Today's good deed in the name of the Rangerdom:
So there's this German podcast,
TV-Serien Stars. It's about TV series. Yeah, the website is out of date,
the Podigee listing is up-to-date, though. It's currently on hiatus because one of the hosts had to undergo medical treatment.
But they've started talking about animated series amongst live-action shows. The last two were the first two big Disney animated series and the first two Disney animated series available in Germany,
Gummi Bears and
DuckTales, in chronological order even. Logically, if they continue, and if they continue with animated shows,
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers will be the subject of one of the next episodes.
That's where I had to step in. I became a Rangerphile in January of 1991 when the show started in Germany. More importantly, I discovered the fandom in late 2005 and joined it the night between February 28th and March 1st, 2006 (hence Midnight Man). Soon after, I became a historian and archiver in this fandom that's very aware of its own history and the history of
CDRR itself.
Now, hardly any fandom is so well hidden as the Rangerdom. I guess none of those who went to watch the
CDRR movie know that the show it's based on has ever had a fandom, much less that it still has one. Same goes for most of those who publish
CDRR fan art (especially Gadget smut) online.
For those who have ever heard of a
CDRR fandom, they perceive it as nothing but
- either furry porn addicts, based on a Google image search with safe search off
- or crazy Russians who worship Gadget as a deity
- or ultra-conservative, fanatically religious and staunchly homophobic, based on two minutes on the off-topic board of the Acorn Café which has always been hiding from search engines
Now, this goes for English-speaking people. But
CDRR has never had a German-speaking fandom, especially not one on the same level as the English-speaking fandom.
So if you do your research about
CDRR in English, chances are much higher that you'll dig up a whole lot of nonsense than that you find actually informative stuff. If you do your research in German, you won't even find the nonsense, and you may have to go by distant childhood memories, assumptions and Wikipedia as your only sources of information. And in the case of
CDRR, those "distant childhood memories" often don't go beyond the theme song, a few character names and maybe having a rough estimation which one is Chip and which one is Dale, but they won't include a single moment from an actual episode, even though the last time the show ran on German free TV isn't as long ago as the last time it ran on North American free TV (June, 2006 as opposed to September, 1993).
It was kind of my duty to offer myself and my "expertise" as a fandom veteran and historian to the podcasters.
#
CDRR #
ChipNDaleRescueRangers #
RescueRangers #
Rangerdom #
Fandom #
Podcast
