Princess Sissi (French: Princesse Sissi, Italian: La Principessa Sissi, also known as Saban's Sissi the Princess) is a children's animated series. It debuted on October 29, 1997 on France 3 and within the same time in Italy on Rai 1, and later premiered in Canada on Radio-Canada on September 5, 1998. A co-production between Saban International Paris, Animation Ciné-Groupe J.P. Inc., ARD Degeto, France 3 and RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana, the series is loosely based on the life of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, nicknamed "Sissi".
Contents
Story
A unique Bavarian girl, Sissi's, life changes forever after the day she meets the charming and noble princes, Franz and Karl. It doesn't take long until Sissi and Franz fall in love and start to make plans for a future together, but there are so many people trying to make sure that the magnificent wedding day is delayed and postponed several times. Sissi and Franz must face jealousy, deceit, treason, and danger between the fronts of Austria and Hungary.
Episodes
Production
Officially a France-Canada co-production (as stated in the closing credits), the writing for the series was primarily done in France, while producers from the United States and Italy also had input on the scripts. Having writing discussions among representatives of four countries often resulted in differing opinions, sometimes directly opposing one another. According to episode writer Claude Scasso: The episodes would have logically been written half in France and half in Canada but the fact is all the story and developments of the arches were made in France. And I was led to rewrite several times Canadian scenarios that were not up to the standard without getting credit for it.
Obviously, their authors were working too far away from our energy that was in perpetual motion; ideas did not circulate well.
The texts were reread and discussed not only in France and Canada but also by the Italian co-producers and the U.S. broadcaster. This often led to lots of contradictory remarks: the French commented more on the structure ... The Italians wanted romance to always be present, the Canadians were not involved much and the Americans were obsessed with anything that might offend the young audience ...
I remember one of my episodes that the Italians had found too violent and the Americans too romantic. I gathered that I didn't have to change anything, it was perfect.
While the story features many genuine historical figures, their roles were often changed and numerous plot points were invented for the series when the real story was found to be lacking adventure. Major events such as Sissi's trip to Paris, her father's exile, and even an imminent Austro-Hungarian war were added largely for this purpose. Scasso notes that the latter addition proved particularly fascinating and exciting to the American producers.
Release
Broadcast
The series aired on Fox Kids stations in Latin America and Europe. The series also rebroadcast on Jetix Play in the regions it broadcast in. The series was aired in the Philippines on GMA Network in 2000.
The series briefly aired in the United States on girlzChannel, and in Canada on Teletoon.
Home media
In France between 1997 and 1999, PolyGram Video (and later Universal Pictures Video) released five VHS volumes of the series, containing three episodes each.
In the United Kingdom, two volumes containing two episodes each, titled "Sissi in Possenhofen" and "Imperial Guests" were released on January 14, 2000 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
As with many other Saban Entertainment series, the only major English-language DVD release is by Czech distributor North Video, featuring both Czech and English audio and original video (with English-language text) in the original production order. All 52 episodes were released on 16 volumes, from June 4 to December 18, 2010.
