Bassie and Adriaan

infobox television
show_name = Bassie & Adriaan


format = Adventure
runtime = 25 minutes (without commercials)
creator = Aad van Toor e.a.
starring = Aad van Toor
Bas van Toor
Paul van Gorcum e.a.
country = Netherlands
network = Nederland 2 (TROS)
first_aired = 1978
last_aired = 1995
num_episodes = 144
imdb_id=0319948
tv_com_id=

Bassie & Adriaan were a Dutch circus duo who starred in their own television series. Despite not performing together anymore they still enjoy a huge popularity in both the Netherlands and Belgium.

Early career

Bas van Toor left school at an early age to pursue a number of odd-jobs. At 19 he joined the circus and spent a year on the road; after this, he decided to form an acrobat duo with his brother Aad (1942). In 1959, The Melton Brothers/The Crocksons were born.

In 1965, they embarked on what was planned to be a two-year-stint abroad; they stayed abroad ten years, befriending Siegfried & Roy, incorporating the wives into their act (The Four Crocksons) and staging children's matinees in Dutch, German and English while residing in Spain for poorly-attended nightclub-shows. The seeds for Bassie & Adriaan were sown in 1964 when the brothers did a clown act as part of Rudi Carell's travelling circus.

The series

1976-1979

In 1975, Bassie & Adriaan went back home for what was supposed to be their last five years as acrobats; but they met Joop van den Ende, TV-producer and a theatre-owner, who suggested they make a television series. A pilot was made at the end of 1976; the show was broadcast on TROS from January 10 to April 4, 1978.

eries Guide

*In "De Plaaggeest" ("The Bully") Bassie & Adriaan find themselves abandoned by their own circus because they overslept, and with no tour-schedule in sight or any money they're forced to take other jobs but lose each. Partly responsible is The Bully, who's more a prankster than a bully. Their knight in shining armour, a free spirit called Douwe, looks like him without the black cape, comedy-cheeks and fool's hat. The final episode sees Bassie & Adriaan return to the circus.

Despite regretting his actions in an open letter The Bully was shown the door after this series. His image and scary laughs caused many children sleepless nights.

Bassie & Adriaan were a hit and soon worked on their second series which was partly shot on location in Spain and broadcast from October 9, 1978 to May 21, 1979.

*In "Het Geheim van de Sleutel" ("The Secret Of The Key") they take a well-earned holiday but find themselves chased by two diamond snatchers who mistook Bassie for the go-between who came to collect the key to the vault of the stolen diamonds. Spiking their teas with sleeping drugs, sabotaging the car, overpowering Bassie at the beach and the elevator; it all makes no sense, but upon arrival at Amsterdam Airport they lure the clown and his pet bird Sweety to their car and drag him inside. After release, Bassie & Adriaan set up a boobytrap at Rotterdam's Central Station; the diamond thieves are arrested by policemen in disguise.

For the third year in a row Bassie & Adriaan worked on a new series, but by now the camera-crew, led by Guus Verstraete, had left so Adriaan became director.

*In "De Diamant" ("The Diamond") Bassie & Adriaan have a diamond named after them. Escaped from prison, the diamond thieves from the previous series attempt to steal it. Bassie & Adriaan are arrested but are released as their fingerprints don't match any on the scene of the theft. They're given three days to prove their innocence; they do so by reading the security tapes of the crime. Bassie & Adriaan leave the circus because their reputations are ruined but they start their own.

This series ran from November 17, 1979 to June 7, 1980 by which time Circus Bassie & Adriaan was touring across the country.

1980-1982

The early 1980s were busy times; running a circus, individual production companies (Bassie took care of the business side while Adriaan wrote the scripts and the songs) and working on a new series.

*"De Huilende Professor" ("The Crying Professor") sees a nation literally moved to tears, when Archibald Chagrijn exposed everyone to his tear-gas. Bassie, immune to the tear gas as he's had an overdose and Adriaan track him down.

This series was shown from April 4 to December 6, 1982, but the year was not good. Van den Ende handed the circus off to others in order to run his theater. The circus closed down although the name was resurrected for indoor arena-shows. Bassie & Adriaan split with Van den Ende, and for solidarity reasons TROS split with Bassie & Adriaan.

1983-1984

Bassie & Adriaan made eight educational shorties for Belgian television; Dutch viewers took notice and by the end of 1983 Bassie & Adriaan were back on TROS. In 1984, they made the first of 38 radio-plays introducing new characters; the Baron who thinks of himself as a genius, Vlugge Japie a dodgy underworld geezer whose quickness of hand deceives the eye and Pin-Pun a stereotypical Chinaman. They did all the voices.

1985-1988

After another string of shorties and returning to Circus Renz on a part-time basis, Bassie & Adriaan spent 1986 taping a new series featuring the new crooks, except that Pin-Pun was replaced with B2 whose poor hearing kept him in prison when B1 and BB escaped.

*In "De Schatkaart" ("The Treasure Map") Bassie & Adriaan buy a painting with a treasure-map on the back. Chased by the Baron, Japie and B2 they gp to Lanzarote where the ebony treasure-box is stuffed with pepper.

It was shown from January 2 to April 17, 1987.

The same year, Bassie & Adriaan worked on their sixth series and their first since "The Bully" shot on location. Adriaan found it too exhausting to play two roles as well as directing the series; Paul van Gorcum (Archibald Chagrijn and the governor from "The Diamond") took the role.

*In "De Verdwenen Kroon" ("The Lost Crown") the Baron, Japie and B2 escape from prison to steal a crown from a museum. Bassie & Adriaan are instructed to bring the ransom-money but they're heading for a boobytrap leaving them accused of pocketing the cash. Payback time.

The series was shown from January 5 to February 23, 1988.

*"De Verzonken Stad" ("The Drowned City") was taped in Greece in 1988 and shown from October 6 to December 1, 1989. In this series, Bassie & Adriaan are taking a holiday far away from the three crooks. Bassie discovers an ancient stone with mysterious hieroglyphs that translate to 'wise man', 'power' and 'whoever possesses this is the world's richest man'. The Baron, Japie and B2 nick the stone and try to solve the rest of the hieroglyphs but thanks to Bassie & Adriaan lookalike dolls (mixed with the real thing) they hand themselves over to the police.

1990-1993

*In 1990 they started producing "De geheimzinnige opdracht" ("The mysterious assignments"), which was a trip through the European Community to find mysterious parcels, following cryptic assignments. This series had a educational element about the countries and their origins.

The Baron, Japie and B2 disband upon release from prison; B2 returns to crime but Japie flees to the other side of the world. The Baron recruits Handige Harry and an anonymous trenchcoat-wearing geezer who adopts the codename B100 because he's the Baron's 100th employee. Harry struggles to master the art of making bombs. The Baron strangles Harry and crashing the telephone whenever B100 calls with bad news. They assume that Bassie & Adriaan are on another treasure-hunting trip but inside the parcels are jigsaw-pieces in the shape of the countries they visited.

The series was shown from February 7 to April 25, 1992.

*For their next move Bassie & Adriaan filmed on location in the United States and the Netherlands Antilles throughout 1993. "De Reis Vol Verrassingen" ("The Journey Full Of Surprises") was shown from January 7 to May 13, 1994.

In "De reis vol verrassingen" ("The journey full of surprises") Bassie & Adriaan embark on another parcel-hunting trip in Curaçao. It is a boobytrap set up by the Baron, Harry and B100 after the latter saw the Spain-episode of "The mysterious assignment". Japie, who now lives on the island, spoils everything by nicking the parcel. Back home the penniless crooks stage a burglary and spot Bassie taking part in a television quiz; he wins a trip through the United States.

The tour is throughout the U.S. (Bassie even takes a serious interest in the Navaho-culture) with an added visit to the joint island of St. Martin and Sint Maarten to hand the Baron, Harry and B100 over to the police.

It was shown from January 7 to May 13, 1994 and was the brothers' swansong series.

One-off programmes

1980s

Bassie & Adriaan taped several circus shows for TV-broadcast. In 1987 their regular series clocked up 100 episodes.

1990s

In 1992 and 1994 Bassie & Adriaan made two more one-off; the latter, a Christmas special resurrected Japie who managed to steal the star-shaped TROS-sign.

The latterday years

In 2003 Bassie and Adriaan embarked on their farewell tour, but six months before the last show fate had other plans; Adriaan was diagnosed with cancer and played his last show on July 31. "You want more ?" he asked as usual. "Well, so do I but unfortunately I'm sick; I have to go to hospital". For a while Bassie thought that this was just an excuse to duck out of the tour. Although Adriaan is now cured, he remains retired. Bassie made amends with his brother and continues performing jokes as a one-man show in both the Netherlands and Belgium.

Initially Adriaan was replaced by a female magician, but children didn't accept her. A personal feud between her and Bassie ended the tour before it even started. His current show "Bassie en zijn vrienden" (Bassie and friends) does a lot better than the one with the magician and he also returned to making television series. Bassie and Adriaan turned their successful television series into a profitable company, selling products like comic books, DVDs and even sliced bread toppings with a Bassie faced core (the so-called Bassieworst).

End of an era, beginning of an era: The New Adventures of Clown Bassie

Since 2005 Bas van Toor (Bassie) is making his own TV shows, replacing Adriaan with the cast of the "Bassie en zijn vriendjes" roadshow. But the absence of Aad van Toor (Adriaan) means that Bas has to do all the things his brother's production company (Adrina Produkties) took care of; i.e., writing scripts, directing them, and co-writing/composing the songs. As a result the new show has a completely different feel to the original "Bassie & Adriaan" series, much to longtime fans' annoyance. He may never repeat the success of "Bassie & Adriaan" again, but Bassie landed pretty well on his feet. These are the series he made so far; they were available on DVD before even shown on television. A third one is expected to see the light of day in 2008.

*2005: "De reis van Zwarte Piet" ("The journey of Zwarte Piet")

Bassie's solo-debut consists of two episodes that sees him meeting St. Nicholas (played by Paul van Gorcum) and his assistants, and finding out how they supply a nation with toys, gifts and sweets. He even travels through time to spend life as a pirate.

*2006: "De speurtocht naar Charly" ("Searching for Charly")

In this first proper series Charlie the ventriloquist doll has been taken by this jealous guy who insists that Bassie retires from performing. Bassie has no intention of doing so and goes all the way to Austria to rescue Charly. It was shown on RNN7 in 2008.

Commercial break

In 2008 Bassie & Adriaan reunited to collaborate on a commercial for insurance company Ohra; a holidaying Dad has the misfortune of being exposed to a B&A DVD that his children watch to make the trip less (or in this case more) boring. To cap it all, none other than Bassie welcomes him at the camping. "Fancy a cuppa, neighbour ?" (Dutch: "Hee buurmannetje, bakkie ?"). He even based a song on it; the acconpanying video also serves to plug Ohra.

Bassie & Adriaan finally got themselves a hit again that is likely to win the award for Commercial of the Year.

Press-reports that Bassie made a 31-year-old woman pregnant appeared to be a publicity stunt; the latest Ohra-commercial sees Bassie's neighbour finding out that his wife has given birth to a baby with a red nose and ginger hair.

External links

* [http://www.bassie-adriaan.nl Homepage of Bassie and Adriaan (in Dutch)]
* [http://www.clownbassie.com Homepage of Bassie (in Dutch)]
* [http://www.adriaan-homepage.nl/ Homepage of Adriaan (in Dutch)]