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Has a laugh: Jan Böhmermann
Photo: MORRIS MAC MATZEN / REUTERS
Germany's top TV provocateur is walking on mined paths again: In the annual review of his late-night satire "ZDF Magazin Royale", Jan Böhmermann had a children's choir sing satirical about the corona crisis on Saturday night.
The year started with the WDR children's choir, said Böhmermann.
"And we thought that, so that the curse of 2020 could be broken, we would end the year the way it started - with the WDR Children's Choir." May the next year be better.
As a reminder: Shortly after Christmas 2019, the children of the WDR Children's Choir in Dortmund sang a mocking, but ultimately quite harmless text about climate sins of the older generation to the tried and tested melody of "My grandma drives a motorcycle in the chicken coop" in a video published on the website of the radio station WDR2 .
Because grandma was called an "environmental pig" in it, a scandal followed, which was gratefully fueled by a shit storm orchestrated by the right on the Internet.
It all turned into bitter real satire when, after death threats against WDR employees, Artistic Director Tom Buhrow apologized publicly for the alleged misstep.
Shortly afterwards it became clear that the condemned ditty had already been published in early November 2019 on the WDR5 show "Satire Deluxe" - without any outraged outcry.
"Pandemic over and grandma too!"
But nothing is as reliable as repeating a scandal-proven concept.
Now Jan Böhmermann has taken up the scandal again: After a musical intro with “Last Christmas” by Wham!
raised an alleged WDR children's choir to the famous grandma song.
But this time it wasn't about pointing out climate sins.
Böhmermann had the children sing about a grandmother who doesn't believe in Corona, who celebrates après-ski in Ischgl, doesn't feel like social distancing, storms the Reichtag in black-white-red, coughs in resistance - and in the end, of course, respirates with an air hose the intensive care unit dies, as Böhmermann himself sings tenor-like in the final verse: "Pandemic over and grandma too!"
As expected, the reactions followed reflexively.
Incredibly tasteless, it was said quickly on the net.
Others assumed Böhmermann because of the pleasing number of genius: Ring free for the second round, the calculated mine has ignited.
Michael Kokott, director of the children's choir "Lucky Kids", is now feeling this too.
The choir belongs to the municipal Rheinische Musikschule and has already appeared several times in Böhmermann's broadcasts.
When the Lucky Kids were asked again for this project, he happily agreed, Kokott told the dpa news agency.
Since then, he has not spoken out to the media - a Facebook entry promoting the children's performance has now been deleted from the choir's website.
Meanwhile, the culture war is raging again on Twitter: Some applaud, others feel discriminated as »Covidiotes« - just as Böhmermann probably programmed in his program.
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pat / dpa
