Review: Pat a Mat kutí (Part II)

This post continues my review of individual episodes from the Pat a Mat kutí series. For more on the series as a whole and previous episodes, visit Part I here.

Before I go on, I know there are readers of this blog who would much prefer to read about the old episodes and the history of the series. Don't worry and stay tuned because some very interesting (even exclusive) stuff is on the way...

8. Barbecue

animated in China

I'm not particularly pleased with the three 2020 episodes which were animated in China (8, 10 and 12 on this list). For me, they are mostly average episodes on the whole with some funny moments scattered around. Their pacing is often sluggish and things happen too slowly. It's interesting then that the studio has reedited (or is in the process of doing so) the 39 8-minute new episodes into 5-minute ones for some TV markets. I've only seen Sauna from the Winter series in that format and the result was promising. Do this to some of these episodes (even speed up the animation in some scenes) and I feel they will come out better.

A friend told me this episode reminded him of Grill, but I think it has much more to do with 2003's Opékají špekáčky, with the ending practically being the same. In any case, it's at least easy to identify with Pat and Mat and their barbecue fails in this episode.

9. Potrubní pošta / Tube Post

animated by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly (interior scenes) & Jan Smrčka (exterior scenes)

I LOVE this episode! When it premiered on YouTube, I watched it and then immediately had to watch it two more times, which didn't happen with other episodes from this series. It's probably my favorite episode from the past decade. In one of my posts, I wrote how viewers looking for a nostalgia trip will rarely find it in these newest episodes. That is definitely not the case here as this episode hits all the right buttons and it's a great one for fans of the original show. There are even appearances of two old friends in the form of props - the original drill from 1976 (how cool is that!) and a jug that appeared in 1980s countryside episodes such as Zahrádka. Experts will recognize some younger props as well, like the green vacuum cleaner which appeared in Patmat's first episode, Puzzle, back in 2002.

Nevertheless, it's not only nostalgia that makes this episode great: it is not the funniest of the episodes, but it never loses focus and feels inspired - I can imagine Marek Beneš, who also wrote it, looking at a tube post system or hearing about it and thinking - this would make a good episode. It shows that the two don't always have to be hilarious to be charming. The pacing is very good and consistent throughout, while the animation is splendid and the animator casting makes the best use of the two animators. This is a great resource for comparing their different styles, which I'll write about in the future. The episode is also very expansive as it takes place on six different sets (the houses and five indoor sets), with the attic rooms appearing for the first time, which adds to the dynamic. All in all, a very pleasant episode with a great atmosphere.

10. Výroba ledu / Ice Making

animated in China

Review: Pat a Mat kutí (Part I)

All of the newest Pat & Mat episodes are out, so it's time to take a look at each one of them and the series as a whole. This two-part post will feature my comments about the series, mini reviews and tidbits. All of the episodes will be available on the official YouTube channel by Monday - all episodes have already been aired on Poland's TVP ABC.

I would generally describe Pat a Mat kutí as: okay to good. I stand by my comment that it's the series I enjoyed most from the three produced from 2018 to 2020 and there are several reasons for it. By and large, I was indifferent towards the first series (my opinion has changed for some episodes, though), more pleased with the second and even more pleased with the third. However, I would understand if some people prefered the second or first series because this is the most inconsistent of the three - it often felt like hit-and-miss and it's a mixed bag: there were some episodes I truly enjoyed, some I enjoyed less and some I did not like. Overall and in this context, this variety is to me more interesting than most episodes being on a similar level and not overly ambitious. As always, your opinion in the comments would be appreciated.

The title, Pat a Mat kutí, is basically saying Pat and Mat do handymen stuff. That's understandable as the title is more a placeholder than anything else. The series is just Pat and Mat. However, it's interesting then that this particular series is not that much about DIY at all. A more apt title would have been Pat & Mat: Food (and else) as only five of the episodes don't have anything to do with food or drinks. I don't have a problem with that as long as the episodes are entertaining and for the most part, they are. Conversely, the first series had no episodes explicitly about food.

Pat and Mat making dough

This series had the highest percentage of animation produced in Czechia (6/13 episodes - almost half). That's a big plus for me as even though the Chinese animators (Update, July 2020: Info on the Chinese studio, Steamworks Studio, has come up - click here for details) handled the series mostly OK up to this point, they can't replace two animators who have a combined 55 years of experience on the show. Also, the Czech episodes from this series were visually much more pleasing than those from the first due to their lighting (the Chinese have a distinct purplish hue). The first series definitely looked way too bright and overblown. Compare two pictures from the website, first and third series:

This series features a nicer array of colors that look more balanced, even if the series as a whole still looks, as a friend noticed, sterile compared to pre-2014 episodes, as that's when a drastic change to the lighting was made, presumably due to new equipment. I also found the music in this series to be the most enjoyable. I especially liked Zdeněk Zdeněk's tune that plays near the end of Palačinky, Potrubní pošta and Chleba (and probably some others) when the two think they are approaching a solution. As such, I would rate this series the best in the context of the three 13-part "seasons". Not on the overall level of Pat a Mat na venkově, but continual progress is present.

Digital errors: Pat a Mat kutí

Back in February, I wrote how DVNR massacred individual frames in some episodes from 2003 and 2004. I had to update that post right now with examples from even more episodes. However, these digital defects are not something I would expect to see in the newest episodes as they are all recorded digitally, so it was an unpleasant surprise to notice a few in the recently released episodes. Rakso 98 caught this one from Létající stroj. Look at Mat's beanie, which goes through deletion phases in a couple of seconds. It is a minor mistake, noticeable only from a really detailed viewing.

Výroba ledu has a much more noticeable defect which I spotted on my second viewing. Look at Mat's hands in front of the tree. An even larger section is deleted here. It's not just these individual frames, but the whole scene.

There's another type of error that appears in a few episodes. I mentioned it when talking about Automyčka (which, interestingly enough, doesn't have that error in the movie version) and here it is in Potrubní pošta. Part of the frame is left unfilled, this time the left corner.

Does anybody want to wager a guess why these mistakes happened? What did the video postproducer try to fix on the images that caused the first type of mistake? Presumably, it's all just a consequence of some bad settings. Let me know if you find more of these.

Closer look: Popcorn (2019)

Today, we'll take a look at what I believe to be the funniest episode from the 3-season, 39-episode batch produced by the Patmat film studio between 2018 and 2020 - Popcorn. I have not yet seen two episodes that still need to be released on the series' official channel, but I suspect they won't be as funny as this one (hopefully, I will be proven wrong!). When all episodes have been uploaded, I will write a post giving some of my views on the other 12. Popcorn is actually not my favorite episode from these seasons - that honor goes to Tube Post (which I will write about in the future), but I believe this one is best suited to the general public.

This episode was, like many others (around 2/3) from the three "seasons", animated in China. Before we take a look at the episode, let's see how this unusually large batch of episodes came to be. It seems it was, in fact, the Chinese who approached the parent studio, not the other way around. Director Marek Beneš was initially skeptical, but the production offer seemed too attractive to decline. It's all explained in this interview with him from aktualne.cz, where he promises that Pat & Mat will not end up like Krtek (The Mole), whose 3D adaptation The Mole and the Panda produced in China was unfavorably reviewed in Czechia.

Beneš was approached by a couple of Chinese studios that would like to make a new series about the two klutzes. Although the author is personally more against it, the company's sales department does not oppose any cooperation with China. "In Asia, whether it is in Korea or China, they want hundred episodes for the series. We shot 90 of them so far, but they were made in 40 years, "Beneš describes. The Chinese came up with an offer to shoot 39 parts in two years with significantly lower costs, of course. "Today, one episode costs us about three Škoda cars. The Chinese would be able to do it for about half of this amount," Beneš adds.

The main attraction is speed. Today, four people take part in filming: a director, an artist, a cameraman and an animator. They work on one episode for three months, eight hours a day, while a Chinese studio could arrange several such shoots at once. "I say that it will not work, that it is a typical Czech environment, that it has to be done by the creators, and it is, for me, untransferable with such a distance. We also had reservations about how the episodes were made in Zlín, and it was the Czechs who worked on those,“ Beneš describes. However, he admits that there is contact between the studios about the cooperation. "There has already been a suggestion that we remake the episodes with slanted [Monolid] eyes," Beneš says.

In another interview with Beneš, the negotiations were said to be "at an advanced stage", but that one was published only in November 2017. So, it seems production probably started by the beginning of 2018, while the first movie, Pat & Mat in Action Again, was in cinemas in June of that year already - all 13 episodes premiered on ČT by September. Interestingly, Krtek's Chinese series consisted of 52 episodes (standard practice; one episode per week), so an extra "season". Patmat film had already produced Pat & Mat in the Countryside, which explains while one "season" less was ordered. In the end, the parent studio provided the storyboards and received animation work daily.

Are the Chinese productions a success? I would say - yes. Average viewers won't suspect that the episodes were not animated outside of Czechia, let alone as far away as China. The Chinese animators copied the animation style of the series good enough for it to go unnoticed. The animation seems to have gone a bit downhill for Chinese episodes with a 2020 copyright date (presumably those were rushed), but that's a topic for my other post.

A few words from Jan Klos

Readers of this blog should already be familiar with Czech animation legend Jan Klos and his work on the series in 1981-85. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how I believe Klos' work on three episodes in 1984 and 1985 was credited with a pseudonym. In its conclusion, I stated: Jan Klos is still with us and, hopefully, somebody will ask him about this peculiarity someday, as there is probably more to this story. I am not one to sit around and wait, so already then I was trying to reach out to Jan myself. In the end, I was able to do so thanks to the great folks from Memory of Nations and the Post Bellum organization, for which Mr Klos had given an interview. I especially must thank A. Poláková, who gave me Klos' e-mail contact in the end.

There are couple of interviews with him online already (for instance, this one, where he talks for three hours), but they mostly concern his life before animation. In my e-mail to Mr Klos then, I presented my posts on the blog and asked him about several things: the altered titles, the way he animated the characters and so on. After about 15 days, responses started coming in.

Jan Klos about 20 days ago in a candid photo made by his son-in-law,
which he included in his e-mail

As you know, Jan Klos is 79 years old, so once again I must say: Thank you very much, sir, for taking the time to write to me! I know Jan will not read this, but in case members of his family do, give my best to Jan yet again. Jan stated that he cannot spend much time at the computer and has to "ram" his thoughts into it (he's, in his own words, a simple, old, too old man), so he provided answers to my questions in the form of chapters chronologically speaking about his work (of course, in Czech) and he didn't mind me sharing them on this blog. He really took the time and effort to write them over a period of a few weeks, so here I present them to you translated into English. You will notice that Jan openly discusses his life and work, often with self-biting irony As he noted: producing "humor and folk entertainment" is an ambition and an ideal profession for me. Unfortunately, it rarely succeeds.

Jan Klos:

CHAPTER 1

By profession a puppeteer, I became an employee of Krátký film Praha in 1973 by a combination of lucky coincidences and I began to animate in the Jiří Trnka Studio (puppet film) in director Břetislav Pojar’s staff. Those were my apprenticeship years in animation. DIFFICULT years - but BALANCED with a good feeling that I can be part of creation ON A CERTAIN LEVEL. The production process, dramaturgy, direction, collaboration with the experienced deaf-mute, ingenious animator Boris Masník, these were standard professional conditions - simply HAPPINESS (the studio's address then was Čiklova 13 A).

Břetislav Pojar in the studio's yard in 1974 (photo: Ivan Vít)

At the beginning of 1982, the management of Krátký film Praha banned Pojar from working (comrade director "was unable to fulfill the production plan") and Pojar's staff was scattered around. In order to be able to continue to animate puppets (it is the simplest and my favorite animation discipline), an average director, a skilful, hardworking man and also an employee of Kr. film Luboš Beneš offered me work on his films in a new four-member team. A space he discovered was adapted for shooting puppet films with cameraman Miler, animator Chocholín and one graphic artist. So I moved to the SECOND DIVISION, and there were five of us (address: Wenzigova 5). We called ourselves "Benešfilm". Here I worked on five or up to seven parts of PAT and MAT (I don't remember anymore), which belonged to the First series - it was 21 parts. Now I remember that the series was then called A JE TO.

Pat & Mat DVD by aiF Studio (1999)

My thanks for this post go out to Jürg Schaeppi of the Pat & Mat Fansite, who has enabled me to see this DVD for the first time.

There have been many Pat & Mat DVD releases over the years, but this one is probably the most interesting. It is also the first. In 1999, DMP (Digital Media Production) from Prague released a DVD with ten episodes produced by aiF Studio.

Here is the original press release posted by the DVD's manufacturer Digital Media Production, found on an old version of their defunct website that can be accessed through Wayback Machine. It came out in support of the DVD's premiere on DVD Hall '99 which was an event opened in Prague on October 4, 1999.

The most successful Czech puppet series was created between the seventies an nineties in aiF studio. It was created by popular Czech caricaturist Vladimír Jiránek, experienced director Lubomír Beneš and composer Petr Skoumal. Pat and Mat are neighbors. Their friendship is strengthened not only by their desires to always produce, do or repair something, but also by the awkwardness that makes everything go wrong. Luckily for them, there is no lack of humor and cleverness with which they always cope with their clumsiness.
The two-handymen grotesque is being introduced for the first time in DVD format. These are the episodes present: Billiards, Safe, Windsurfing, Biscuits, Model Builders, Paving Brick, Convertible, Parquetry, Cyclists and Pipe.
The DVD Pat and Mat can be ordered via DVDexpress for 790 CZK.

790 CZK feels quite a lot to me, but maybe it wasn't as expensive 20 years ago. However, in Jürg's words, it was indeed crazy expensive. A further stumbling block was that he had to order the DVD from a Czech company and wait a few weeks for it to arrive to Switzerland. It seems the DVD was never made available outside of Czechia, which is a real shame as it was envisioned as an international release. This is already evident from the cover, which has the episode titles in nine languages: Czech, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Polish and, finally, English - which we know is a market the studio was especially looking to break.

1999 was a very tough year for aiF. It was actually its last, as the studio oficially declared bankruptcy on August 24. If you already haven't, I would advise you to read my post about the episode Karty and the studio's bankruptcy before continuing. It can be found here. You read that correctly - the DVD came out a month and a half after its producer bankrupted. This makes me believe it was in production for a longer period of time. The shadow of Karty hangs over every corner of this release. Even on the cover you can notice the hammers-pliers wallpaper that appears on Mat's walls in the episode. Later, there's even explicit mention of it. However, let's see what this DVD had in store for us way back in that time. I have to say that is one of the more ambitious Czech releases of the series, which says a bit more about the ones that followed. A lot of effort was undoubtedly put in it.

The DVD opens with a lovely claymation reproduction of aiF's logo that I had never seen before. Maybe it also popped up in Karty, who knows. What follows then is the 1992-94 series intro, but with the title cards updated. Instead of me describing it further, Rakso 98, a friend of this blog, has made a tour of it with various menus shown. This is the intro (when you watch it, only one warning message plays):

aiF filmed clay logo