The “Spitting Image” dolls from England conquer Germany. At the new Sky satire show, Heidi Klum is looking for Germany’s next top politician. Olaf Scholz, Annalena Baerbock and Armin Laschet are there.
London / Cologne – The voice of the Gummi-Heidi-Klum is squeaky and shrill when she coaches Armin Laschet and Markus Söder on her show “Germany’s Next Top-Politiker”.
During the catwalk run, she admonished the giggling latex Laschet with “Don’t lash out” and wonders about the rubber bait: “Why is the bucket zigzagging all the time?” Later, Klum wonders about the chancellor candidates : “Two white old men and a white privileged woman – I miss the pep, where is the diversity and personality? (…) A bit of color has to be added here. ”Until finally Olaf Scholz stands in front of her. Bright blue. As a smurf.
“Spitting Image: The Krauts’ Edition” starts on Thursday (September 16, 8:15 pm on Sky Comedy). “Spitting Image” means something like “image”, Krauts is a British cliché for Germans.
Nine episodes of around 20 minutes each and a best-of are planned on Thursdays. For the first time, another country is working with the real “Spitting Image” makers in Great Britain, so it is the “first international version of the comedy format”, according to Sky Deutschland, headquartered in Unterföhring near Munich.
The skits are currently being written by comedy writers in Cologne, spoken to in this country and then played in a London studio with specially hand-made puppets.
In addition to Schlumpf Scholz (quote from Gummi-Klum: “It’s like Helmut Schmidt on very strong Valium”), the green candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock rules an organic supermarket empire in which Armin Laschet is doing an internship. From politics, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach are also there. Short appearances by Sahra Wagenknecht (left) and Alice Weidel (AfD) are also planned.
In addition, the rapper Capital Bra, who entered the iced tea business, and the footballer Thomas Müller have the honor. The voices come from speakers such as Antonia von Romatowski (such as Merkel, Baerbock, Klum, von der Leyen) or Petra Nadolny (Schöneberger) and speaker Tobias Brodowy (Laschet and others).
While the German chancellor Angela Merkel and Liverpool FC trainer Jürgen Klopp were already represented in the British original, the episode parts produced especially for Germany now also receive support from German celebrity dolls who are not known on the island, including the TV greats Joko & Klaas, Barbara Schöneberger, Markus Lanz, Jorge González and Jan Böhmermann. The season will be a mix with international sketches. In this way, dolls by Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Elton John, Prince Harry and Meghan, Prince William and Kate and Greta Thunberg are part of the party.
“Spitting Image” is a British TV classic. The program was broadcast on ITV from 1984 to 1996. The dolls became world famous 35 years ago with the Genesis music video for “Land of Confusion”, in which the rubber Ronald Reagan accidentally pushes the nuclear button at the end. A year ago the format was revived on the BBC and ITV’s on-demand service Britbox. In Germany there was the rubber doll format “Hurray Germany” on ARD 30 years ago. In 2003, RTLzwei briefly revived it – under the title “Hurray Germany – now all the more!”.
Between 1989 and 1992, characters such as Willy Brandt, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Hans-Jochen Vogel, Norbert Blüm, but also Thomas Gottschalk, Alfred Biolek, Steffi Graf and Heino were present at “Hurray Germany”. Lothar de Maizière also swirled around during the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, the then head of government Helmut Kohl always dominated.
During the crossword puzzle at the kitchen table with his wife Hannelore, he wondered about the word he was looking for for “Chancellor of the reunification with four letters”: “Me! that doesn’t fit, why? ”dpa
