Der Hund Bohumil (partially found German Sandmännchen animated children's television series; 1975-1976)

This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its lack of references.

A screenshot from the series.

Status: Partially Found

Der Hund Bohumil (translated to English as Bohumil the Dog) is a German Animated Children's TV Series that was created and directed by the Czech book-illustrator and animation-designer Hana Štěpánová (known in Germany as Hana Stepan)^[1] and the music was composed by Heinz Funk, using a synthesizer, simulating a zither on many occasions^[2]. The series aired on the West German version of the German children's bedtime TV program "Sandmännchen" on NDR Fernsehen and HR Fernsehen from 1975-1976, and was produced by Studio Hamburg. The series used a stop-motion cut-out animation technique, with the hand-drawn characters being layed to the backgrounds and moved frame by frame. It's unknown how many episodes were made, but it's probably more than 26 episodes. As time passed, the series became extremely obscure, with no Home Media release being made for the series.

Premise

The series revolved around an anthropomorphic dog called Bohumil, who had a group of other anthropomorphic animal friends, such as a pig, a bunny, a cow, owls, a bird, and roosters. Bohumil's best friends are a chicken, who has five baby chicks, and a white goose. In each episode, Bohumil and his best friends go on adventures and learn basic lessons, like watching insects through a binocular and learning how to make the laundry. The series was simple: it had an approximately 3-minute run time in each episode, the series had no intro or credits, and all the characters in the series remained mute, with the animals communicating by doing sounds.

International Airings

Despite the series originally airing on the West German Sandmännchen for one year, the series aired internationally in Israel and in Brazil in children's TV programs that featured European cartoons from around the world. In Isreal, the series aired in "רכבת ההפתעות" (Translated to English as The Train of Surprises) from the '80s to the '90s. In Brazil, the series aired on "Glub Glub" throughout the '90s. In Brazil, the series gained a small cult following in Lost Media culture. The series also gained another small cult following in Mexico, when the Mexican YouTube channel, "Rarezas", uploaded a video discussing the series.

Reception

The series didn't have many good ratings. The bad ratings were due to the cheap animation and unsettling character designs.

Status

For 39 years, the series wasn't available anywhere online. There was absolutely no information of the series on the Internet. In the 2000s and early 2010s, there were many people from Brazil that commented in several forums about watching the series on "Glub Glub". Despite some people from Brazil who remembered watching the series, the series wasn't watchable anywhere online. However, from 2014-2019, YouTube user "Nostalgic Dreamers (ND CHANNEL)" uploaded 14 episodes from the series that were taken from VHS Tapes of the "Glub Glub" broadcasts of the series. Nostalgic Dreamers (ND CHANNEL) was terminated in the early 2020s, so the videos aren't watchable, with the only surviving footage from the videos being from short clips from some of the videos that were shown in the YouTube video "Desenhos Perdidos da Tv Cultura 01 - Nicolau e a Turma do Quintal" that was uploaded by the YouTube channel "Nostal_Gi", which currently owns all the videos that were uploaded on Nostalgic Dreamers (ND CHANNEL).

On October 5th, 2019, a Lost Media Wiki Forum user "Strekoza" discovered a website documenting German TV channel schedules from April 15th, 1976, including an NDR Fernsehen airdate for a Der Hund Bohumil episode on Sandmännchen. On December 7th, 2019, YouTube user "Canal 8" uploaded episode 2 that was also taken from a "Glub Glub" broadcast from the episode. From 2022-2023, YouTube user "נוסטה לגיה" uploaded 10 full episodes of the series, that were also taken from the "רכבת ההפתעות" broadcastes from the series. In 2023, YouTube user "Retro_Cartoons_1990" uploaded 9 episodes that were originally uploaded by "נוסטה לגיה", and restorted the videos with an AI Video Quality Upscaler. On February 5th, 2024, LMW user "PTV for Old TV Times" discovered another website documenting German TV channel schedules from March 1st, 1976, including an HR Fernsehen airdate for a Der Hund Bohumil on Sandmännchen. This episode of Der Hund Bohumil on the scheduled airdate is "Das Kostümfest". It's unknown what episode number the episodes belongs to.

NDR and HR Fernsehen can't release or share or any episodes, not even private copies, do to NDR's recording service being completely discontinued on December 31st, 2019. HR Fernsehen confirmed that they are not involved in the production of the series, despite broadcasting it on their channel. The only way the remaining episodes will resurface is through VHS recordings when they were airing on TV.

Book Adaptations

In 2015 and 2018, Hana Štěpánová, the creator of the series, wrote two books telling all the stories told in the episodes in stories. The illustrations that accompanied the stories and the book, looked similar in style to the moments in the cartoon.

List of Episodes (Incomplete)

#	Episode Title (German)	Episode Title (English)	Airdate	Synopsis	Status	Notes
1	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1975	Bohumil goes to sleep too late and doesn't want to wake up the next day.	Found
2	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1975	Bohumil's owner asks Bohumil to go to a butcher shop to buy a sausage. When Bohumil returns from the shop, a black cat tries to steal the sausage but fails.	Found
3	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1975	The chicken presents her chicks to Bohumil. He plays with them and pretends to be a car, a plane and other vehicles.	Partially Found
4	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1975	Bohumil and his friends go swimming in a lagoon. There, one of the chicken's chicks falls into the lagoon, but Bohumil saves it before it drowns.	Found
5	Unknown	Unknown	12/??/1975	Bohumil and his friends play in the snow.	Partially Found	Screenshot exist.
6	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil and his friends goes to the lagoon to fish. The fish mock them and hang the garbage from the bottom of the lagoon on their hooks.	Lost
7	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil goes to the barber to get his hair cut. When he goes outside, the wind chills him and he buys a coat to warm himself up.	Found
8	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	After a heavy snowfall, the chicken finds a bird buried in the snow. She brings him to Bohumil and the goose, and the three of them look after him. Eventually, he recoveres and returns to fly.	Lost
9	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil's owner buys a new television and invites him, the goose, and the chicken to watch the television together. In it, they watch a talent show, watch the news, and finally watch an episode of Sandmännchen. Later, when they go to sleep, Sandmännchen himself visits them and brings the three sweet dreams.	Found
10	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil and a bunny compete to see who can plant the biggest bush. He waters his bush with his own urine, but somehow the bush grows unusually and blooms quickly.	Lost	Screenshot exist.
11	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil and his friends go to the circus. They later decide to create their own circus and attract the attention of the other animals.	Partially Found
12	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil and his friends go up to a mountain to use binoculars. Meanwhile, the black cat takes advantage of Bohumil, who leaves his house to sleep in his bed and eat his food. The goose uses the binoculars to discover the cat in Bohumil's dog house. The three soon scare off the intruder and everything ends well.	Found
13	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil's owner goes to wash her clothes and the duo decide to help her.	Partially Found	Screenshot exist.
14	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil sees his owner collecting mushrooms and decides to collect mushrooms too. He and his friends go to a forest to collect mushrooms and a rabbit helps them with the task.	Partially Found
15	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	The black cat and the fox decide to kidnap the chicken to fry her. However, a bird overhears their conversation and manages to warn the duo in time to prevent disaster.	Found
16	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil decides to paint pictures of his friends and other animals. However, he only paints certain parts of the animals, such as the head of a chicken, the tail of a cow and the legs of his owner.	Lost
17	Ostern	Easter	4/15/1976	Bohumil receives two Easter eggs from his friends. He gets so excited that he trips and breaks the eggs. The Easter Bunny, seeing Bohumil's predicament, gives him two new Easter eggs.	Found
18	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil and his friends visit a cow in a flower field.	Found
19	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil's owner brings a camera to take photos with Bohumil and his friends. Together they take lots of photos and invite other animals like the cow and a pig to join them.	Found
20	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil uses his owner's vacuum cleaner without her permission. However, he ends up accidentally sucking the duck, the chicken, her chicks, and finally Bohumil himself.	Partially Found
21	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil cooks lunch for his friends.	Found
22	Unknown	Unknown	??/??/1976	Bohumil uses his nose to find a lost glove in a bush. He later discovers that the glove belongs to his owner and returns it to her.	Partially Found	Screenshots exist.