Spatz

Spatz is a children's comedy series that ran on CITV during the 1990s, produced by Thames Television and created by Andrew Bethell. The show originally ran from 21 February 1990 to 10 April 1992. The show centred on a fast food restaurant situated in a fictional shopping mall in Cricklewood, London. It was operated by two Canadians, Karen Hansson (Jennifer Calvert), Spatz International's European Co-ordinator, and Thomas "TJ" Strickland (Paul Michael), the restaurant's manager. Vas Blackwood, Stephanie Charles, Jonathan Copestake, Sue Devaney, Joe Greco, Katy Murphy and Ling Tai appeared as Spatz restaurant employees. Guest stars included David Harewood, Rhys Ifans, Gary Lineker, Danny John-Jules and Nicholas Parsons.

History

Spatz was devised by Andrew Bethell as a drama for teenagers set in a 1930s themed burger bar, so named because spats might have been worn there. Alan Horrox at Thames Television bought the concept and title and passed them to Grant Cathro and Lee Pressman, already established at Thames Television as the writers of T-Bag and creators of Mike and Angelo, to develop Spatz as a sitcom. While updating the setting to a standard fast food restaurant, the name Spatz was retained, with the writers noting that it suggested spats or disagreements.

Spatz (disambiguation)

Spatz was an ITV children's television programme.

Spatz may also refer to:

People with the surname

See also

Spatz (automobile)

The Spatz (German for sparrow), later renamed the Victoria 250, is a four-wheeled microcar that was built between 1956 and 1958.

The car was originally conceived by Egon Brütsch as the Brütsch 200 "Spatz" a Fiberglass three-wheeler with the suspension of the front wheels and the rear wheel attached directly to the body shell. As such the car proved engineeringly unsound and trial runs on rough roads led to severe cracks in the bodywork.

Harald Friedrich, managing partner of Alzmetall P. Meier & Friedrich GmbH in Altenmarkt an der Alz, acquired the license from Brütsch to build the "Spatz" (German for sparrow) and in July 1956 with the Victoria works as a partner, founded the Bayerische Autowerke GmbH (BAG).

Because of the deficiencies in the original design, Frederick asked the then 77-year-old Hans Ledwinka, the former Tatra engineer, to design a robust chassis for the car. The result was a central tube frame and four wheels – in contrast to the original three-wheeled Brütsch. Frederick then saw himself no longer obligated to pay royalties to Brütsch, which led to a court case, which Frederick won. The judges recognising that the original Brütsch construction was both useless and dangerous.