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

Steamworks Studio

Never heard of Steamworks Studio? Neither did I until yesterday, but I am familiar with some of their work, namely many episodes of the last three Pat & Mat series. I've previously written about how I couldn't find any information on the Chinese studio where the newest P&M episodes were (also) filmed. I can now finally stop using substitute, inadequate names such as "Chinese studio" and call them by their proper name, Steamworks Studio.

source: maoyan.com

And how did we finally get to know them? Well, a few months ago, after some heavy searching, I managed to uncover the Chinese name for Pat & Mat, 呆瓜兄弟. I hope somebody from China can offer a fair translation of the name, but online translators variously give it as Dumb brothers and Dolly brothers, which, I guess, sums up the gist of it. Unfortunately, Googling that name turned up almost nothing of importance at the time.

Luckily, Rakso, Pat & Mat fan extraordinaire, thought to search again and hit gold. Nowadays you can find much more posters, videos and advertising material for the characters in Chinese in general and there's good reason for it. Today (July 31) a Pat & Mat feature film will be released in China. It seems to be a significant date from what I've gathered, the reopening of Chinese cinemas for family-friendly movies after the coronavirus lockdown, so it's nice that Pat and Mat will be part of that story. Judging by the trailers, the film is 2018's Pat a Mat znovu v akci or some version of it.

A theatrical release means trailers and an unusual one appeared in China a couple of days ago. The studio filmed a new sequence where Pat and Mat think up of their own dance routine for what I guess is a popular Chinese song. It is a nicely done, pleasant sequence.

[link to video source]

The studio also did a making of video to accompany it. Eventually, they also posted it to their Facebook site and by doing so revealed who they are!

From this short video and the one in the ending credits of Znovu v akci, I can see that the animator is the same person who animated most or all of Schody, so it's not surprising that the handshake at the end of the performance is executed almost identically to the one in the aforementioned episode.

More about the studio can be found on their website. They are based in the Jianggan district of  Hangzhou, a city of more than 10 million people. Their full name is listed as Hangzhou Steamworks Creative Co. Ltd and they have been doing stop motion since 2004. The English translation of the studio's website is pretty wonky, so I have been able to find some familiar names (for instance, Wang Peipei, listed as executive director) only on their original site automatically translated to English.

making of Výroba ledu (maoyan.com)

You would think that's all, but not yet! After some more digging, I also uncovered a much more elaborate behind-the-scenes video uploaded only at the beginning of this week. Here we get an insight into the production process of a couple of episodes:

[link to video source]

Of course, I can understand Pat & Mat producer Tomáš Eiselt perfectly well, but I wish I could understand what is said in Chinese! If there's somebody from China lurking here (and I have seen a few visits from there pop up), it would be nice if they could offer us a basic translation or maybe show us the video's original 1080p version. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if I managed to miss another video or interesting behind-the-scenes photo, so please comment if you find some. I have a feeling more is to come.

Update, August 3: Check the comments for the 1080p version and the translation. Here's the dance sequence in 1080p:

Maľovanie: three animators, two studios

Maľovanie is one of the most unique episodes of the entire Pat & Mat cannon and also the single most unique episode of the ... a je to! series. It always piqued my interest and I've always felt it somehow didn't match up with all the episodes around it. It turns out there's a great story behind this particular episode.

It is no surprise that Maľovanie ended up being the topic of the first post on this blog which wasn't part of an array of introductory posts concerned with producing a detailed filmography of the series. That short post, which only served as an introduction to a much more comprehensive one about Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, is here. I remember writing practically all of the short post and much of the larger one on my mobile phone on a snowy bus ride from Zagreb to Split in late December. That was more than half a year ago and in that time I've learned so much more about these bumbling handymen than I thought I ever would. For instance, I've learned that a key bit of information in that short post was - wrong.

Back to Maľovanie: This episode's main distinction is obvious: much of it is animated by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, who typically did not work on the series, using a pair of  puppets which were never reused in the series. Yet, there are even more differences to be found in the credits: for instance, this is the only post-1979 episode that lists Věra Henzlová as production manager.

In hindsight, a most telling inclusion...

I'm very grateful to have been able to contact some of the people who worked on this great series and, of course, no person more than animator Jan Klos, with whom I've been able to talk about many of the films he worked on, both inside and outside of the Pat & Mat world. One day, Jan remembered an anecdote about his work in animation and sat down to share it with me by "knocking" it into his keyboard. With his usual self-deprecation, he quipped that this was one of those to share "before becoming history". It went like this:

It happened at Pojar's in Čiklova 13A. I finished an ... a je to! episode for Beneš and after a while I was due to start another one. Around that time, I had injured my right hand and had it in plaster (immobilized in large casing). I don't know the name of the episode, but I remember that the hero comes into the picture and carries a chicken that he intends to bake in the oven. He pulls the baking tray out of the cupboard. He finds out that the baking pan is not suitable - it is too small, so he pulls out a larger baking pan that is again not suitable - it is also too small and so on and so on until he is satisfied with the size of the baking pan. I animated these scenes with my left hand.

the headline says ... football competitions

New sequence... from aiF!

Without further ado, please take a look at this:

What was that?! Well, I wouldn't know - I didn't know this short film even existed until today!

First of all, I have to give out a huge thank you to 이은석 (Eunsuk Lee - please correct your name if I butchered it), who uploaded this clip. You may have heard of him already - he also gave the world a chance to see Karty in 2014. This clip comes from the very same VHS that features Playing Cards as well. The dubbing is not by David Nykl (and Peter Alton) this time - Korean dubbers perform the voices this time, being as awkward and uninspired as on the dubs for the 49 episodes issued by aiF Asia. Here's an edited version by Rakso which removes the voices and subtitles as best as it can, giving a better aproximation of what the film should sound like (definitely not what it should look like - the interlacing and overall feel of the VHS tape ruining the animation quite a bit):

I think it's obvious that this segment was produced around the same time as Karty. To me, it looks like a trailer of sorts, maybe for the announced 52-episodes series. It could also be the opening of Karty, but I don't think that's the case as the segment is over a minute long, though the abrupt cut at the end does leave me pondering the possibility. While this short film shares many traits with Karty, I think an interesting difference between them is the really rapid pacing. Of course, the format dictates fast action, but everything seems to play out faster than I expect it to. Update August 17: From the most reliable of sources, the director himself, I have learned that this sequence was indeed intended to be the opening sequence of the 12-minute version of Karty.