Hamster in a Nightshirt (1988– )

It's very entertaining, like almost all the works of the director Vaclav Vorlicek. Only perhaps the first couple of episodes are this time a little slow, but then it gets on very well. The sense of humor of the Czech and of this director in particular is unique. It is based essentially on putting fantastic events into the real world and make them interact in a very realistic way, as if everything were true. On the one side you get surprised by the fantasy and the original ideas of which the series is full; it is also very interesting how every idea is represented and developed. On the other side you get very amused by the whole thing, and you laugh often, especially when the film shows another trick or another piece of fantasy in the real world. The object around which the action of the series turns is a device that can make things and persons very, very small, and then big again. Another machine which came out of the prolific mind of director Vorlicek is a kind of a bike, with some strange objects hanging on the handlebars. You don't get anywhere with that bike, because it has no wheels, but if you pedal very strange events happen around you, or your dreams may come true... This is just to have an idea of what is all about in this very good TV series. Actors are all good, and some of them are funny too. There is also a pretty co-protagonist girl (just to speak from the viewpoint of a man). Special effects are good and witty. It makes me almost think that they are better than the modern digital effects, very sophisticated indeed, but poor of ideas. This series is good both for children as for adults, and none of the two will be disappointed. It is much, much better than most modern and/or American TV-series; I daresay that they should show it on TV still today, and in many countries, instead of the usual silly teen-movie or teen-sitcom, or idiotic cartoons for children, which makes them stupid and bored. I don't know the Czech language, but thank God I know German, and this TV series, like many others, was dubbed at the time in West Germany. Now it is available on DVD. For people who fear to find political propaganda - like I did - in these Czech TV series because they are from the former communist Europe, I can assure them that there is none. Czechoslovakia was an exception in this sense. We are glad about it, because political propaganda contained in the fairy tales of USSR or GDR spoils half of the fun. On top of this, they say that the Czech sought in such fantasy movies an escape from a depressing political situation.