighter and even has more color. I cannot be sure whether this concerns just the titles. Maybe the whole episodes were mastered using different brightness settings or were even shot (or, and that's the more likely possibility, transferred) in different ways. In any case, the difference between these two is huge.

As we bid adieu to 1979 and the first 7-episode batch, here is a look at the kitchen as it appears in Tapety, Svetlo and 1981's Grill. It must have been useful for the set decorators and animators that its different elements could be arranged in many ways, as was needed.