Sandmännchen (Little Sandman) is a German children's bedtime television programme, produced by a film technique known as "stop motion animation", in which puppets are moved by very small amounts between individual frames, producing the effect of motion when the film is played back, as in conventional drawn and painted animation.
The programme at one time existed in two versions: one in East Germany and one in West Germany.
The idea was originally that of Ilse Obrig of the West Berlin TV and radio station Sender Freies Berlin (SFB), who with the help of author Johanna Schüppel , developed a working version in 1959. The Little Sandman himself first appeared on screen in West Berlin in Sandmännchens Gruß für Kinder (Sandmännchen's Greeting to Children) on 1 December 1959, and other sequences were soon developed.
However, only two weeks earlier earlier, on 22 November 1959, East German television (Deutscher Fernsehfunk, DFF) had begun transmitting Unser Sandmännchen with its own "good night, children" character, also called Sandmännchen. The subjects of the programme included everyday life, travel, and fantastic adventure, as well as a certain amount of propaganda. The production of the Western version of Sandmännchen ceased in 1991, following the unification of Germany. Sequences from the East German show are still run on television today, however.
The Sandmännchen stories contained a number of characters who became legendary:
- Pittiplatsch, a goblin, Schnatterinchen, a duck, and Moppi, a dog
- Herr Fuchs, a fox, and Frau Elster, a magpie
- Plumps, a water goblin, and Küken, a baby chicken
Sandmännchen, the Little Sandman, is featured in the 2002 Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye, Lenin!.
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