Geeky Germans

Most people think that Germans are anything else but geeky, or funny or crazy. I realized that once more when I watched this week’s episode of Community, in which Jeff and the study group fought against the “evil Germans”. I have to say I laughed a lot about this, because mostly it is true. But Germans can be funny, they just often hide it. I can’t really say why. There are comedians in Germany and some are very funny, like Anke Engelke. She is smart, can act, sing and is simply hilarious. She’s also the German voice of Marge Simpsons. There might not be many funny Germans on TV, there are no German sitcoms, at least I don’t know one, and only one guy called Stefan Raab who’s having a late night talk show. The “heute show” is a funny news show, which can be a slightly bit compared to SNL. It’s just all about the news and politics, but very well made and very funny.

But Stefan Raab is the man of German Comedy. Whatever he does, it becomes a success. Many guys tried to do a late night show, but all of them failed. He does his show named “TV total” since 1999, which can be compared to Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Fallon or Conan O’Brien. But Raab also has many other shows right now, like the Poker Nights, in which he plays poker with 4 other guys, or he combines boxing matches with trivia. After each round of boxing, there comes a round of trivia, so it’s not only about a man’s strength. In the show “Schlag den Raab” (Beat the Raab) people can apply on the internet to be contestants of the show and fight against Stefan Raab. If they compete against him and get more points than him, which means they win more rounds, they win money. The largest amount someone took home was 3.5 Mio € (about 4.5 Mio $). The games can be any kind of sports like hockey or basketball, some games of skill like stacking cups, or answering trivia questions.

But the first thing he did beside “TV total” was the WOK WM. Since 2003 this championship (= Weltmeisterschaft in German, or short "WM") is a big TV event and every year it gets bigger. I guess you know that a WOK is an Asian pan. But Raab doesn’t cook with it, so it might sound that is a cooking competition, but it is not. He sits in the WOK and uses it as a sleigh. If that’s not geeky, I don’t know what is, or at least it’s some kinda crazy. But it works. People from 11 different countries start this year. There’s a single and a team competition, every team consists of 4 people. So they sit in their WOKs, and glide down the ice track which is normally for real sleighs. Stefan Raab proves very well that Germans can be funny, too, if only they want to.

I’m gonna watch the WOK WM tonight, it’s always fun to watch, and in my mind the best event of the year on German TV. That you can understand better what I am talking about, I found a video on youtube showing a man who works for a German radio station and did such a "WOK ride": 

Do you like sleigh riding, and have you ever considered using a WOK to do that? Would you like to sit in one and do a “WOK ride”?