Die Wilden Kerle

Die Wilden Kerle (lit: "the wild guys") are a German movie series (based on the children's book series Die Wilden Fussball Kerle, which became The Wild Soccer Bunch in the Cultural Translation in America) from The Noughties about a team of boys (and Vanessa) who like to play football (soccer, for Americans).

There are no less than five movies about them:

1. "Alles ist gut, solange du wild bist!": The team has a problem: A bunch of older bullies, lead by "fat Micky", have occupied the place where they use to play football. A match (naturally) shall decide who gets the right for the place. Fortunately, former football pro Willi is there to train the boys.
2. They need money for an upgrade of their sports field for a match vs. the national team, and Vanessa has fallen in love with the cool skater boy Gonzo and is missing for an important match.
3. "Die Attacke der Biestigen Biester": The bunch is challenged for the title of "wildest team in the world" - by an all-girls team, of all things.
4. "Der Angriff der Silberlichten": The team has to do a freestyle soccer contest against the "wolves of Ragnarök". Then, the "Silberlichten" team lead by the girl Horizon appears. And she tries to seduce the boys...
5. "Hinter dem Horizont": After Leon has disappeared, the team looks for him and crosses the borders of reality, it seems. They discover a castle inhabited by vampires, who challenge them to a "Soccer 3D" match.

Especially the later movies weren't exactly liked by the critics, but they still were commercially successful.

Tropes used in Die Wilden Kerle include:

• The Alcoholic: Willi has a problem.
• Broken Pedestal: Willi in the first movie, when they learn (from fat Micky, of all people) that Willi wasn't a pro as he claimed.
• But Not Too Foreign: Rocce, the half-Brazilian
• Catch Phrase: "Alles ist gut, solange du wild bist!" (Everything's cool, as long as you're wild!)
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Willi disappeared after the first movie. Other members of the team were Put on a Bus. Sometimes, The Bus Came Back.
• Cool Bike: For a gag, in the bike scenes they added sound effects of motorbikes. And in #4, they get real bikes.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: When Leon disappears in #5, Raban and Joschka get the idea that he was abducted by vampires.
• A Day in the Limelight: Each and everyone of the "Wilden Kerle" has their own book.
• Defeat Means Friendship
• Department of Redundancy Department: Unbesiegbare Sieger, Biestige Biester (two of their opponents)
• Distaff Counterpart: Die biestigen Biester
• Early Installment Weirdness: Inverted. The first movies were about mundane topics, but in the latter they had to play against vampires. ???
• Earth Drift
• Face Heel Turn / Heel Face Turn: Several members have left the "Wilden Kerle" for the one or other reason, and sometimes even joined other teams, but returned later. More common in the movies.
• Fat Bastard: Der dicke Michi (fat Micky)
• Film of the Book: Five of them.
• Free-Range Children: A very Egregious case. Im the fifth movie, they look for Leon who has disappeared. The search takes ten months! Do they still have parents??
• Gadgeteer Genius: Hadschi, "Düsentrieb" in #5 for the vampires.
• Genre Shift: The first movie was a quite conventional kids' sports movie. Later movies added romance (appropriate since the boys grew up), adventure (OK, I guess) and fantasy / horror (???).
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Justified, you need eleven people for a real football team. Many of those (at least of our heroes) get A Day in the Limelight.
• Love Interest: Gonzo for Vanessa in the 2nd, Horizon in the 4th movie.
• The Merch: Including stuff you "need" if you want to found an official "Wilde Kerle" team in Real Life.
• Nerd Glasses: Raban
• Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: All of them, except #2.
• One Steve Limit: However, in another way broken - until the books came out, "Joschka" pretty much referred to politician Joschka Fischer.
• Our Vampires Are Different: In #5. They like to play what you may call 3D soccer.
• Putting the Band Back Together: In #3.
• The Quiet One: Maxi, who never speaks
• Repetitive Name: Hadschi ben Hadschi ben Hadschi ben Hadschi. (Shout-Out to Karl May.)
• The Series: Animated, will come to your TV in 2012.
• Shout-Out: Two vampires are named "Jekyll" and "Hyde".
• The Smurfette Principle: Vanessa.
  • Inverted with their opponent team "Die biestigen Biester" - all females
• Team Pet: The dog Socke.
• Token Minority: Deniz, the Turk
• Tomboy: Vanessa, natch. She wants to become the first woman in the (men's!) national team.
• Unfortunate Names: "Die biestigen Biester" can mean "the beastly beasts" or even "the bitchy bitches".
• Write What You Know: Author / director Joachim Masannek trained a boys' soccer team.
• Write Who You Know: Two main characters are named Leon and Marlon, like the sons of the author.