Dutchy The Champion

Story

Collective advertising commissioned by the Dutch Dairy Board featuring the typically Dutch character Dutchy. Together with his girlfriend, he visits a fair. A man troubles them. His girlfriend, however, ignores the man and comforts Dutchy. The man continues to bothers the pair. Then Dutchy drinks a glass of milk and gains so much strength and energy that he puts the man, who is meanwhile harassing his girlfriend on the carousel, in his place. Finally, Dutchy and his girl drink a glass of milk together after which the following text appears on screen: 'With milk more men.'

Trivia

Dollywood employees kept all the puppets and important set pieces after the end of an extensive production.
In Dutchy Victory, we see many elements from Kermesse Fantastique (1951): a carousel and a striking puppet: the organ man. Attentive viewers will recognise other extras from other films. Reusing puppets and sets resulted in substantial savings in production time and costs. Building detailed set pieces often took weeks of work. Because the sets were placed in a different context, neither the client nor the cinema audience noticed that recycled material was used here. After all, the effect of moving puppets in a colourful set and on a large cinema screen was overwhelming and it was always about supporting characters.

Here, the organ man (with monkey) is reused from Kermesse Fantastique (1961) - Observant viewers will recognise several reused puppets and props.

Large project

Realise that the production of films of this length took several months. A 10-minute film could sometimes take 10 to 12 months of production time, while a shorter production like "Dutchy Victory" could probably be realised within 4 to 5 months, thanks in part to the reuse of multiple props. In terms of animation, nothing was surrendered. Here, an honourable mention should go to Geert Knoef, the only female animator in the studio. To realise the Dutchy series in a short time, several films were realised simultaneously by different production teams. The studio had the capacity for this.
See entirely below the overview of the Dutchy films we welcomed into our collection. All in beautiful Technicolor and HD scanned!