| Native Name: | KiKANiNCHEN |
| Genre: | Entertainment |
| Teleplay: | --> |
| Screenplay: | --> |
| Voices: | Maximiliane Häcke (Kikaninchen) |
| Country: | Germany |
| Language: | German |
| Num Series: | --> |
| Num Seasons: | --> |
| Runtime: | ~3 minutes |
| Company: | Studio.TV.Film / KiKa |
| Budget: | €18,600 per 3 minute sequence[1] |
| Network: | KiKa |
| First Aired: | . |
| First Aired: | --> |
| Last Aired: | present |
Kikaninchen (Original: KiKANiNCHEN) is a German TV show broadcast on KiKa. The show is targeted toward children between three and six years of age.[2]
The show is named after its main character, the Kikaninchen, a 3D model of a blue bunny that can talk, voiced by Maximiliane Häcke.[3] The name is a play on words using name of the TV network, Kika, and the German word for bunny, Kaninchen. Since the creation of the show, Kikaninchen has been hosted by Christian, played by Christian Bahrmann.[4] [5] Since 2012, the character Jule has been played by Julia Becker[6] [7] with Anni, voiced by Stefanie Bock, joining as a co-host in 2014.[8] [9]
KiKa has broadcast the show weekly from Monday to Friday, since 5 October 2009. Originally, the show ran from 6:50 a.m. and 10:25 a.m., however, starting 6 October 2014, it was televised from 6:10 a.m. On 5 February 2018 the show moved its segment Vorschulstrecke 10 minutes forward and has since broadcast from 6.00 a.m. to 10.15 a.m. In this segment, the Kikaninchen guides the audience through different pre-school programs, including children’s series like Au Schwarte!, Die Sendung mit dem Elefanten (The Program with the Elephant) and Kleine Prinzessin (Little Princess). Sequences with the Kikaninchen are between one and three minutes long. These sequences cost €18,600 on average.
Kikaninchen is produced by Studio.TV.Film GmbH in collaboration with KiKA and represents a combination of Computer-generated imagery, real film sequences and animation. Patrick Schlosser, Ute Hilgefort and Manuela Stacke direct the television show, while Katrin Grondahl and Helga Löbel produce it.[10] The voice actor for the role of Kikaninchen is Maximiliane Häcke.[11] Since 7 November 2022, the stories have been taking place in a three-dimensional setting.[12] In this process, the Kikaninchen figure is not added later, but instead embodied by the actress Naemi Simon using motion capture.[13] [14]
The Kikaninchen is also present in mascot form, alongside other beloved KiKa mascots,[15] at children's events.[16] [17]
A webpage targeted towards preschool age children was created.[18] [19] [20] The approval of this format by the MDR-Funkrat (Mittel-deutscher Rundfunk, the internal body in charge of creating programs for the television and radio as well as web pages) lead to disagreements within RTL, since the webpage represents a competition for the lucrative TOGGOLINO-CLUB by Super RTL. [21]
The webpage contains every TV show broadcast on Kikaninchen. Coloring pages and games are offered along with each of them. Additionally, the webpage provides videos of the Kikaninchen, his friend Christian and of some other shows. Episodes in regional languages are also available on the internet site.[22] [23]
A Kikaninchen app for Android and IOS has been available since 6 December 2017. 2023 also saw the launch of the Kikaninchen YouTube channel.[24]