Bobbejaan Schoepen was a Flemish pioneer in Belgian pop music, vaudeville, and European country music. Schoepen was a versatile entertainer, entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, guitarist, comedian, actor, and professional whistler, as well as the founder and former director of the amusement park Bobbejaanland. His musical career flourished from 1948 until the first half of the 1970s. He sold more than five million copies from his repertoire of 482 songs, which extended from Twang, cabaret, instrumental film music, chansons, country, to folk and vocal music. Born in Boom, Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium, he worked his way up from a working-class environment to become one of the 200 richest people in Belgium.
Belgium has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 64 times since making its debut as one of seven countries at the first contest in 1956. The only countries with the same number or more appearances are Germany (65), France (64) and the United Kingdom (64). Belgium have been absent only three times in total, in 1994, 1997 and 2001, due to low scores in the previous contests that relegated them from the contest. Belgium has won the contest once, in 1986.
Spike and Suzy, Willy and Wanda or Luke and Lucy is a Belgian comics series created by the comics author Willy Vandersteen.
The VRT, is the national public-service broadcaster for the Flemish Community of Belgium.
Jean-Marie Louis Dedecker is a Belgian politician.
The area within Belgium known as Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde encompasses the bilingual—French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vilvoorde, which in turn coincides with the arrondissement of Halle-Vilvoorde. Halle-Vilvoorde contains several municipalities with language facilities, i.e. municipalities where French-speaking people form a considerable part of the population and therefore have special language rights. This area forms the judicial arrondissement of Brussels, which is the location of a tribunal of first instance, enterprise tribunal and a labour tribunal. It was reformed in July 2012, as part of the sixth Belgian state reform.
Belgian comics are a distinct subgroup in the comics history, and played a major role in the development of European comics, alongside France with whom they share a long common history. While the comics in the two major language groups and regions of Belgium each have clearly distinct characteristics, they are constantly influencing one another, and meeting each other in Brussels and in the bilingual publication tradition of the major editors. As one of the few arts where Belgium has had an international and enduring impact in the 20th century, comics are known to be "an integral part of Belgian culture".
Belgium competed in every Junior Eurovision Song Contest before withdrawing 2013. The country's best result was in 2009, when Laura Omloop came 4th with "Zo verliefd". Belgium's worst result was in 2007, with Trust coming 15th with "Anders".
Ketnet is a Dutch-language public children's television channel in Belgium owned and operated by the VRT, Flemish public broadcaster. It broadcasts a mix of locally produced and imported productions on the VRT3 channel from 6 am until 8 pm.
Dutch comics are comics made in the Netherlands. In Dutch the most common designation for the whole art form is "strip", whereas the word "comic" is used for the (usually) soft cover American style comic book format and its derivatives, typically containing translated US superhero material. This use in colloquial Dutch of the adopted English word for that format can cause confusion in English language texts.
Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium. Ultratop is a non-profit organization, created on the initiative of the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA), the Belgian member organization of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Two parallel sets of charts are concurrently produced and published, one on behalf of Belgium's mainly Dutch-speaking Flanders region, and the other catering to the nation's mainly French-speaking region of Wallonia.
Jan Bosschaert is a Belgian comics artist, painter and illustrator, best known for the comic series Sam and Jaguar, and his illustrations for the books of Marc De Bel.
Television in Belgium was introduced in 1953 and began with one channel each in Dutch and French. The country is heavily cabled, with 93% of households watching television through cable as of 2003.
Plunk is a Belgian comic series created by Luc Cromheecke and Laurent Letzer, and published by Dupuis. So far three albums have appeared.
Willy Linthout is a Belgian comics author, best known for the Urbanus comics and his graphic novel Years of the Elephant.
Jan Jambon is a Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) who has been serving as Minister-President of Flanders since 2019. He replaced Kris Peeters as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2007. The N-VA was, at that time, partnered with the Christian-Democratic and Flemish party. In June 2010 and May 2014 he was re-elected on an N-VA list.
Marcel Céline Gerard Edgard Vanthilt is a Belgian singer and television presenter.
Despite its size, Belgium has a long and distinguished artistic tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages, considerably pre-dating the foundation of the current state in 1830. Art from the areas making up modern Belgium is called in English Netherlandish up to the separation with the Netherlands from 1570 on, and Flemish until the 18th century.
Urbanus was a Flemish celebrity comic strip created by Willy Linthout and loosely based on Flemish comedian and singer Urbanus. The stories were written by Willy Linthout, Urbanus and Ann Smets, and drawn by Linthout. The first story was published in 1982 and was such a success that Urbanus ran for more than 40 years, becoming the longest-running and most successful Flemish comic strip based on a celebrity. It is also the longest-running celebrity comic in the world made by the same writer/artist team. The series sells well in the Netherlands too, due to Urbanus' popularity there.
Belgium participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool, United Kingdom, with "Because of You" performed by Gustaph. The Flemish broadcaster of Belgium, Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT), organised the national final Eurosong 2023 in order to select the Belgian entry for the 2023 contest.
