Hallo Spencer

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A German puppet show that aired from 1979 to 2001, and was heavily inspired by The Muppet Show. This show stars Spencer in the fictional town of Spencerdorf (the Real Life Spencerville, Ohio in the English-dubbed version). Spencer introduces the viewers and the theme of the episode, with the villagers later contributing something to the theme. Sometimes, there would be special episodes in which the characters would re-tell nursery rhymes or fairy tales.

Translations into other languages were short lived and didn't always translate well, but regardless, Hallo Spencer is still beloved to this day in its home country. It even received its own section in a theme park.


Tropes used in Hallo Spencer include:
  • Bookworm: Lexi. (Literally.)
  • Cut and Paste Translation: In the early '90s, Saban dubbed the episode into English as The Hallo Spencer Show, but made several more changes, including re-writing the dialogue, changing a few names, changing the theme song, and adding a rap portion at the end of each episode that summarized its events. Needless to say, this version was very short lived.
  • Grumpy Bear: Nepomuk.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only six episodes of the English dub were released on VHS. Subverted with the German original, though; episodes are still being rerun.