Overview

Het is weer zo laat!, also known as Waldolala, is a Dutch television show from 1974, written and directed by Wim T. Schippers and co-produced by Schippers, Gied Jaspars, Wim van der Linden en Ellen Jens. It was the last TV show written for Dolf Brouwers, who had played the character Sjef van Oekel in previous shows. The show ran for ten episodes, and featured Brouwers as Waldo van Dungen, formerly a waiter at the night club Waldolala, who had acquired the club after a rich woman fell in love with him and bought the place for him. The show featured other characters from the previous shows Schippers had done for the VPRO, and shared many other characteristics—nudity, vulgarity, linguistic games. The plot line and individual scenes were typically chaotic; in the end, van Dungen dies and it is revealed that the entire series of events was a kind of flashback told by van Dungen's psychiatrist. The show's alternate name, Waldolala, was explained by Waldo van Dungen as a combination between his first name and the phrase "Oh-la-la". It was also part of the title of the theme song, a "megahit" for the girls group Luv', a group formed by producer Hans van Hemert, who had been commissioned to write the show's theme song. Luv' had had two modestly successful singles with ABBA-esque songs, but van Hemert wanted to try a different style of music; Schippers and Jaspars pushed him, and van Hemert agreed to have Luv' sing the tune. They performed "U.O.Me" on the show, and the song became a hit--in hindsight, van Hemert credited the VPRO with the band's commercial success.