Fascht e Familie

Fascht e Familie
Created by	Charles Lewinsky
Country of origin	Switzerland
Original language(s)	Swiss German
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	99+1
Production
Running time	25 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen SRF
Picture format	480i (4:3 SDTV)
Original run	1994 (1994) – 1999 (1999)

Fascht e Familie (German: Beinahe eine Familie) is a Swiss German language television comedy serial (sitcom) of the 1990s. It was filmed and produced at locations in Switzerland by Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen SRF.

Cast and characters

Martha Aebersold (Trudi Roth)

• Trudi Roth as Martha Aebersold (1994–1999)

Tante Martha (meaning aunty Martha) is a good-hearted, somewhat old-fashioned old lady of endearing naivety, and is the owner of the house. Esoteric issues are her special hobby, and because she always thinks of all the people only the best, Martha is a grateful sacrifice for do-gooders and gurus of all kinds. Aunty's additional obsessions usually are totally forgotten in the next episode of the sitcom and replaced by new ones. But in the short term, her special interests result in highly complicated situations – especially when her nephew uses her newest spleen to get Martha and her new 'family' to move from her nursing home.

Trudi Roth attended the drama school Ernst Ginsberg in Basel, followed by performances with the cabaret-doodle-doo and Cabaret Cornichon. Later she starred in comedies and musicals, and Trudi Roth acted for the radio in radio plays and for the Swiss television.^[1]

Hans Meier (Walter Andreas Müller)

• Walter Andreas Müller as Hans Meier (1994–1999)

Hans Meier (in his late forties) is a small, bustling waiter with a marked inclination to higher goals in his life, but he is good-natured. He has no doubt that he was born for the stage, and that someday someone will recognize his talent and give him the chance he needs for his 'breakthrough'. Until then, he shines as the star in amateur theater, where he always tries to play also the lead roles. Hans, who can adjust well and imitate excellently other people, uses every opportunity to take on a role, even in his private life.

Walter Andreas Müller practices Onkel Hans also in his life as an actor. Whether Gilbert Gress, Christoph Blocher or Tina Turner, he parodies all of them perfectly. But besides that, the multi-talented actor always cuts a fine figure and was present at pretty much every major theater in Switzerland. His mother was a gifted painter and his father worked as a clarinetist and saxophonist. After a training as a bookseller and publisher, Walter Andreas Müller devoted 21 years of acting and attended acting school in Zürich. Thenafter he had firm commitments on various German stages, returned to Switzerland in 1972 and worked for several years at the Theater an der Winkelwiese. Since then, Walter Andreas Müller works as a freelance actor, comedian, radio host, impersonator and parodist, and worked among others with Birgit Steinegger and Viktor Giacobbo.^[2]

Flip (Martin Schenkel)

• Martin Schenkel as Flip (1994–1998)

Flip (actually Philipp) is in his mid-twenties and a born survivor. He paints T-shirts with original slogans and sells them on the street. Flip always manages successfully to earn with an absolute minimum of work just enough to stay afloat, but Martha always has to wait on his rent. The fact that he eats all other inventories from the refrigerator, is a source of constant bickering.

Martin Schenkel was born in Basel in 1968, and attended after the high school the drama school in Bern, thenafter he moved to Germany for an engagement at the State Theater, Karlsruhe. After "Fascht e Familie", he was involved "Lüthi und Blanc" from 1999 to 2003 and contributed the song "Whenever" and becamo also successful as a rock musician. Martin Schenkel died on 27 March 2003 in Zermatt after a brief illness.^[3]

Vreni Hubacher (Hanna Scheuring)

• Hanna Scheuring as Vreni Hubacher (1994–1998)

Vreni Hubacher (early twenties) is the youngest member of the "family". The brave peasant girl from the countryside came to the city and is now working at a bank. Vreni believed to be at the beginning of a great business career, and is a wannabe yuppie ready to do for promotion (almost) everything. But Vreni is so appealing that no one likes to spoil the enjoyment of her dreams.

Hanna Scheuring was born near Zürich as the youngest of four daughters. After training as an actress at the Conservatory of Music and Theatre in Bern, she played several years in Germany, at the State Theatre Marburg and at the Theater Trier. In Switzerland, she was primarily know for her role as "Vreni". "Lüthi and Blanc" was her next Swiss engangement, thenafter in various films. She is still on stage. In addition, Hanna Scheuring has also worked as a trainer and coach to support people in culture and business performance skills. She has been involved for some time for UNICEF and traveled to Somalia to gather information on site about female circumcision.^[4][5]

Rolf Aebersold (Andreas Matti)

• Andreas Matti as Rolf Aebersold (1994–1999)

Rolf Aebersold (aged at end of thirty) was the "the man you love to hate", the nephew of Tante Martha, smart, greedy real estate trader and permanent legacy hunter, and no hypocrisy and no vulgarity is hypocritical to mean, if he just achieves his goal. Repeatedly new attempts to get his aunt's house are his further trademarks, but he fails against the new "family" of Martha who fends off his attacks.

Andreas Matti, born 1959 in Saanen, made his acting training at the Academy of Arts in Bern. He was a regular guest at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, and also starred in Lüthi und Blanc, as well in Swiss films.^[6]

Anne Käthi Tobler (Sandra Moser)

• Sandra Moser Anne Käthi Tobler (1997–1999)

Anne Käthi Tobler (somewhere in the late twenties) works as a midwife and dancer, is well tempered and extremly goodhearted, but sometimes she has a waggish sense of humour. Annekäthi joined the "family" in the third season and replaced Vreni and Flip.

Sandra Moser starred at the Schauspielhaus Hannover in Brecht's Threepenny Opera in 1992, thenafter she toured for several years with Karls kühne Gassenschau through Switzerland and played in several plays, as she does in the present days.^[7]

Plot (excerpt)

The real estate agents Rolf Aebersold once again tried to sell the house of his aunt Martha (Trudi Roth) without her knowledge, but the display ends up incorrectly in the section "Furnished rooms for rent". But the tough old lady transforms her home into a residential community... Problems to the subtenants now will be solved together, but in fact by unusual ideas resulting in confusion and chaos shown in every episode that focusses on such "living problems". The main venue of the sitcom is the shared kitchen.

Title

The title of the serial derives from the Swiss German term meaning almost a family.

Production

The serial was shot and produced in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland.^[5] Guest roles had among others Jörg Schneider, Beat Marti and Stephanie Glaser. Between 1994 and 1999, in all five seasons with 99 episodes and one epilog of 25 minutes each were produced in the Swiss German language, and around 1997 synchronized in Swiss Standard German to be broadcast in the German and probably Austrian television.^[8] The production was done with an audience which had to applaude and to laugh as practiced in US sitcoms.

Reception

Fascht e Familie is still very popular in the Swiss German culture, and from time to time re-broadcast in the Swiss German television.^[8] In 1997 the RTL-Group in Germany asked for an adoption for the German television, and so the dialogues were synchronized in the Swiss Standard German language, but the Swiss German oriented humour did not fit the audience's gusto in Germany, and even in Austria, and so just 40 episodes have been broadcost.

Home media

The entire sitcom was released, including 99 episodes and one epilog, as the Fascht e Familie Gesamtedition collection on DVD (RC2).^[9]

References

External links

• Fascht e Familie at the Internet Movie Database