Last but not least: Embarrassing and cashing in

The days of "Neo Magazin's" niche existence seem to be numbered. The show, which recently received the Grimme Prize away from the general public, has now conquered the big stages with the Raab prank. No media outlet has failed to rave about the Chinese bootleg in recent days - and lo and behold, a large part of the audience seems to have taken a liking to Böhmermann's show.

This is new: Böhmermann has always been the media's favorite, but not the viewers'. That's actually funny, because he's always been funny. Particularly when he was trying to get the attention of the mass media. For example, when he invented the sentence "Football is like chess - only without dice!" as part of a Lukas Podolski parody in 2005. The quote was attributed to the real Podolski by Spiegel Online and Kicker and was almost voted "Football Quote of the Year 2008" by the German Academy for Football Culture. Or when he infiltrated various German newsrooms as a swine flu sufferer for the Harald Schmid Show (Youtube).

With his latest prank, he has now struck the former grand master of German fun TV right in the heart of the producer's honor. In his younger years, Stefan Raab shaped an entire TV generation with his irreverent, unpredictable but mostly imaginative and ingenious style. He amused himself - however creatively - primarily at the expense of others.

All the greater the general schadenfreude that he has now been caught out himself. Raab proudly uncovered a supposed scandal on "TV Total": A Chinese TV station has not only copied the "TV Total" logo for a game show, but has also taken over the entire concept of "Blamieren oder Kassieren". "Blamieren oder Kassieren" is played once a week on "TV Total": Raab competes against a studio viewer, the quiz is led by his long-time companion Elton.

What they didn't know was that they had fallen for a stunt that "Neo Magazin" had planned for a long time. The clip shown was staged by Böhmermann and his colleagues and leaked to the "TV Total" editorial team... "to test how thorough their research is", said Böhmermann. Obviously not too much, otherwise they would have at least taken the trouble to have the spoken texts checked by someone who speaks Chinese. At the latest then it would have become clear that the game show presenter was speaking a mixture of gibberish and Chinese restaurant menus. Böhmermann sweetened the rest of the show by inserting appropriate quotes from the Chinese scene at every opportunity. With table buttons, as they have always been used by Raab.

It remains to be seen how Raab will react to the failure. It can be assumed that his ego will not take the embarrassment lying down. His first reaction was to say that he was annoyed by the gag. "very amused". However, it is doubtful whether he will be able to get his revenge. The old master of dishing it out could bite his teeth out on his offspring (at least he still has more than enough of them). Because Böhmermann and his team are as good as he was in his prime: When he reinvented television in every "Vivasion" and "Ma kuck'n" show and "TV Total" was a creative smash hit as a weekly program. The television landscape had to wait a long time before it was allowed to laugh at a comparable story again. It's probably no coincidence that Stefan Raab is also involved this time.

Thomas Häusermann