'Ludwig' is the soul of Beethoven, who takes the form of an ovoid crystalized jewel and who haunts a woodland glade where he plays his music on his violin and helps the wood's inhabitants, the birds and animals who reside there.
Actually that is my interpretation, because the truth is that the question remains: What is Ludwig?
In this series he is a crystalline egg that 'grows' arms and legs and plays the violin, and also in fact can grow just about anything from out of himself, including helicopter rotors!
A weird, bizarre, and delightfully surealistic series that I just love! Everything about it appeals to me, the strangeness and uniqueness of it, the woodland setting, the bird called Magpie who is nothing like a real magpie as he is bright blue! The oddness of the watcher in the woods, with the deerstalker hat, and permanantly observing Ludwig through a large pair of binoculars, and as he does so, he is telling us what Ludwig is doing. After he has asked the question, that is, seemingly of himself, of "What is Ludwig doing today?" or somesuch similarity of questioning, then proceeds to relate to us all that Ludwig is doing.
This is a series that probably wouldn't, or couldn't, be made today. Todays paranoid society with its culture of suspicion would most likely see the anonymous watcher in the woods with the binoculars as something to be feared and treated as highly suspect, and certainly not an image they would want propagated as being seen as 'innocent' in a children's TV series, as we all know that anyone who stands around in woods with binoculars observing anything at all, is really just a potential pervert out to prey on young children , who must always be suspicious and wary of anyone in a wood watching anything through binoculars! Today's audiences may well see the innocent narrator as the boogeyman. Such a shame if that really is the case, as facetiousness aside, it would not surprise me to find out is one of the motives behind not giving this wonderful series a new, bright, happy release onto the DVD market.
One can only speculate as to why superb series like this one, and the wonderful Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings are still to get the DVD releases they deserve. Anyway, this VFS tape is still worthwhile purchasing if you have access to a video player. The cover is so bright and cheerful too, that one hopes they would use this again for any DVD release of Ludwig.
So.... What is Ludwig? Nobody knows. Maybe he really is the soul of Beethoven.
Really though..... Ludwig is a real 'gem' (pardon the pun) long overdue for a DVD release.
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