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WORLD:
Congratulations, mouse, you are turning 50.
Click, click.
WORLD:
That promises to be an interesting conversation.
For 50 years you have actually only expressed yourself through your characteristic ringing of eyes.
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Click, click, click.
WORLD:
But now you want to break your silence?
Mouse:
I'm not breaking my silence.
I break my clack.
It is not true that I always kept silent.
Perhaps it looked like that.
But it's not like that.
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WORLD:
We missed something.
What did you say
Mouse:
Hm.
WORLD:
Hm?
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Mouse:
Yes, huh.
WORLD:
Well, "hm" came up occasionally.
Mouse:
Also "huh?", "Ha!" And occasionally "ho".
Sometimes also "well?"
WORLD:
So you should be listened to more closely?
Mouse
sighs.
WORLD:
That's right, you also sigh more often.
Mouse:
I sigh, I sniff, I grunt, I moan, I tap.
My mustache moves up or down.
It's not as if I wouldn't comment.
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WORLD:
But you don't talk a lot right now.
Mouse:
I agree with Wittgenstein.
WORLD:
Wittgenstein?
Mouse:
You have to clack about what you can't talk about.
WORLD:
You are one of the last representatives of the educated television bourgeoisie.
When you started, Willy Brandt was still Chancellor and Erich Honecker was just becoming First Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED.
Maus:
And Borussia Mönchengladbach were German champions.
WORLD:
Are you a Gladbach fan?
Mouse sighs.
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WORLD:
But you are from Cologne, aren't you?
Mouse sighs deeper.
WORLD:
Why are you actually orange?
Mouse:
I don't want to be reduced to the color of my coat, but I'm a seventies kid.
Everything was orange there.
My inventor was the illustrator Isolde Schmitt-Menzel.
She drew a story for WDR called “The Mouse in the Shop”.
And she thought: “Why does a mouse have to be gray?
That's boring."
WORLD:
Your success was anything but self-evident.
At first there was criticism.
Maus:
The churches complained because the program ran at 11:30 a.m. on Sundays.
At the service time.
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WORLD:
And the problem has now been solved because almost everyone in Cologne is leaving the church anyway?
Maus:
We live in peaceful coexistence.
A Protestant pastor in the Nürnberger Land is even planning to host an online birthday service for me.
WORLD:
A birthday service for the mouse?
Isn't that a little too much of the honor?
Mouse shrugs.
WORLD:
Initially, however, the criticism did not only come from conservative sources.
Maus:
Right, educators missed a concept.
The show would explain too little and show too much without speaking.
We just made pop.
WORLD:
Pop?
Mouse:
Yes, Pop.
Pedagogy without pedagogy.
In short: pop.
WORLD:
What other allegations were there?
Maus:
The left accused us of ignoring the misery of the working masses and glorifying automated production processes.
WORLD:
Because she showed how toothpaste gets into tubes, lemonade in bottles, toilet paper on a roll - or how turntable ladder fire engines or trains are built?
Mouse:
Probably.
WORLD:
How did you deal with criticism?
Mouse:
I didn't let that get to me.
I was responsible for the laughing stories, not the factual stories.
WORLD:
Today the success proves you are right.
Mouse:
I don't want to brag, but look at the competition.
At that time there was us, “Piggy Dick” and “Animated film time with Adelheid”.
And where are they today?
"Piggy Dick was ahead of his time"
WORLD:
"Piggy Dick" was discontinued after parents protests because of allegedly violence glorifying representations.
Mouse:
Yes, Piggy Dick was too far ahead of his time.
WORLD:
As a mouse, you stand for enthusiasm for technology and criticism of technology at the same time.
You can overcome everyday dysfunction through innovation and body extensions.
Mouse:
You mean my extendable legs?
WORLD:
And the built-in tool pocket.
You are actually not a mouse at all, but a quasi-kangaroo.
Or a mouse machine.
Mouse:
I'm a trick mouse who can do things that children imagine in their imaginations.
I am more alive than adults.
That's probably why the adults love me.
The big mouse and her little elephant
Source: Silke Bachmann
WORLD:
You have up to two million viewers per program, a third of whom are over 25 and have children of their own.
Mouse:
For them I am a living memory of childhood.
That's why my average viewer is 40 years old.
WORLD:
The blue elephant has also been there since 1976.
How is it that the elephant is smaller than the mouse?
Mouse:
Well, it's a little elephant.
Elephant:
And a big mouse.
Mouse: It
's weird.
But that's how it is.
WORLD: In
terms of identity politics, you cleverly avoid taking a stand.
This also makes you look contemporary.
Nobody knows if you are male or female.
Maus:
We are deliberately open.
I've even been an elephant before.
Elephant:
And I mouse.
WORLD:
In many ways you were in some ways ahead of your time.
The opening credits, for example, are traditionally multilingual.
Mouse:
That's right, we did that long before it became fashionable to put children in Mandarin immersion day-care centers.
WORLD:
Now the term “mouse” is not unproblematic in colloquial language, it is occasionally misused for sexist degradation.
The “Spiegel”, for example, once revealed that the “Tagesthemen” was called “Sendung mit der Maus” by its own editors during the weeks it was moderated by Sabine Christiansen.
Mouse lowers the mustache on both sides.
Elefant:
By the way, Sabine Christiansen reacted very confidently to this later.
WORLD:
How is that?
Elefant:
When her talk show was initially panned out, she explained that there was this little blue elephant in the "Sendung mit der Maus" program: "The little elephant in me will march through the thicket of critics!"
WORLD:
You have 80 percent "unsupported brand awareness".
These are the values that marketers dream of.
Basically you are better known than WDR.
So why are your merchandising stuffed animals so silty and fluffy?
Maus:
Admittedly, that is unsatisfactory.
But is outside of my area of responsibility.
WORLD:
Can you actually still hear your own theme music?
Maus:
Hans Posegga, that's a classic.
I am glad that at some point the WDR did not commission Dieter Bohlen with the new composition, as with the “Sportschau”.
After that, the show was as good as dead.
WORLD:
Public broadcasting is heavily criticized.
Where do you stand personally in the reform debate?
Maus:
I agree with the former finance minister, Hans Eichel.
He once said: “If you got rid of ARD, you'd get rid of the mouse too.
And nobody can want that. "
WORLD:
They are a national cultural asset.
Ecki Hirschhausen will present your anniversary program and Mark Forster will sing the birthday song.
Mouse:
Mark who?
WORLD:
Mark Forster, Lena Meyer-Landrut's husband.
Elephant:
The mouse didn't deserve that.
WORLD:
Thank you for the interview
Click, click.