Sams in Gefahr (2003)

The film is about Martin Taschenbier, the son of Margarete and Bruno Taschenbier, the school’s technical director. On Martin’s eleventh birthday, none of his classmates comes to his party because he has no friends at school. Then his father, Bruno Taschenbier, remembers the “Sams-Rückhol-Tropfen” (Sams-return drops, or S.R.T.), which the Sams left him ten years earlier when it disappeared. The drops can bring the Sams back. They also give the Sams new wish points if it is already there. Margarete wants the Sams to lose all its wish points, and Bruno tries to wish them all away with pointless wishes. But when Martin drinks the S.R.T., the Sams gets new points. After some initial difficulties, Martin and the Sams get along very well. Then Fitzgerald Daume, the school’s nasty PE teacher, realizes that something strange is going on in his class. He decides to spy on Martin and discovers the Sams, which he kidnaps and takes home so it can grant his wishes. However, this repeatedly causes side effects. Since Mr. Daume is not a Taschenbier, each of his wishes brings about another unpredictable event, such as a goat in the room, a tree in the house, or an elephant in the gym. When Martin and Bruno Taschenbier realize that the Sams is in Daume’s hands, they set out to rescue it. PE teacher Daume is determined to become the school principal—the first PE teacher since the nineteenth century to also be a principal (following one in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan). Fitzgerald also wants to become chairman of the roller-skating club to impress the math teacher, Mrs. Müller-Klessheim. Before the vote, he wishes for his name to appear on all the ballots cast by the seven board members, but the Sams has only one wish point left, which can change just one ballot. So Bruno Taschenbier’s friend Anton Mon is ultimately elected to the board. Before this, Mr. Daume has locked the Sams in the gym, which Martin happens to discover. He tries to free it, but Fitzgerald Daume catches him. The two tell the PE teacher that, at midnight on a Saturday during a full moon, he should climb onto the roof with the Sams and say “Gatsmas” (“Saturday” spoken backwards); then the Sams will get new wish points. In fact, whoever says “Gatsmas” gets the wish points, so Mr. Daume gets the points on his face, while the Sams and Martin can wish for anything they want. The film ends with Mr. Daume sitting on the school roof, all the students laughing at him, Martin finally free of his harassment, and the Sams free again.