Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt

Summary

Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt (Help, my family is nuts) is a German sitcom that first aired on RTL plus on 4 March 1993. The 26-part television series is an adaptation of the American sitcom Married... with Children.

Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt
GenreSitcom
Starring
  • Lutz Reichert
  • Christiane Zeiske
  • Katrin Lippisch
  • Christoph Scheermann
  • Silvia Rachor
  • Jörg-Uwe Schröder
Opening themeMarianne Rosenberg – Er gehört zu mir
Country of originGermany
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes26
Production
Running time25 minutes
Original release
NetworkRTL Television
Release4 March (1993-03-04) –
28 December 1993 (1993-12-28)[1]

Background edit

The series contained scripts and sets that were almost exact copies of the original American ones, lacking any cultural changes necessary to properly adapt it into German culture. Even the looks and gestures of the actors had to be exactly as those in the original US series.[2] Further contributing to the series' failure was the fact that Married... with Children had already premiered in Germany a year before and was broadcast daily in the afternoon while Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt was broadcast once a week in the evening, on the same station.[2]

Reception edit

The series was critically panned due to the poor translation and adaptation of the original scripts. German newspaper taz called it "very boring", while 20 years later in a retrospective article on the show, Der Spiegel said that it "couldn't work".[2] Christian Richter of Quotenmeter.de called it "the probably most colourless comedy series on German television".[3] Moviepilot.de ranked it 1st on a list of "Top 7 German comedy series crimes", commenting: "That 26 episodes of this garbage were made only shows that on German television not everything was better in the past."[4] The series received very poor ratings and was cancelled after the 26 episodes of the first season were broadcast.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt!, Sendetermine". fernsehserien.de. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Ternieden, Hendrik; Trenkamp, Oliver (23 February 2012). "Al Bundy in Deutschland: Die Hand in der Hose". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  3. ^ "Der Fernsehfriedhof: "Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt"". Quotenmeter (in German). 15 January 2009. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  4. ^ "Top 7 der deutschen Comedy-Serienverbrechen - Bild 7 von 7 | Bildergalerie auf moviepilot.de". moviepilot.de (in German). Retrieved 25 July 2018.

External links edit

  • Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt at IMDb