The Mainzelmännchen are Western Animation from Germany. They have appeared on ZDF (see German TV Stations) between commercials since 1963.
Their name is a punny contraction of the city of Mainz, location of ZDF's headquarters, with Heinzelmännchen, helpful gnomes or brownies from a popular Cologne folk legend.
Since 2003, they also have their own series with 5-minute episodes, called Die Mainzels.
Examples:
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Only in The Series, two girls of the same species appeared.
- Filler: About as much as one can expect of commercial cartoons. Most of the time, they are not even witty or even that interesting, yet obscure, colourful and bouncy, just to keep some sort of attention.
- Super-Deformed: All the time.
- Theme Naming: Anton, Berti, Conny, Det, Edi, Fritzchen.
- The Series: They were so popular that they got their own series, The Mainzels.
- The Smart Guy: Det. With glasses, of course.
- The Speechless: All of them, mostly. (Not in The Series.)
- The Unintelligible: All of them, on the few occasions they say something.
