Gert K. Müntefering dominated children’s television in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and 1960s like no other; he has even changed it and left his marks to this day. He was born in 1935 in Westphalia and started a successful career in the print media. He was officially responsible for the children’s and family programme of Westdeutscher Rundfunk from 1963 to 1999. “On the side “, he was a lateral and forward thinker, bubbling over with ideas and an inexhaustible source of characters, concepts and formats. He had to clear the way for toddler television – a matter of course in other countries – like the prince once had to beat his way through the hedge of thorns in Sleeping Beauty. Early on he showed an uncanny ability to banish boredom, bring magic shine into the dreary everyday life and attract both adults and children to the TV screen. At a time when many federal citizens were still sceptical towards the East, Müntefering travelled right into the Prague Spring and brought back “Pan Tau” and the “Little Mole”. Later, “Lucy the Menace of the Street” and “Arabela” followed in the series of co-productions. With the “Laughing and Learning Stories”, the “Programme with the Mouse”, which he developed together with Siegfried Mohrhof, Monika Paetow, Armin Maiwald and Friedrich Streich in the early 1970s, he probably scored the biggest “coup” of his career. He still spent nearly a decade of professional life in the increasingly integrated reunited Germany, time enough to throw himself into the breach for the foundation of a public children’s television channel, to contribute to the invention of the successful children’s and youth series “Castle Einstein” and to create an efficient central German production site for animated films: the company MotionWorks in Halle (Saale). Today he is a pensioner officially and – “on the side”, he is a lateral and forward thinker, bubbling over with ideas and an inexhaustible source of characters, concepts and formats ...