Urbanus

For the popes, see Pope Urban. For the skipper butterfly genus, see Urbanus (butterfly). For 3rd century Roman usurper, see Urbanus (Roman usurper).

Urbain Servranckx
Urbain Servranckx, (2004)
Born	7 June 1949 (1949-06-07) Dilbeek, Belgium
Other names	Urbain, Urbanus van Anus
Occupation	actor, comedian, singer

Urbain Servranckx (7 June 1949, Dilbeek, Belgium), also known as Urbain and Urbanus van Anus, is a Belgian stand-up comedian, actor, singer and comic book writer.

Career

Urbanus, artist's name of Urbain Joseph Servranckx (Dilbeek, June 7th 1949) is a Flemish comedian, singer, guitarist, author of comic books and actor. Originally he used the artist name: Urbanus van Anus.

In Flanders and the Netherlands Urbanus is well-known and very popular since 1974. Although he's most famous as comedian, some of his songs became famous and were massively played. Such as Bakske vol met stro (1979), Madammen met een bontjas (1980) and Hittentit (1982).

Until 2008 there were two films in which he played the leading role, Hector (1987) and Koko Flanel (1990). These two films were the leaders in the Flemish box offices for many years. His first movie Hector (directed by Stijn Coninx) won the 1988 international comedy film festival in Chamrousse, France. He also was named best actor by Radio France and Dauphiné Libéré.

More recently, Urbanus lend his voice for the Flemish versions of the Pixar movies, Cars and Cars 2, where he was the voice of the character Mater.

In 1984, Urbanus and Willy Linthout began writing comic books with an adolescent version of Urbanus himself as the main character. As of 2007, more than 121 such comic books have been published. He's also productive scenarist of the series 'De Geverniste Vernepelingskes', 'Plankgas en Plastronneke' and 'Mieleke Melleke Mol'.

For his political comments during the 2007 Belgian government formation crisis, he received the Prize of Liberty, an annual award delivered by the think tank Nova Civitas, in January 2008.

His humoristic style can be described as absurd, folksy, subversive, anarchic, childish, morbid, sometimes vulgar and populist.

Films

Urbanus produced and appeared in several movies:

• Hector (1988)
• Koko Flanel (1990)
• Les Sept péchés capitaux (1992)
• De Zevende Hemel (1993)
• Max (1994)
• Suske en Wiske: De duistere diamant (2004)
• K3 en het IJsprinsesje (2007)

Urbanus did voices for the following movies:

• March of the Penguins (2005) - narration for the Dutch version
• Cars (2006) - voice of Mater for the Flemish version

External links

• urbanus-online.be Official web site
• urbanusstrips.blogspot.com Urbanus comic books