Heul-TV

Or Cryin’-Time TV, if you prefer. Or how about it’s-time-for-those-particularly-crappy-end-of-the-year-flashback-shows TV? Anyways, I got really emotional watching this collection of “The 25 Most Emotional TV Moments of the Year” last night on RTL.

Cry

Then I got an upset stomach, a bad case of the hives and had to barf.

Natürlich durfte die Sequenz aus „Supertalent“ nicht fehlen, in der Dieter Bohlen überrascht seinen Entdecker Rainer Felsen als Kandidaten auf die Bühne gestellt bekommt.

Günter Wallraff Dresses Up As Günter Wallraff To Appear As Günter Wallraff On Günther Jauch

Günter Wallraff, disguised as the unspeakably annoying undercover reporter Günter Wallraff, appeared undercover last night on Günther Jauch to explain to Günther Jauch how he, as Günter Wallraff, just went undercover to uncover at Amazon ITSELF how Amazon is now single-handedly causing “our entire culture to atrophy” and how it is a “monster” that is using its “slave laborers” to bring “our entire society” in imminent danger (when he says “our” here, folks, he actually means “our” as in the “German our”).

Günter

Other than that though he appeared somewhat lucid at times, or at least until the end of the show when his hallucinations began to resurface again and he started foaming at the mouth once more and got in a few of his more predictable anti-American swipes but by that time it was time for me to go to bed and go undercover myself so I had no other choice but to shut his ridiculous ass down.

Günther Jauch stellt in seiner Talkshow den Boykott des Onlineversenders zur Debatte. Dabei fällt der Streit um unmögliche Arbeitsverhältnisse bei Amazon glatt in sich zusammen.

A Boy Named Sue

As in I’ll sue you! Geez. Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit is all touchy these days for some reason. The guy clearly can’t lighten up and take a joke. Not like in the good old Party Klaus days, I mean.

Olivia and Klaus

Now he’s even unleashed his lawyer after German transvestite Olivia Jones made a suggestive comment about him (Klaus) and her, I mean him (Olivia) on trash TV’s finest: Jungle Camp.

Wait a minute. Shouldn’t she ought to sue herself for suggesting that she had anything to do with Klaus Wowereit? I sure the hell would. Talk about defamation of character.

„Wowereit? Ist das nicht dein … dein … dein …“ „Ja – aber das war doch nur einmal!“

The Joys Of Aging

Helmut Berger starts out as Dorian Gray,

Dorian Gray

only to end up as Dorian Gray (the painting),

Helmut Berger

throwing in the sweat-drenched towel on day two of RTL’s Dschungelcamp (The Jungle Camp) in Australia.

“Das klingt jetzt blöd, aber ich bin auch nur’n Mensch.”

Grumbling German Jihadis Go Home

The German jihad just ain’t what it used to be.

A lot like those disgruntled Auswanderer (emigrant) types on Goodby Deutschland who invariably tuck in their tails and head back home in disgrace, hundreds of aspiring Islamic terrorists from Germany (and their families) have had it up to here already in Waziristan and are heading back to Deutschland in frustration and disgust.

It turns out that their living conditions in the mountains were tougher and less romantic than those portrayed in the promotional clips and what with the disease and the hardship and death always raining down from the sky from American drones and dozens of German combatants already dead, hey, not even going back to live in Germany seemed all that bad a prospect anymore.

What do you think? Which one of these guys is going to turn out to be the next Daniela Katzenberger?

“The first time I heard about going to Pakistan, my eyes almost popped out of my head. I didn’t even know if you could get Pampers there.”

Next Bestseller Guaranteed

It’s a popular Sunday night ritual here in Germany: After Tatort is over, most folks stay tuned in to watch Günther Jauch’s talk show.

And another popular ritual here is to make sure to be empört (outraged, highly indignant) whenever you hear the name Tilo Sarrazin. The reason? This guy has the gall to 1) revel in being politically incorrect by saying out loud what roughtly 80 to 90 percent of the rest of the German population really (if not secretly) thinks and to 2) openly and shamelessly captialize on this by writing lucrative bestsellers about these horrid and despicable views.

His first Tabubruch (taboo breaking): “Germany Is Doing Away With Itself,” a book advocating a more restrictive immigration policy and the reduction of state welfare benefits.

His next big bestseller (to be plugged tonight): “Europe Does Not Need The Euro,” a book, well, the title says it all, doesn’t it?

Needless to say, the politically correct political caste is up in arms about tonight’s show already and is calling for a boycott and whatever else they call for in a situation like this and, well, let’s face it. Once you mix popular rituals like these together, live and in color, as the Germans like to say, I am convinced we’ll be getting Fernsehen vom Feinsten (TV at its best) tonight. All for all the wrong reasons, of course, but still.

“Mit Sarrazin sollte sich niemand mehr in eine Talkshow setzen.”

I Thought He’d Never Leave

Contrary to popular belief, Germans have a great sense of humor. What they’re not terribly good at, however, is imitating other comedy formats, something they insist on doing time and time and time again. Harald Schmidt is a prime example of this and – glory hallelujah let the saints be praised – they’ve finally gotten around to cancelling his show for good.

He has been Germany’s late night Tonight-Show-David-Letterman-Conan-O’Brien-like clone for many, way too many years and I’ve never understood why people here pretend that he is funny, but, then again, maybe that’s just me (uh, who else is it going to be?).

I’d give you an example of some of his highbrow, sophisticated humor (see above), but that would only make me feel more aggressive than I do already so go out there and dig up something on YouTube yourself if you absolutely positively have to and good luck with the translation because it won’t be worth it.

Geh mit Gott, Harald, aber geh.