De Fabeltjeskrant episodes restored with AI for YouTube release

The classic Dutch children's series ‘De Fabeltjeskrant’ is being released on YouTube, with all 1,600 original episodes undergoing digital restoration. To make the archive suitable for modern screens, the team is utilizing AI upscaling to improve resolution, color reproduction, and sound quality while preserving the original voices and characters.

The project is a collaboration between producer Robin de Levita, the marketing company Monks, and YouTuber Jordi van den Bussche, known as Kwebbelkop. The restoration process involved digitizing the archives from Beeld & Geluid. The first ten episodes are currently available, with one new episode being released daily until the entire collection is online.

Originally broadcast between 1968 and 1989, the series was once watched by one to two million people daily and was aired in approximately forty countries. In addition to the digital release of the classic episodes, a new animation series based on the original universe is currently in development.