Buiten De Zone
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| Buiten De Zone | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Sketch show, satire, teen sitcom |
| Created by | Bart De Pauw |
| Directed by | Luc Coghe |
| Opening theme | "The Mighty Ship" (The Housemartins) |
| Ending theme | "Kicking J.T.'s Butt" (Randy Edelman, lifted from the soundtrack of My Cousin Vinny (1992)) |
| Country of origin | Belgium |
| Original language | Dutch |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Wim Vanseveren |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | VRT |
| Release | 28 January 1994 – 5 April 1996 |
Buiten De Zone (English translation: Outside The Zone) was a 1994–1996 Flemish humoristic-satirical TV series aimed at a teenage demographic. It was a combination of a sitcom and a sketch show and was broadcast on the Flemish public TV channel TV1. It gained a cult status[1] and has been rerun several times since. The show was furthermore important for launching the notability of TV host Bart De Pauw, who both co-wrote and acted in the series.
Buiten De Zone is set at a call center named De Jongerenfoon (The Young Adult Phone), where five young adults have to take calls to help out teenagers and tweens with questions and problems. Three of them are men, Raf Willems, Ubi Stevens and Robin Laureys and two are women, Merel Van Outrive and Roxanne Seynaeve. Since the quintet are still very young themselves they are generally bored with taking the calls, particularly since the few people who phone them just make prank calls.[2] Most of the time they either just talk with one another, practice hobbies or daydream. These daydreams are used as cut-aways to absurd comedic sketches.[3]
The series ran for two seasons, the first one broadcast in 1994, the other in 1996. Each episode is built around a thematic concept. Much of the comedy was subversive and dealt with anarchic jokes about religion, education, teenage life and sex, along with historic-cultural references. The show also had a wide variety of running gags and catch phrases.
Cast
The show was the brainchild of Bart De Pauw, Danny Timmermans, Pietje Horsten, Ief Stuyvaert, and Tom Lenaerts, who all co-wrote each episode.[4]
- Bart De Pauw - Raf Willems
- Mathias Sercu - Ubi Stevens
- Danny Timmermans - Robin Laureys
- Reinhilde Van Driel - Merel Van Outrive
- Elise Bundervoet - Roxanne Seynaeve
Various celebrity TV actors also had cameos in the series.