KippaWim de Bie in 2005
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 12:10
Petra Steenhoff
editor online
Petra Steenhoff
editor online
Wim de Bie, together with Kees van Kooten, can be regarded as the patriarch of contemporary satire on television. For decades, the duo provided weekly commentary on current affairs in programs such as the Simplisties Verbond, Koot en Bie and Keek op de Week. Many of their language discoveries and characters live on.
The duo enriched the Dutch language with words such as ‘rule nephew’ and ‘doomsaying’ and expressions such as ‘moses tickle’, ‘keep her out, Cock’ and ‘stepped on their cock’. Among the many well-known characters played by Wim de Bie are the shy Meneer Foppe, herbalist Berendien uut Wisp, the former German teacher Otto den Beste and mayor Van der Vaart van Juinen.
A look back at De Bie’s versatile oeuvre:
Wim de Bie (1939 – 2023) passed away
Wim de Bie, born in 1939, grew up in a creative family in The Hague. His father writes humorous stories in his spare time and his mother is a good singer and plays the piano.
He meets Kees van Kooten at the Dalton Lyceum in The Hague. Together they set up the cabaret group Cebrah, which continues to exist after high school. They also fill the school newspaper.
After military service he will study Dutch because he wants to become a teacher. When he sees an advertisement for training as a radio cabaret artist, however, he applies for it and drops out of his studies. In 1963 he gets his diploma and can start working for the youth program Multiplex on the radio.
Billiards game
Soon school friend Kees van Kooten also joins the program, which has been renamed Uitlaat. This is where the Klisjeemannetjes originate: two Hagenes who have conversations in clichés during a game of billiards. Through a performance in the popular TV program Mies en scene, the Klisjeemannetjes penetrate television and from 1965 they can be seen regularly in Hadimassa and Het gat van Nederland.
In 1972, Van Kooten and De Bie founded the Simplisties Association, which strives for more simplicity in society. A carpet beater is used as a logo: anyone who sins against simplism is symbolically slapped with it.
They get airtime on VPRO television on Sunday evenings. The first characters also make their entrance in this program, such as Cor van der Laak (Kees van Kooten) and Meneer Foppe (Wim de Bie).
With their current TV satire they create a whole new television format. In 1974 the duo received a Silver Nipkow Disc for their share in Het Gat van Nederland and three years later they were the first in history to receive this award for the second time for Het Simplistics Verbond. In addition, in 1985, the Honorary Silver Nipkow Disc was created especially for them.
‘No bullshit, everyone rich’
After five seasons, the Simplisties Association fades more into the background in new programs. There is a major role for the ‘free boys’ Jacobse and Van Es (De Bie). They are the founders of the Counterparty, a fictional political party for “all Dutch people who no longer know against the Netherlands”.
The Counterparty is becoming so popular that the chance of winning parliamentary seats in the 1981 elections is real. That is why De Bie and Van Kooten decide to ‘kill’ Jacobse and Van Es just before the elections. Later they would often regret this, they confess in 2012 in Vrij Nederland.
“We could have used the gentlemen well,” says De Bie. “They were far ahead of their time, De Opponent’s slogan ‘no bullshit, everyone rich’, was only later widely followed. Sometimes we let them turn up: during the Falklands War they were arms dealers, in New Zealand we found them on a country road with a sex shop. And they held a car race at the Binnenhof. Wrong of course, dead is dead.”
The image that I guard the big line and Kees dribbles around it is not correct.
Wim de Bie in Vrij Nederland (2012)
The success continued in 1988 with Keek op de Week. A weekly program on Sunday evening, immediately after the NOS Journaal, in which current affairs are made fun of through sketches with characters.
Well-known types of Wim de Bie in that program are Frank van Putten (“but I don’t have a nice bitch of a girl and I was treated for that”), hermit Walter de Rochebrune, and the alcoholic drifter Dirk who always wants to drink a beer with Van Kooten, but De Bie doesn’t like it at all.
Keek op de Week is seen as the creative highlight of Van Kooten and De Bie’s television work and will be broadcast until 1993.
After Keek op de Week follow Krasse Knarren, In bed with Van Kooten and De Bie, Lid van de Desk and again Van Kooten and De Bie. In all programs that the duo makes, De Bie always plays the more political and moralistic half of the duo. But he certainly wasn’t, he says in Vrij Nederland.
“It was a matter of division of roles in front of the camera, behind the scenes we thought the same thing. That I would guard the big line and that Kees would dribble around it, that image has sometimes been forced on us, but it is not correct.”
“To this day I am cast on it, I supposedly know it so well. So I am asked to give lectures and to examine Dutch society in essays. So I cannot do that at all.”
In 1998, Kees van Kooten calls it a day and their collaboration comes to an end. De Bie continues to make television with programs such as De bunker van De Bie, Nachtcrème and De Bühne van De Bie.
In addition to his television work, De Bie is also active as a writer and singer. He releases four solo albums. Of the nine books he writes, five are about his most famous character, mister Foppe. He received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize for his short story collection Schoftentuig.
Together with Van Kooten, De Bie has also been making the Tear Calendar for years, with a joke, pun, contemplation or photo every day. The calendar appears between 1972 and 1987. Then the ideas run out.
In 2002, De Bie was one of the first to start his own weblog under the name Bieslog. In it he comments on the news, posts photos and makes films in which the old ‘Koot en Bie atmosphere’ can clearly be recognized.
“That was a revelation,” he said in an interview with Marketing Facts in 2015. “That led to euphoria for me that lasted for years. If it was a party with Kees to make something, this was an afterparty. I didn’t have to not to hold me to anything anymore. It didn’t have to be satirical, but it was allowed and it could be about anything, even autobiographical.”
I’ve often played a professor, doctor, engineer or professor doctor engineer, but now I’m really going to be a professor.
Wim de Bie in response to his appointment as Professor of Satire
The role of professor of satire at Tilburg University also suits him. “I’ve often played a professor, doctor, engineer or professor doctor engineer, but now I’m really going to be a professor.”
Although De Bie remained active online with the management of the Koot en Bie YouTube channel and commented on the news via Twitter, things have become quieter around De Bie in recent times. In an obituary, the VPRO reports that De Bie has suffered from health problems in recent years. “But his death still came as a huge shock to the VPRO.”
Watch a full episode of Keek op de Week below, the program that is seen as the creative highlight of Van Kooten and De Bie.
