Vlaamse Filmpjes and its first postwar generation

Vlaamse Filmpjes, the modernisation of postwar period Vlaamse Filmkens, remains a much longer runner than its predecessor’s Francophone spinoff Presto Films.

It’s pretty telling when Presto Films’ sole major claim to fame is perhaps Jean Ray’s Hirro the Jungle Boy, which is basically a Tarzanesque shipwreck story cashing in on the Jungle Book expy trend. 

The first postwar period is known for tropical stories which not just have felt too colonialist even for the 1960s, but are often offensive to almost everyone involved except for grandparents who vote for hyper corrupt politicians regardless of any political wing. Nonetheless, there is a good reason why even it evolved positively from featuring such boring, stodgy colonialist stories into darker and edgier, also more mindful, weekly Shōnen Magazine style contemporary stories. But that was before the third period has now become a mild Shōnen Jump style Mecca for Flemish school stories and fantasies from the early 2000s onward. 

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