Josef Göhlen shaped children’s television in Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s. Now he has written his autobiography and explains why series from “Wickie” to “Timm Thaler” became cult – and for him, children’s programs today are too brand-oriented and ghettoized.
He brought the “Urmel” out of the ice with the Augsburger Puppenkiste, helped “Pippi Longstocking” to appear, made “Maya the Bee” fly, sent “Wickie and the Strong Men” on trips, invented the Christmas series with “Timm Thaler” and brought hits like “The Muppet Show” to German television. In short: Anyone who experienced their childhood in the sixties, seventies and eighties was influenced by programs that Josef Göhlen, who lives in Baldham near Munich, was responsible for as head of the children’s program, first at Hessischer Rundfunk and later at ZDF. A written conversation on the occasion of his now published Autobiography.