Once again the old ZDF flagship “Wetten, dass …?” Is picking up speed. The show idea came to presenter Frank Elstner literally in his sleep. His long-time companion and friend Rainer Holbe remembers.
The message came from ZDF: On November 6, 2021 they wanted to remember one of the most successful programs in the program: “Wetten, dass …?”, Hosted by Thomas Gottschalk and Michelle Hunzinger at his side. It was Frank Elstner who came up with the idea for this successful entertainment show in the truest sense of the word in a dream. We were neighbors when he called one evening in the spring of 1980 and asked me to come to him. He’d have an idea.
Our chief spokesman for Radio Luxemburg, Jochen Pützenbacher, and Doctor Heinrich Walter, the boss’s right-hand man, had already arrived in Elstner’s kitchen. Elstner told us that every evening before he went to sleep, his thoughts revolved around only one topic: the idea of the big TV show. What hadn’t happened yet? What do people do to add variety to their lives? In a dream Elstner saw dogs whizzing across a racecourse, and excited people bet on their favorites, in front of the cameras, in the studio. Betting on TV, he thought, that’s what might keep people entertained.
“Wetten, dass ..?”: Frank Elstner moderated his “Baby” confidently
It was four o’clock in the morning when Frank Elstner wrote down the concept for an idea that would be his greatest success. When he read the text to us, we sensed that his idea would change our lives. Elstner, then a popular director in the German program of Radio Luxemburg, quit his permanent job, became a freelancer for ZDF and founded his own production company. “Wetten, dass …?”, Broadcast for the first time on February 14, 1981 from Düsseldorf, became the flagship of German television entertainment and also ran with great success internationally, for example in the United States and China.
Elstner presented the show for six years. Up to 23 million people watched – an unbelievable rate from today’s perspective. The “Einstein among the moderators” called him the “Spiegel” at the time, because Elstner not only led through the show, but also invented it. For a long time, the then General Director Gust Graas reproached himself for the fact that RTL did not prevent the withdrawal of its then radio boss Frank Elstner. “He would have made a good director of RTL-Television,” Graas said later. “I’ve already told him that a few times.”
In retrospecting his life and work, Elstner does not see the fact that Elstner handed the program over to Thomas Gottschalk in September 1987 without any need as a mistake, but as an opportunity to develop further. At the time, he also feared that one day there would no longer be attractive bets and found an adequate successor for the show in his colleague Gottschalk. “It was one of the lucky moments in my life when Frank asked me if I would like to continue ‘Wetten dass’”, recalls Gottschalk ‘Nose ahead’ found the better TV format, and now he passed the second best on to me ”.. A misjudgment.
While Gottschalk led Elstner’s show baby to unexpected successes with wit and intelligence and rose to the top rating with the first broadcast, Elstner’s new Saturday evening idea “nose ahead” was publicly dismantled. The high expectations of the Mainz television producers were unfortunately not met. With the consent of the inventor, the ZDF canceled the program, and the boulevard made its judgment: Elstner was over.
“Wetten, dass ..?”: Thomas Gottschalk became the show king
It took a long time for him to regain his footing in television entertainment with formats such as “Jeopardy”, “Do you understand fun?” Or “The great show of natural wonders”. Elstner’s “The Silent Stars”, screen portraits of Nobel Prize winners in which he was able to use his interviewer qualities, are personally important. More than 100 episodes have appeared. He was also more of a journalist than an entertainer in the weekly SWR program “Menschen der Woche”.
With “Wetten, dass …?” Thomas Gottschalk advanced to become the uncrowned show king and the most popular German-speaking presenter. Fame hadn’t changed him, at least for his private circle. At Radio Luxemburg he was a colleague among many who leisurely smoked his pipe at summer festivals in our garden and stayed until dawn. When he was back on the bridge after a show break – during which Wolfgang Lippert and Markus Lanz took over the helm for “Wetten, dass …?” Without success at times – the audience ratings also improved.
But after candidate Samuel Koch had a serious accident during a bet on December 4, 2010, Gottschalk announced his resignation after 151 episodes. The anniversary broadcast on November 6th remains a one-time affair for him. He is still a welcome guest on a wide variety of stages. Elstner has now made it to five full pages in “Spiegel”: “Frank Elstner as a radio DJ, TV presenter, show inventor, talker, animal filmmaker. He has entertained people for 60 years. ”With the neurologist Jens Volkmann, he reports in the published book“ … then I just tremble ”about people who suffer from Parkinson’s. Frank Elstner is one of them. But this is another story.
Rainer Holbe , born in 1940, grew up in Frankfurt am Main. He began his journalistic career as a trainee for the Frankfurter Rundschau, and was an editor from 1960 to 1965. He then began his career as a radio and TV presenter; the then program director Frank Elstner brought him to Radio Luxemburg. His show “Starparade” (1968-1980) was one of the most successful ZDF formats.
