Piccolo, Saxo and Company

Trivia (1)

The animation was done by the duo Joop Bekker and (later) husband Geert (Bekker-)Knoef. The camera work is fine, especially the opening scene. Operating the camera was of great interest to Geert Bekker. Geert (often called Geertje) enjoyed working with a dynamic camera. Remarkable at the time because technical and physically demanding camera work was considered typical male work. Incidentally, it is noteworthy in general that at the time a woman held an important position of chief animator. In the 1950s, it was not common for women to be able to rise to this status, women at the time were supposed to do office work or assist in anonymity. So it can be said that Geert(je) stood her ground! The official release list of the Cinema Association, however, lists as an animator: Cor Icke . All the footage in which something was shown behind the scenes of Piccolo, Saxo and Co, Geert Knoef is visible. It is possible that the name of Cor Icke was mentioned on this list by mistake; he is also not mentioned on the titles.

Trivia (2)

The film is about the formation of a symphony orchestra. This orchestra is also visible at the end of the film. Surprisingly, it is not mentioned which orchestra the is shown and who the conductor was. Well, the original album mentions that performance was by André Popp & His Orchestra.

Growing band

Throughout the film narrative, the group of musicians grows. Each instrument is its own character who was animated individually. In many scenes, the instruments had to walk through the set. To achieve regular steps, so-called phase legs were used. This technique by George Pal involved making a separate series of wooden legs for each instrument that were interchangeable for each scene. Günther Mandl (not mentioned in the credits) assisted with this. Below are some production photos from this film.

New Philips Sound System

For this film, the relatively new Philips sound system was used to achieve a natural sound recording. We proudly show several language versions here. (See bottom of this page).

Philips had its own record label in the 1950s with glorious artists under contract. To listen to the music, you obviously needed equipment. To become a leader in this market, the electronics giant invested a lot of money in everything to do with recording and reproduction of sound. An adaptation was recently made for the Dutch version. The English-language version of Piccolo, Saxo and Co was provided with the digitised original stereo sound from 1956 by the editors in 2016.

The Philips Sound system has long since ceased to exist. The memory of this film is deep-rooted in many people's minds and this title is still regularly searched for on the internet. Perhaps you also came across this website via a search for Piccolo, Saxo and Co?

Nomination for Academy Award?

Contributors to this film claimed that this production is the only Dollywood film nominated for an Academy Award as best animated short. Unfortunately, no, the Academy Award was not won, but numerous others were. Piccolo, Saxo & Co became extremely popular. The films were shown in primary schools for many years to introduce children to a classical symphony orchestra. André Popp's music is very catchy. The popularity of this film is evidenced by the fact that years after the film's release, a renewed edition of the LP appeared (1967). In 1968, a new adventure came out on LP ‘Passport for Piccolo and Saxo’. Perhaps intended to be filmed one day.

New recording

Success was crowned with a CD release of both LPs at the end of the 20th century. Numerous remakes and interpretations of this film appeared on the internet. For instance, in French or Spanish up to and including live concerts. Finally, we recall that at the time, the soundtrack was already a successful Long Play Record. It was separate from the film. Later, the idea of converting the record to an animated film came up. Recordings were afterwards fully edited for this film. For the film Piccolo, Saxo & Co (1960), both the narrative voice was re-recorded and recordings of the orchestra to thicken the story to current length of 14 minutes.

Sequel

The unprecedented popularity of Piccolo, Saxo and Co is partly reflected when a sequel is released in 2006. Again, André Popp is responsible for the music. The film has now become a TV format in 3D computer animation, with harsh colours and loud sound effects. Dollywood studios no longer exist then; this one clearly had no input here. The production lacks the beautifully magical atmosphere of 1960.

A live performance was given in Mexico in 2012; below is the registration. In 2018, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra performed this work at the Rotterdam.