Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein is a TV adaption of a novel of the same name by Austrian author Johannes Mario Simmel. Directed by Thomas Engel Siegfried Rauch walks in the footsteps of O. W. Fischer who played the protagonist "Thomas Lieven" already in 1961, just one year after the bestseller had been released. The series is unique for providing a little cooking show at the end of each episode. The book also includes recipes because "Thomas Lieven" is an accomplished amateur cook.
Silas was a 1981 ZDF Adventure TV mini-series based on the Danish children's book „Silas og den sorte hoppe“ by Cecil Bødker who kept on writing instalments until 2001.
The series was Patrick Bach's debut and because the series did so well he also starred the very next year in another adventure series about a young orphan: Jack Holborn
Silas was a German production and filmed solely in German. Still it received attention beyond German-speaking countries and consequently the successor Jack Holborn involved international producers and was filmed in English.