Die Sendung mit der Maus

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The mouse

Die Sendung mit der Maus (The show with the mouse) is a children's series on German television.

It contains mainly short featurettes that uncover some of the things that go on in the world, whether in technology and industry or something as mundane as how the postal service works. Most of these are interesting for adults as well, making the show suitable for the whole family. Each show takes 30 minutes. Some of the featurettes are presented by Armin Maiwald, Christoph Biemann or Ralph Caspers.

In between the featurettes, there are short (30 seconds - 1 minute) cartoons telling some of the adventures of an orange mouse (hence the name of the show) and her friends, a blue elephant and a yellow duck. At least once in every show there's also a short cartoon with a song or a little story. At every show's end the marionette of Käptn Blaubär (German: "Captain Blue-Bear") tells his red, green and yellow nephews and Hein Blöd (his rather silly sailor) a cock-and-bull story, which his nephews always doubt to be true.

Every show begins with a brief summary of the featurettes, commented in German, which is then repeated, this time commented in a foreign language, followed by a comment like "Das war Schwedisch." ("This was Swedish.").

It was first aired in 1971, and shows weekly on Sunday mornings, usually at 11:30 in the ARD and the ARDs / ZDFs children's channel KI.KA.

[edit] Awards

1973 Goldener Bambi
1988 Adolf-Grimme-Preis in Gold
1993 Deutscher Fernsehpreis, special prize
1995 Bayerischer Fernsehpreis awarded for the special 'Post-war mouse' (Armin Maiwald)
1995 Bundesverdienstkreuz to Armin Maiwald and Christoph Biemann
1997 Goldene Kamera

Apart from that, the show was awarded about 75 prizes, nationally and internationally.

[edit] Mouse TV / La souris souriante

In countries outside of Germany that carry the English-dubbed version of the show, Die Sendung mit der Maus airs under the title of Mouse TV. The program retains much of its original format, but the dialogs and narration have been dubbed into English. Currently it is known to be airing on the following networks:

Astro TVIQ in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia

It is also aired on the Franco-German channel arte on Sunday mornings. This is to encourage French children to learn German and vice versa. The show is thus dubbed into French for German viewers. In both countries subtitles in the respective mother-tongue help to understand the show. The show is advertised as "La souris souriante" (The smiling mouse).