Trivia / FC De Kampioenen

• Actor Allusion
  • In one episode Carmen was jealous of Xavier, because he met another woman, played by Janine Bischops, who used to be Johny Voners (the actor who played Xavier)' real wife back then.
  • In the second movie DDT is mockingly called 'the man of one billion' by one of his fellow prisoners. 'The man of one billion' was the nickname that DDT's actor Jacques Vermeire was given in the press, because one billion Belgian francs was according to rumours the amount of money he was given for his move from the public to the commercial television channel in 1998. This move was also the reason behind the character's initial disappearance from the series.
• Adored by the Network: The overly frequent reruns of the series by the Belgian public network have almost gained a legendary status on its own. What really cements this is the fact that the series has been the only (fictional) series on the VRT (and later Eén) to get broadcasted at least once per week since it's conception (on saturday nights), which continued even after the show ended.
• The Danza: The extras playing the members of the soccer team that aren't part of the cast, are always referred by their real names.
• Defictionalization: The Boma Worst sausages from the series have made it as a real product in Belgium, although unlike the sausages from the series, the real ones are edible.
• Development Hell: The Movie was in this for many years, which even lead to the cancelling of the series as a whole. Two years after, the movie got finally Saved from Development Hell and three sequels were made.
• Fatal Method Acting: A luckily subverted example happened during the production of the series 15 episode "Boma's surprise". In the episode, in which the characters go on an adventure trip in the Ardennes, Marc and Doortje perform a kayak roll in a river. Although this stunt was actually done by experienced kayakers for a long shot, actors Herman Verbruggen and Ann Tuts had to perform the onset of the roll for a close-up. While doing this, their kayak really capsised and, worse, began to float away from the crew into the river. Ann Tuts managed to free herself from the kayak, but Herman Verbruggen was still stuck under the cayak. Luckily for him, the incident was noticed by the experienced kayakers, who were actually on their way to the parking lot next to the river at that point. They managed to free Verbruggen from the underneath the capsised kayak before he drowned.
• Missing Episode: A few episodes have been taken out of the frequent reruns of the series in recent years. It pertains to episodes that contain offensive content or guest appeareances from actors who have been convicted.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Herman Verbruggen, who plays Marc in the series, once played the role of Marc's twin brother Bart.
• Referenced by...: De Kiekeboes — a special comic strip in which Fanny interviews characters from other comic strips, Bij Fanny Op Schoot has her talking to Nero, Cordelia, Natacha, Suske en Wiske, Cowboy Henk, IJzerbroot and Olga Lawina, De Rode Ridder, FC De Kampioenen and Urbanus, among others.
• Real-Life Relative: In the movies Paulien, the daughter of Marc and Bieke, is played by the real daughter of Marc's actor Herman Verbruggen.
• Recast as a Regular: Both Jakob Beks (BTW) and Tuur De Weert (Maurice) had appeared in some guest role before they became regular cast members.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Pico was written out of the series after the fourth season, because his actor Walter Michiels suffered from alcohol abuse and he was fired because he became increasingly difficult to work with due to this. Michiels would later suffer from psychiatric problems and he would several times be convicted for criminal offences, including illegal drug trade. His personal problems endure to this day.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Ann Tuts (Doortje) and Walter Michiels (Pico) were, just like in the series, a couple in real life at the start from the series until they broke up after a few years.
  • Ann Swartenbroeckx (Bieke) developed a short-term relationship with Jacques Vermeire (DDT) on set for a short period, but they did broke up afterwards. Years later, Swartenbroeckx would meet her present partner Guido De Craene for the first time when the latter played a guest role as the master of ceremonies on Bieke's marriage.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: During the filming of the episode "De bende van Boma", in which the male characters go on a motorcycle trip, actor Herman Verbruggen (Marc) had troubles riding the motorcycle, so they wrote in a scene in which Marc has an accident so Verbruggen could spend the rest of the episode in Johny Voners's side-car.
• The Character Died with Him: In the 2020 Christmas special following the death of actor Johny Voners, Xavier was said to have perished during a humanitarian army mission in Ethiopia.
• Vindicated by Reruns: The almost legendary massive amount of reruns the series has undergone is probably one of the main reasons behind the fact that the franchise remains popular to this day and still manages to find new audiences, even when the production of new episodes has been stopped for almost a decade.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were plans to bring Oscar back in the final season for a guest appearance. In the end, they didn't go through with it. He did make his comeback in the second movie.
  • Jacques Vermeire was offered a part as DDT for the first movie, but he declined it because his role in the movie wouldn't have been more than a cameo. He did eventually show up in the second and subsequent movies, in which he got a substantially bigger role.
  • In the fall of 2019 it was announced that there were plans to produce a new season of the television series consisting of 8 episodes. Due to the death of Johny Voners (Xavier) in March 2020, the plans for the new episodes were scrapped in favor of a single Christmas special, which also functioned as a tribute to Voners, as well as a celebration of the series's 30th anniversary.

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