With his playful books, musicals and TV series, Harrie Geelen (86) was an important force in Dutch culture for children

Harrie Geelen also retained a youthful, light pace in old age. The amazing productive and versatile writer, illustrator and filmmaker, who died on Sunday at the age of 86 in his hometown of Hilversum, had no great fame. But with his ever playful and innovative books, musicals and TV series, he was an important force in Dutch child culture.

In the 1970s he created generation -forming youth programs such as the Krimi Q & Q and the fantasy series Can you tell me the way to Hamelen, sir? Also, for example, the recognition tunes of Peppi and Kokki (“Toet Toet Boing Boing”) and of Barbapapa come from him. In his work he sought “the combination of the absurd with the melancholic,” he said in 1994 Algemeen Dagblad: “You have to look at the people and things with warmth. Because there is not much comfort in life.”

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‘The plant of Jan’

Geelen wrote award -winning children’s books as the philosophical tinted picture book Herman the child and things (1993) and the endearing Jan’s plant (1995). He also illustrated dozens of children’s books from others, such as those of his wife, children’s book writer and Homeros translator Imme Dros. He was awarded the illustrations of Animal and Bear Pippeloentje from Annie MG Schmidt, and Miss Stove from Toon Tellegen. According to him, the illustrator is “the man who walks through the words.” (Volkskrant1993). He prefers to draw and paint quickly, not too neatly: “An artist is especially someone who wants something, not someone who can already do something.”

Geelen grew up in Heerlen in Limburg. His father was a procuration holder at the Amstelbrouwerij (“he knew all the cafés in South Limburg”) His mother comes from a well-known family of Kopergraveurs. He associated his birthplace with poppies, he said last year The Limburger: “I see my older sister still picking them, I was a little boy and my sister was higher than me, so I looked at those poppies from below. Now I still draw flowers from below and therefore not the heart with kels.”

Through his sister, visual artist Roos Geelen, he is introduced to the work of the Maastricht Academy. In her wake he ended up in Amsterdam in 1959 to study Dutch. As a corps member, he was the editor of the student almanac and founded Cabaret Group Sing Sing. Here he met his life companion Imme Dros. After a trial period at advertising agency Prad, he works at Joop Geesink’s film company Dollywood.

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Marten Toonder

Geelen was for decades creative director of the Toonder Studios of Marten Toonder, known for the Bommel strips. For example, he made more than a hundred commercials and was a screenwriter and co-director of the bomb film If you understand what I mean (1983). He also did the voice of Wammes Waggel. For Drawn figures (1984), an animated documentary about drug addiction, he received a Golden Calf. Besides the Toonderstudios, he wrote and directed the feature film Pinktje (1978).

He ended up at the television via TV maker Gied Jaspars. He wrote the children’s musicals for the VPRO in the late 1960s Bah September and Long live Miss Cannebier. He had a great success with the children’s program Oebelewith Willem Nijholt in the lead role. Together with composer Joop Stokkermans, he also made his masterpiece ‘Hamelen’. With the fairy tale of Hamelie as a starting point, Geelen made a group of children, led by Rob de Nijs, disappear into a bizarre fairy tale world. Fantasy only covers the load ‘hamming’ is a lot more pleasant and witty than usual in this genre. Nobody dies, nobody suffers pain; It never gets really scary or dark. The series drives on Geelen’s witty and rich fantasy, its special language and playful juggling with references to fairy tales, myths, folk songs and sayings.

This was followed by the exciting children’s series Q & Q (1974-1977) in which two boys accidentally photograph a corpse in the forest. Geelen: “The advice was to absorb it mainly in a forest because that didn’t cost anything.” (The Limburger2024). Both series achieved 3.5 million viewers. The actual number must be much higher because only viewers above twelve were counted. Nevertheless, Kind-TV Laag was appreciated at the broadcasters, in the 1980s Geelen therefore left the TV world and focused on the youth literature. His last books were translations of Ovidius that he illustrated himself.

“I count my blessings,” said Geelen last year. The funeral card speaks of a “great life.” When he was awarded the Hustinx prize for his entire oeuvre in 2000, the jury wrote: “A man who writes, translates and processes, draws, paints and composes, and films, and is filming and directing, and who – whether that is not enough – is married to Imme Dros, such a person must be a happy person.”

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