| Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Kurt Bartsch |
| Starring | Robert Atzorn, Corinna Harfouch, Gisela Trowe, Charles Brauer, Gerd Baltus, Claudia Wenzel |
| Country of origin | Germany |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 70 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original release | 5 January 1992 – 1999 |
Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht (Our teacher Doctor Specht) is a series of family author Kurt Bartsch, directors Werner Masten (episodes 1-57), Vera Loebner (episodes 58-63) and Karin Hercher (episodes 64-70), shooting starting in 1991 in Germany. The episodes had a length of 52 (first season) or 46 minutes (second to fifth season). For subsequent repetitions of the episodes of the first season, the episodes were cut to about 45 minutes. In addition, they were provided with an alternative, shorter end credits sequence, which was also designed in a different font.
Dr. Markus Specht is a teacher with heart and soul, his private life is often behind the students. In the five seasons Specht is transferred frequently and experiences the quiet town of Celle, a boarding school on an island (Krähenwerder), the political situation shortly after the Wende in Potsdam and Berlin, and at the end of the series, the Bavarian countryside, again in a boarding school. The exteriors were mostly shot on the island of Scharfenberg in Berlin-Tegel, which also houses a Gymnasium (school type) with adjacent school farm.
A few of the characters accompany him throughout the series, the pension owner Pia Kleinholz, which is later his stepmother, when she marries his father. She always follows the educator from town to town and buys new pensions where Specht lives.
In the story, all kinds of school subjects are dealt with, while his students are mostly high school students and 15 to 18 years old. Subjects were truancy, drugs, career pressures on students, divorces, pranks, kidnappings, extortion, evil and good caretakers and much more.
Specht itself is under some relationships, loses his beloved but increasingly due to the fact that it's more important than his students are often very demanding women. Specht is in every season and every change of school, first hated by his students, but then builds on a relationship of trust that sets it apart from other teachers.
The series is, in contrast to the Lümmel-Filmen mit Hansi Kraus depicted realistically. School life is not embellished, but not dramatized. This gave the series an extraordinary popularity, and it became a ratings success. However, the materials to the shallow end of the series have been implemented, the rate of one burst and the series was finally discontinued. Especially Robert Atzorn also wanted to dedicate himself to new tasks, such as Tatort (since 2001 as Kommissar Jan Casstorff). In this context, he once remarked:
People will always see the teacher in me, I wish he would have died the serientod, or the corpse in my first Tatort is found with the cry "The Specht is dead!"
In the series played numerous and well-known German actor guest starred or were for some seasons there. For Veronica Ferres meant her role as secretary Anita Kufalt in the second and third season of the breakthrough as an actress. The cast of the students are in most cases not caught on the show.
The Facts of Life is an American television sitcom created by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon and a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes that originally aired on NBC from August 24, 1979, to May 7, 1988, making it one of the longest-running sitcoms of the 1980s. The series focuses on Edna Garrett, as she becomes a housemother at the fictional Eastland School, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York.
Welcome Freshmen is an American comedy series that aired on Nickelodeon from February 16, 1991, to February 19, 1994. The show took place at Hawthorne High School with a group of high school students and a bumbling vice principal.
Jürgen Prochnow is a German-American actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Commander "Der Alte" in the 1981 war film Das Boot.
Götz George was a German actor, the son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg detective Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series Tatort.
Tatort is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by the German public-service broadcasting organisation ARD for their channel Das Erste, it is unique in its approach, in that it is jointly produced by all of the organisation's regional members as well as its partnering Austrian and Swiss national public-service broadcasters, whereby every regional station contributes a number of episodes to a common pool.
Leo Rossi is an American actor, writer and producer. A character actor with over 100 credits to his name, he is known for his role as foul-mouthed EMT Vincent "Budd" Scarlotti in the 1981 horror film Halloween II, as the serial killer Turkell from the 1990 horror sequel Maniac Cop 2, and as Detective Sam Dietz in the Relentless franchise. His other films include Heart Like a Wheel (1983), River's Edge (1986), The Accused (1988), Analyze This (1999), One Night at McCool's (2001), and 10th & Wolf (2006).
Gottfried John was a German stage, screen, and voice actor. A long-time collaborator of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John appeared in nine of the filmmaker's projects between 1975 and 1981, the year before Fassbinder's death, including Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Despair, The Marriage of Maria Braun, and Berlin Alexanderplatz. His distinctive, gaunt appearance saw him frequently cast as villains, and he is best known to audiences for his role as the corrupt General Arkady Ourumov in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, and for his comedic turn as Julius Caesar in Asterix & Obelix Take On Caesar, the latter for which he won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Grant Shelby Hubley Jr., known as Whip Hubley, is an American actor.
Mr. Novak is an American television dramatic series starring James Franciscus in the title role as a high school teacher. The series aired on NBC for two seasons, from 1963 to 1965. It won a Peabody Award in 1963.
Sunnyi Melles is a Hungarian / Swiss actress active in Germany and Austria.
Robert Atzorn is a German television actor. He was born in Bad Polzin, Pomerania, Germany, now Połczyn-Zdrój, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland.
Davis Rules is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC in 1991 and on CBS in 1992. The series was produced by Carsey-Werner Productions.
Werner Kreindl was an Austrian television actor.
Ursula Dirichs is a German actress born in Recklinghausen in 1935.
Rosalie Helga Lina Zech, known as Rosel Zech, was a German theater and film actress, especially with the "Autorenkino" movement, which began in the 1970s.
Dietrich Mattausch is a German stage, film and television actor.
Werner Pochath was an Austrian film actor. He worked in Germany, Italy and the United States, and then in the 1980s he began a second career as a Hollywood agent. He had been the partner of the ballet director of the Hamburg State Opera, John Neumeier.
Archiv Produktion is a classical music record label of German origin. It originated in 1949 as a classical label for the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG), and in 1958 Archiv was established as a subsidiary of DGG, specialising in recordings of Early and Baroque music. It has since developed a particular focus on "historically informed performance" and the work of artists of the Early music revival movement of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Dietrich Lohmann, B.V.K. was a German cinematographer.
The Time Has Come is a 1960 West German crime television series broadcast on ARD in six episodes. It was shot at the Bavaria Studios and on location in Britain. It was part of a group of Strassenfeger, popular crime series which cleared the streets as the entire population watched them. It was one of several Francis Durbridge adaptations to be produced in West Germany.
