his Nordic barbarian audience. Gilby, the strongest boy in Flake and Vicky's ambitious prime rival in his age, though a terrible rascal and intellectually clearly Vicky's inferior. Ylvie (a.k.a. "Ticky" in the U.K. version), a young girl in Flake who is Vicky's neighbour and most ardent supporter. In the German movie adaptation this adoration is portrayed as a childhood crush. Sven the Terrible, a vicious Viking pirate captain, who does not hesitate robbing even his fellow Vikings of their hard-earned plunder. Pokka, Sven's devious second-in-command. Production The script was developed from the children's book Vicke Viking (1963) written by the Swedish author Runer Jonsson, who won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Children's Book Award) for it in 1965. The Japanese animation studio Zuiyo Enterprise Company (from which Nippon Animation was formed) adapted the original version (1972–1974) and developed from it an 85-minute-long movie (original title: Chiisana Baikingu Bikke) as well as the series with 78 episodes, each 25 minutes long. The animation of the first episodes was commissioned by Zuiyo Eizo to Mushi Production, directed by Chikao Katsui. Following the failure of the latter, Zuiyo Eizo continued the production of the series alone hiring director Hiroshi Saitô. Later Zuiyo Eizo will split into Zuiyo Co., and Nippon Animation which will complete the rest of the episodes with director Kōzō Kusuba, while Zuiyo will maintain the rights to the series (copyright has been registered in 1972). The series' Japanese roots are clearly visible in its styling and character design - this led to the series being the first unwitting brush with Japanese animation for those who would become anime fans later in life. Responsible for the German dubbing was Eberhard Storeck, who spoke as one of the characters (Snorre) himself. The music in the German version was composed by Christian Bruhn and Karel Svoboda. The text of the title song (Hey, hey, Wickie! Hey, Wickie, hey! ...) was written by Andrea Wagner. The German version also features new brief portions of animation. The English dubbing was largely poor, with characters talking endlessly to fit the lip movements of the characters, not pausing for a breath or using verbal punctuation. In the years that followed this was not uncommon for some voice actors who dubbed Japanese-produced series, up to the 1990s' anime boom in the West. The series was produced for the German TV network ZDF and Austrian TV network ORF. In the