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Sebastian Pufpaff in the ProSieben studio: May the gods of the telly still be with him soon
Photo: Willi Weber / ProSieben
The television gods are against us. They have overridden the healing power of time, our remote controls have put a curse on them. You can try deliberately not to tune in to a show on a certain station at a certain time - it will be knocked out of your mind at another time on another station. The divine anger that makes us all stew in a hellfire of ever-recurring television images has never been more evident than in the new edition of »TV Total«.
On Wednesday the show from the nineties and noughties, once moderated by Stefan Raab, returned, and with the new presenter Sebastian Pufpaff it felt as if we were still living in the nineties or noughties. That also had to do with the fact that a considerable part of the program was filled with jokes about the return of »Wetten, dass ..?« On ZDF. “Wetten, dass ..?” Also came back to the screen from the nineties and noughties, and everything on the ZDF program also felt as if we were still living in the nineties or noughties.
Anyone who deliberately did not watch the ZDF retrosause with Thomas Gottschalk was unintentionally ripped off at the ProSieben retrosause with Sebastian Pufpaff. Like his predecessor Raab, Pufpaff stormed down the same (replicated) show stairs and past the same (preserved) show band to crack the same (obvious) jokes about "Wetten, dass ..?" As his predecessor did would have torn. Caught in the time warp.
For ten minutes, Pufpaff gave a lecture with many small players about the many elderly guests at the competition event as well as their critical health and clothing style.
Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus from Abba?
"Which station mission do the two Zausel come from!" Udo Lindenberg's celebrated appearance?
"You get applause for being able to stand!"
Oh dear, the nipple board
But those who operate with gadgets and gags that have rusted since their introduction in the nineties shouldn't complain about the aging of others.
Because in the middle of the show, Pufpaff solemnly unveiled the so-called nipple board set into the moderation table, which Raab had once fiddled with.
This is a keyboard with red buttons that the moderator presses to hear particularly revealing snippets from other programs.
At the premiere of the new edition, »TV Total?« Was adolescent and parasitic as ever: you filled your own program with the - ho ho ho - embarrassments of others.
Whereby Pufpaff got better the less adolescent he was.
Means: If he showed the failure of the others and also flashed a certain media-critical acumen.
Pufpaff is not as stupid as he often is, and "TV Total" always wanted to be a TV review.
Pufpaff succeeded in doing this in a frighteningly funny way when he was busy with Florian Silbereisen on the ARD show »Schlagerboom«.
An excerpt was shown in which the hit titan heated up the crowd in a multi-purpose hall with the creaky words: "After a two-year break, do you want to finally celebrate the hit again as it is only celebrated in the› hit boom ‹?" Sportpalast speech by Joseph Goebbels from February 1943 shown - and the "Do you want" diction and the freaking out of the Reich Propaganda Minister actually showed striking similarities with Silbereisen's mobilization fanal.
Between 3sat and ProSieben
After the Goebbels clip downloaded from YouTube, a concerned look from Pufpaff and the serious words: "We are critical of this clip: This is clearly a trivialization of the German hit." At such moments it is actually possible to imagine the retro show under Pufpaff could rise to contemporary satirical greatness.
After a few more passable hits against "Bild" -TV (bigotry alarm!) And Markus Lanz (narcissism alarm!), Pufpaff ended up with "Wetten, dass ..?" This time it's about the, well, Scoop, how he tried to cheat on the white sofa in front of the cameras on the ZDF live broadcast on Saturday under outrageous deception maneuvers. It's actually funny: The ZDF supervisory staff thought in the meantime that Pufpaff would act authorized for the ZDF partner broadcaster 3sat. At 3sat, Pufpaff - he can also be serious - moderated the Corona format »Not yet shift«.
But ten minutes of "Wetten, dass ..?" At the beginning and ten minutes of "Wetten, dass ..?"
Nevertheless, we do not give up hope at Pufpaff: May the gods of the telly save him and us from the eternal damnation of German entertainment television.
