Lurchi

Lurchi is the advertising comic character of the German Salamander shoe factories. Fittingly, he is a fire salamander. His adventures are told (in German) in small booklets titled Lurchis Abenteuer. They are targeted mainly at primary schoolers, written in calligraphic handwriting in simple rhyming couplets.
Note: For pictures see linked sites. Can't upload pictures here, as I am not an "autoconfirmed user" ;)

History

While Salamander issued some newspaper advertisements featuring an anonymous anthropomorphic salamander in early 20^th century, the charakter Lurchi was introduced in 1937. The name of the artist of the prewar booklets is lost.
In the 1930s, Salamander didn't even produce children's shoes. The booklets were rather ment to keep youngsters quiet while parent's would buy shoes.
Lurchi's adventures ceased publication 1939 due to the outbreak of WW II. They were continued only in 1951, starting with (redrawn) remakes of the prewar issues 1-5. Then artist Heinz Schubel took over, who shaped the style of Lurchi as it was known by generations of readers. Schubel retired 1972, and various artists tried to keep up his standards - unsuccessful, by the opinion of the majority of fans, regarding both the artwork and the stories, which became very "p.c.". In 1995 Dietwald Doblies took over and returned to a much "Schubelian" style.

2000, all characters of the series underwent a major "brushup" at request by the company's management. Most remarkably, they got fully clothed, whereas in their classic form they had been mostly nude exept for some accesoires, and, of course, shoes. One should mention, however, that the "mammal" characters (the mouse, the hedgehog and the dwarf) allways at least had worn pants, and the amphibean characters were shown without visible recreative parts.

Characters

Five friends help Lurchi in his adventures:

• Hopps the frog, clearly Lurchi's best buddy, ever curious, cheeky and adventurous.
• Piping the dwarf, the elder of the group, cautious and conservative, but also a tinkerer.
• Mäusepiep the mouse, fearful and sometimes clumsy.
• Igelmann the hedgehog, homelike and relaxed. He's the only character whose species plays a role in the stories every now and than, due to his spikes.
• Unkerich, the Yellow-bellied toad, generally the "strong man" of the group, he also loves eating and is sometimes shown a bit clumsy.

Adventures

The adventures always have a happy ending, thanks to the (sometimes unconventional) use of Salamander shoes. They always end with the rhyme:
"Im XXX... tönts lange noch
Salamander lebe hoch"
"In XXX... it's heard long after
Long live Salamander",
where XXX is the name of the current adventure's scene.

Other Media

Some audio plays have been produced: at least five episodes on Flexi disc in the 60ties, at least three on vinyl single disc around 1970, six on Compact Cassette in the early 90ties, and a running series on CD since 2000.
Very popular were the toy figures: Lurchi as an articulated figure (rubber with intern metal wire), the six friends as rubber figurines (with squeaking ventile), and the six friends as large (around 1 ft) articulated plastic figures. There have been some smaller and less popular series of figures. After 2000, the classic figure series were discontinued and replaced by hard plastic figures of the "new" characters.
There are many other (but mostly short-lived) merchandising articles, including colouring books, plush toys, stickers, postcards, a jumping jack Lurchi, and, in the shoe shops, rockinghorses and small merry-go-rounds.

Sources / External links

• Fansite, very detailed information Template:De icon
• Lurchi's adventures (official site of Salamander company) Template:De icon