This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first broadcast of ‘Te land, ter zee en in de Lucht’. Eindhoven resident Johan Vlemmix participated a hundred times as a participant and later presented the program for national TV. Together with him we look back and ahead, because as it turns out: the program has not been broadcast since 2011, but ‘On land, at sea and in the air’ has not disappeared yet.
“Wait a minute, I have to shoot someone,” says Johan Vlemmix when he picks up the phone. That may sound a bit crazy, but anyone who knows the well-known starting pistol immediately has an image of it. Johan announces the participants and ‘bang!’, the group slides onto the track, as usual in a self-built car, to loud cheers from the audience.
“There are still thousands of enthusiastic spectators.”
It may be that the program has not been broadcast on national TV since 2011, according to Johan there are still many fans of the program and he himself cannot get enough of it. That is why he travels all year round with the format of the TV program through the country.
“The only difference is that it is not broadcast on national TV,” says Johan. “But also at this edition in Oldenzaal, more than fifty participants participate and more than five thousand enthusiastic spectators stand by the side.”
“I broke something very often.”
According to Johan, the program remains a success because it really is ‘popular entertainment’. “People just want to see it,” he notes. “It used to be a special program, because everyone can just participate; it suits everyone,” says Johan. And participation can just give you a lot of fame, says the Eindhoven resident who also became known through his participation.
Johan has experienced a lot in the hundred times he participated, he looks back. For example, he once fell from eight meters high, flat on the ice during the part ‘On Slippery Ice’. “My nose, my ribs, my toes,” Johan sums up, “I broke a lot in that time.” He also remembers how fireworks came under his tabard when he dressed up as Sinterklaas. “Then I burned my balls,” laughs the former presenter.
But according to him, that’s what makes it so much fun: “It doesn’t have to go well at all, as long as you’re having fun. It’s really a feel good-program that helps to forget the misery in the world.”
“I hope they remember me.”
Johan does think that the danger may be a reason that it will not just come back on TV. “Everything that comes on TV is very widely reported these days,” he says. “People think it’s too dangerous and the broadcaster may also be afraid of claims for damages.”
Still, he hopes that a national broadcaster will still dare. In 2019 he started a petition himself in the hope that the program would return to TV. Unfortunately for him, without success.
If the program does come on TV, they can at least call him, he says enthusiastically. “I don’t even care what role it would be in. If they ever air it again, I hope they remember me.”
‘The best of… 50 years on land, at sea and in the air’, will be broadcast from Saturday evening on NPO1 at AVROTROS.
