The Origin of The Name "Augsburger Puppenkiste" and The Famous Box Tops
The name "Puppenkiste" (puppet box or puppet chest) goes back to the founder of the theatre, Walter Oehmichen. When his first puppet theatre was destroyed in a fire, he wanted to create a new one which was easily transportable. He came up with the idea of a wooden transport box, in which he stored all of his puppets and the actual puppet theatre.
The wooden box does not only feature prominently in the name of the theatre, but also inspired the trade mark of the Puppenkiste: the representation of the two top cover flaps of a wooden box. Across the top covers, the name "Augsburger Puppenkiste" is printed, along with the addition "Oehmichens marionette theatre". These box lids have long since become the official trade mark of the Puppenkiste. Every single film or theatre-production starts with a small sequence of the top covers being opened. In the actual theatre, the stage is covered by two enormous box lids (0,90x 2 metres). For the TV productions, special cover flaps were produced: they are smaller and modeled to fit the screen format with the aspect ratio 4:3. These very box tops were used mostly unchanged since the end of the 1950s in almost all TV productions of the Puppenkiste. For the production of "Der Raub der Mitternachtssonne" (The theft of the midnight sun) (1994), a so-called "Insertkasten" (insert box) was designed to fit the screen aspect ratio of 16:9, which is respectively longer than the usual 4:3 format.
Only the programs done entirely by the Puppenkiste, or those that were supposed to stand out from regular productions of the Hessischer Rundfunk (hessian broadcasting), would do without the famous box tops with their high recognition value. Worth mentioning are the numerous episodes for the German kids' program Sandmännchen (little sandman) (1962–1982), 'Die Museumsratten' (the museum rats) (1965–1972), 'Ich wünsch' mir was' (I'm wishing for something) (1968–1970), 'Wir Schildbürger' (1972), 'Natur und Technik' (nature and technology) (1972–1976) and Ralphi (2004–2006).
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Famous quotes containing the words origin, famous, box and/or tops:
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