Tabaluga tivi (partially found ZDFtivi German game show; 1997-2011)

Tabaluga tivi's first logo

Status: Partially Found

Tabaluga tivi was a long-running German gameshow that aired on ZDFtivi from 1997-2011 and had reruns on KiKA every Sunday. It premiered on October 4th, 1997 and aired its last episode on May 7th, 2011. It was canceled to make way for "new and innovative entertainment formats". The show was produced on behalf of ZDFtivi by the Munich production company MingaMedia and recorded in the Bavaria Studios near Munich. The show ran for 14 years with a total of 652 episodes, and was cancelled to make way for new formats.

Format

Two presenters along with Tabaluga the dragon, Happy the snowhare, Arktos the snowman, and James the mute penguin butler ran the game show. Each episode ran for 90 minutes until 2006, where the runtime was shortened to 65 minutes until 2008, where it was shortened once again to 45 minutes. There were two teams of two children each, one red team and one yellow team, competed against each other in 5 rounds (changed to 3 rounds in 2003). Action, skill and knowledge games alternated. There used to be a second quiz in the first round. In 2003, this was replaced with the "Freundschaftbox", which was then replaced by "Wortball" in 2008. The two teams collected lucky points during the game rounds (from 2003), which was converted into a sum of money at the end of the episode and would be donated to a good cause. The children would determine the donation goal themselves beforehand.

From 2000 to 2011, there was a segment called "Arktos’ unheimlich böse Aufgabe" where the external presenters had to solve a task given by Arktos in 90 seconds. If the presenter managed to complete the task in time, the winning team would receive a bonus point for the final game.

The final game was called the "Arktos Super-Spiel", and was there since the beginning of the show. A path would light up on the board briefly, before going out, and the team would have to cross the board by remembering where the path was. From 1997 to 2003, if the players won the "Arktos Super-Spiel", the team would win the Golden Tabaluga, a golden trophy statue that looked like the dragon, Tabaluga.

Throughout the entire game show's run, there were educational and service short films and series aired during the show, which fell into the "Drachenstark" category. There were often also music acts and performances from studio guests. From 2003-2011, there was an article series on the show called "Das verschenkte Glück". The article series presented short films showing stories of people who gone through special efforts to help others and make them happy. "Glücksbringer" were given the Golden Tabaluga as an award. From 1997-2006, the show would air 2 episodes of German cartoons and TV shows. Most notably, all 78 episodes of the Tabaluga cartoon adaption had their broadcast premiere on this show.

Broadcast, Promotions, and Availability

The show was broadcast on ZDFtivi on Saturday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. until 2000 where it was moved later in the morning. In 2006, the show's broadcast slot was moved to 7:20 a.m. in the early morning. In 2008, it moved airing times yet again to 6:50 a.m until May 7th, 2011, where the final episode aired at 6:15 a.m. in the morning. The episodes were rebroadcast several times throughout their lifespan on KiKA every Sunday.

There was also an website that offered videos of several episodes, such as the final episode, segments from the show, some episodes of the spin-off series "Ein tierisch tolles Haus", information about the show, information about Tabaluga and his friends, schedules for airings and reruns of episodes of the main show and the spin-offs, held many contests, and much more things.

The show was heavily promoted in magazines while it was running, usually talking about when the next episode aired, when the previous episode aired, and when an episode would be re-broadcast.

Out of the 652 episodes, only 3 have resurfaced in full, with clips and segments of various other episodes resurfacing over the years, though some segments are cut out or have muted music due to copyright.

List of Found Episodes

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Gallery

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External Links

Tabaluga tivi Episode Guide