After several adventures in fictional countries such as Bizarra and Marobia, this third full color series took place in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, though it is never referred to by name. After saving Baas Atlas' carousel from being impounded by a tax collector, Pipo de Clown is asked to join a secret fellowship of helping hands situated in Amsterdam. Their biggest secret is that the fellowship is hiding an honest to goodness mermaid, Fridolien, living beneath the canals. Years ago she followed sailor Dries Duiker to the mainland but she refuses to marry him without the consent of her three daughters, Uni, Muni and Puni. So, Pipo and Mammaloe come up with a plan to reunited the mermaid family by having Fridolien appear on world wide television. Unfortunately Pipo's enemy, circus director Dikke Deur wants to catch himself a big fish to use as a new star act.
The colorful, cartoon-like characters do a lot of running around Amsterdam during the course of the four episodes. So much so that the composer seems to have given up scoring back ground music for them, leaving them to run to just some background noises (at least in the version reviewed here). The rest of the scenes are all filmed on studio bound sets and the difference is obvious to all but the youngest viewers. When the four mermaids are finally reunited near the end, notice that one of them is played by writer Wim Meuldijk's daughter Belinda, who was very instrumental in return of her father's beloved clown in the late nineties.
Although the DVD release features a generic picture of Pipo on the font, the VHS cover replaces the i in Pipo's name with a typical Amsterdam street-pole bearing the letters XXX. Instantly recognizable to those in the know, but easy to be misinterpreted as being an adult video tape by everybody else. The VHS commented on here is an abridged version of the four part series, which sloppily cuts out entire chunks of the story, such as Pipo meeting carousel man Baas Atlas and having a meeting with television producer Schakelaar. Luckily I had an old storybook with pictures to fall back on to fill in the missing pieces. Here's hoping the recently released DVD version is more complete.
7 out of 10
The colorful, cartoon-like characters do a lot of running around Amsterdam during the course of the four episodes. So much so that the composer seems to have given up scoring back ground music for them, leaving them to run to just some background noises (at least in the version reviewed here). The rest of the scenes are all filmed on studio bound sets and the difference is obvious to all but the youngest viewers. When the four mermaids are finally reunited near the end, notice that one of them is played by writer Wim Meuldijk's daughter Belinda, who was very instrumental in return of her father's beloved clown in the late nineties.
Although the DVD release features a generic picture of Pipo on the font, the VHS cover replaces the i in Pipo's name with a typical Amsterdam street-pole bearing the letters XXX. Instantly recognizable to those in the know, but easy to be misinterpreted as being an adult video tape by everybody else. The VHS commented on here is an abridged version of the four part series, which sloppily cuts out entire chunks of the story, such as Pipo meeting carousel man Baas Atlas and having a meeting with television producer Schakelaar. Luckily I had an old storybook with pictures to fall back on to fill in the missing pieces. Here's hoping the recently released DVD version is more complete.
7 out of 10