Pat & Mat


Pat & Mat is a Czechoslovak slapstick stop-motion animated series created by Lubomír Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek for Czechoslovak Television. The characters first appeared in the theatrically released short Kuťáci in 1976, while the first made-for-TV episode Tapety was produced in 1979 for ČST Bratislava. The main characters of the series are two handymen, Pat and Mat, who are inventive but extremely clumsy., 129 episodes of the show have been released, and it has been syndicated in a large number of countries due to its lack of dialogue.

Names

The original name of the series was Kuťáci. However, when production of episodes started for ČST Bratislava, a Slovak name was required, and the crew eventually settled for ... a je to!. The characters themselves were nameless until 1989, when they were given the names Pat and Mat. Pat and Mat are shortened forms of Czech expressions Patlal and Matlal, which can roughly be translated as Clumsy and Awkward. The authors intentionally gave the characters short and universal names suitable for a worldwide audience.

The show

Each episode typically features the two characters facing mostly self-made problems, and trying to solve them using a range of possible and impossible tools and construction gadgets. Their solutions appear to work, before everything suddenly goes wrong, leading to even more problems than before. However, Pat and Mat invariably find a solution in the end, usually via a surprising or innovative method. They then shake hands, before making their trademark hand gesture with a bent hand and closed fist.
According to the authors, it is manual ineptitude that inspires the stories. Alongside the humour, another motif of the show is the importance of an optimistic approach towards life. The two characters always get into problematic situations, but they never give up until they solve the problem in imaginative ways.
The show is also memorable for its soundtrack, composed by Petr Skoumal, of which the main parts are the theme song and a harmonica tune.

History

The two characters first appeared in a 1976 short film entitled Kuťáci produced by Krátký film Prague 's Jiří Trnka Studio and distributed by Ústřední půjčovna filmů. While creating the two characters, the authors had in mind entertainment for adults, and the short was shown before movies. Although they intended to produce more shorts for theatrical release, their parent studio refused. The series was picked up by ČST Bratislava's children's section, where it was named ... a je to!. The two handymen got their names Pat and Mat in 1989, when production was resumed for Krátký film Prague. Their names then also became the name of the show.
As a result of its lack of dialogue, the show was syndicated around the world, being broadcast in more than 80 countries by the 1990s, which included Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Syria, Iraq, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Austria, Switzerland, Brazil, Finland, Japan, Norway, Spain, France, Iran, Hungary, Jordan, South Africa, and South Korea. In the Netherlands, the characters are given dubbed dialogue, and are voiced by Kees Prins and Siem van Leeuwen. In Australia the show aired as part of a weekly, half-hour collection of animated shorts on the SBS show Kaleidoscope.
In 1990, after the collapse of the communist regime, Beneš and Jiránek founded their own aiF Studio in Prague and Zürich, where they produced 14 more episodes, and released all 49 of them to the international market.
In 1999, four years after Beneš's death, his studio went into bankruptcy, leading to a copyright dispute over the characters and the 50th episode, which was therefore never released. Beneš's son Marek founded his own studio, Patmat, in 2001. Production of episodes was resumed in 2002 by Ateliéry Bonton Zlín, resulting in 28 episodes being produced by three studios in just three years. Many crew members were veterans who had worked on the original TV series.
The characters were revived once again in 2009 by Beneš for a new series, Pat a Mat na venkově. The pilot, Postele, premiered at the 50th Zlín Film Festival in 2010. 12 more episodes followed between 2011 and 2015, produced by Patmat Film and filmed in 16:9. Beneš directed and wrote all 13 episodes. Eight of the episodes were released on DVD in 2013 and received their TV premiere on the Dutch channel VPRO on 9 June 2013, with the rest following soon.
To celebrate the show's 40th anniversary, Gusto Entertainment announced in December 2015 that a full-length feature film would be released in cinemas in 2016. The movie, Pat a Mat ve filmu, featured seven of the 2009-2015 episodes with linking segments and was shown in cinemas in 2016 in several countries, including the Netherlands. Three more feature films, all collections of several episodes with linking segments, followed in 2018 and 2019.
From 2018 to 2020, 39 new episodes divided into three 13-part series were made in Patmat film, co-produced by Czech Television and Netherlands-based JUST Productions, again directed by Beneš. The animation for several of these episodes was produced in a Chinese studio to speed up work.

Unreleased 50th episode

The 50th episode Playing Cards completed in 1998 by some members of the original aiF Studio was to be the beginning of a new format of the show. It was directed, animated and written by František Váša, and unlike earlier episodes it was filmed in widescreen format, slightly longer, with dialogue, changing facial expressions, a new soundtrack and new opening and closing sequences. The characters were voiced by Czech actor David Nykl, who wrote the dialogues himself. The episode was dubbed in English for an anticipated breakthrough of the series on the English market.
The studio's original plan was to make further episodes of the new series, and possibly also half-hour episodes and a feature film. However, these projects were never realised due to the studio's bankruptcy, which was a result of a breakdown of relations between two of the studio's managers in Prague and their Zürich worldwide distributor, together with the authors' heirs. Their disputes had arisen when the 14 episodes produced by aiF Studio beforehand were distributed to South Korea, while, according to Jiránek and Beneš's heirs, the authors did not receive relevant compensation for the sale. Eventually, the Zürich management member terminated all contacts to his former colleagues in Prague. As Lubomir Beneš had died in 1995, the remaining aiF Studio management did not own the rights to the characters any more and could not obtain them because of their disputes with his heirs. Due to these circumstances, Karty has never been released or distributed in Czechia and most of the world, while aiF declared bankruptcy in 1999 and was finally liquidated in 2012.
Although the episode was pulled from distribution, a screenshot from it was posted on aiF Studio's website. The former Prague management later set up a new studio, animation people, and posted more screenshots on their website, which were eventually replaced with a short, silent clip of the episode. The episode was uploaded to YouTube in 2014, sourced from a South Korean VHS released by aiF's sister company aiF Asia in October 2002, which remains the only known instance of the episode being released on home video. The episode was released with English subtitles and removed opening and closing titles. With aiF's liquidation in 2012, the episode was transferred to the Czech Film Archive.

Awards

Several Pat & Mat episodes have received prizes and awards at international animation festivals.
The 38th episode The Cyclists, directed by Lubomír Beneš and animated by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, participated in the "Annecy '93" animation festival competition, and was invited to a number of other world festivals. The episode was also included in the selection "The Best of Annecy '93" by Cinémathèque Québécoise, Museum of Fine Arts, Pacific Film Archive, Museum of Modern Art and presented by these institutions in their autumn 1993 show.
The 44th episode The Billiards, animated by František Váša, was selected for the "Annecy '95" competition, and invited to many other international film festivals. The episode was awarded two prizes at the World Animation Celebration in Agoura, California in March 1997:
The 50th episode Playing Cards written, animated and directed by František Váša, was selected for the "Annecy '99" TV competition.

Censorship

Czechoslovakia

Although intended to avoid politics completely, the original short, Kuťáci, drew the ire of Communist censors in Prague. The short was also screened abroad, where someone objected that the colours of the shirts, red and yellow, were chosen to make fun of the tense Soviet-Chinese relations, with red representing the USSR and yellow China. The authors were therefore forced to change Mat's shirt from red to a neutral grey until 1989, when the Communist regime collapsed and it was safe to make Mat's shirt red again. Although the authors wanted to continue shooting after the initial short, their studio Krátký film did not allow them to do so. The reason given was that Kuťáci were just ordinary entertainment not appropriate for the cultural policy of the time. However, as the Slovak Television in Bratislava showed interest in further episodes, twenty-eight episodes were produced for them instead, with great success. The series returned to Prague in 1989.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the children's television programmers of the German-language station Schweizer Fernsehen banned some of the episodes because they contained high amounts of slapstick violence, which they deemed "too dangerous". The French - and Italian - language channels broadcast the offending episodes as normal.

Fox Kids airings

In 2003 Fox Kids Europe bought the rights from Ateliéry Bonton Zlín to air episodes 2-26 on the Fox Kids network in several countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. The show had its intro and outro changed and almost all scenes in which the characters use knives or which contain slapstick violence deemed too "intense" were cut.

Iran (Failed)

In November 2008, on IRIB TV2, an accidental broadcast of an uncensored episode of the series that showed how to prepare alcohol from grapes led to the dismissal of three employees of Iranian television. in July 2020, it happened once again on the Qom provincial network. In a statement, the public relations of Qom Central Radio and Television apologized for the broadcast of this animation and announced that in order to compensate for this mistake, the agents who inadvertently did so were reprimanded by the director general of the center.

Production years

List of episodes

Feature films

Broadcast

Original

Other countries

Titles in other languages (in alphabetic order)

Home media

After being released on VHS for ten years, the first 35 episodes were released on DVD in the early 2000s, with the 28 new episodes featuring in the last release in 2005. Shorts from the AIF era were initially unavailable because of copyright issues,
but appeared on DVD for the first time in 2007.

English Dub

In 1999, AIF Asia located in South Korea dubbed Pat & Mat episodes in English for educational purposes. The dub, covering episodes 1 to 49, was originally released on 10 VHS tapes, and re-released in 2003 for 10 DVD discs.

Related products

At least two books with the series' characters have been published:
On 1 August 2007 a Czech computer development company, Centauri Production, announced via their website that they had secured the rights to create a Pat & Mat video game. The game was released in the Czech Republic on 1 October 2009, and other EU countries in 2010. The game was taken down from Steam in July 2020.
There is a wide range of Pat & Mat merchandise available, including games, dolls, key rings, office material, posters and T-shirts. In Dutch supermarkets Pat & Mat food is also available.