Maja the Bee turns 50: ZDF re‑airs the 1970s classic
The German–Austrian–Japanese series first aired in 1976 and is being re‑aired on ZDFneo as fans mark its 50th anniversary.
On 9 September 1976 ZDF premiered the animated series Maja the Bee, launching a children’s television staple whose theme song and curious heroine have endured for five decades.
From a 1912 book to a transnational TV hit
The television adaptation — created between 1975 and 1980 as a German–Austrian–Japanese co‑production — follows the adventurous little bee Maja and her good‑natured friend Willy across roughly one hundred episodes. The series’ stories range from Maja rescuing the grasshopper Flip from a carnivorous plant to her encounters with the spider Thekla and the millipede Hieronymus.
The character Maja originates in Waldemar Bonsels’s 1912 book The Adventures of Maja the Bee; Willy, however, is a creation of the TV series. Bonsels (1880–1952) is also remembered for texts in which he expressed antisemitic views and for his proximity to the National Socialist era.
Television veteran Josef Gellen (1931–2026), then head of children’s programming at ZDF, was a driving force behind the production. The idea for a Maja series was born in a Munich taxi in 1974, when Gellen and his ORF colleague Herbert Hauk sought a successor to Vicky the Viking. Scripts were developed by cartoonist Marty Murphy and his team in Los Angeles, while the animation work was carried out at Nippon Animation near Tokyo.
“At the beginning the series was often criticized as kitsch,” Gellen later said. “At the time it was thought television had to educate children, and I absolutely did not want that. I wanted to entertain them in the best sense of the word.” He added: “The character is not only sweet and good, but has many traits also found in Pippi Longstocking.”
The show’s signature song became an evergreen hit after Czech tenor Karel Gott recorded it; Gott recalled he had no idea how popular the tune would become in Germany. Composer Karel Svoboda (1938–2007) wrote the music; Gott’s recording was made almost by chance after a brief studio session that reportedly took about half an hour.
Anniversary programming is already under way: ZDF and the children’s channel KiKA marked the 50th anniversary by returning the original episodes to free German television. From 28 August ZDFneo has been showing two episodes each weekday morning at 6:30, the first time the classic series has aired on free German TV in roughly 14 years; episodes run about 25 minutes and are then available on ZDF’s streaming platform.
There was also a modern, computer‑animated 3D Maja created between 2013 and 2017 with a new opening sung by Helene Fischer, but many fans still prefer the 1970s original. As Michael Stumpf, the current head of children’s and youth programming at ZDF, put it: “Maja’s world is colourful and diverse. Every character can be what they want to be. That is why the series remains topical today.”
Photo: термин во Мекленбург-Предна Померанија
