The Failures and Successes of German TV

I try hard not to complain or really dump on German TV.....at least on the commercially-run business.   They are selling some type of product and try to do a better job than the state-run TV thugs.

This week, I came to observe a major success and a major failure.

First, RTL delivered a two week "Jungle-Camp" show, which surprised me.  I will admit....I'm not much into reality-TV or the fake starts dug up for this.  But RTL took an odd group into this year's Jungle-Camp show and surprised you with the absolute underdog winning in the end.

Menderes, the Turkish guy with no singing talent (as he's proven for a number of years)....got invited to the camp and most people would have said that he'd be gone by fifth day.  The thing is.....Menderes was such a genuine nice guy and always positive on dealing with people in the camp....that you came to like him.

So in the end.....the underdog won.  Something rare in life, I will admit.  Even one of the moderators of the show dropped a tear or two when it was announced.

The other show came from RTL as well (Friday night).....the Puppet Stars.  I came for a brief twenty minutes to watch the show and there came this guy with his puppet....a talking "willy" (a manly part of the anatomy which I will leave to you to guess).

Yeah, this guy had crafted a fabric puppet to look like a talking "willy".  I had to admit.....I sat there in a state of shock.  The guy was creative....but a talking "willy"?

What would a talking "willy" say?  It's best not to ask.

It's hard to say what RTL and it's production team were thinking with this show, or how this would pan out with the pubic.  Good taste?  Well....skip that topic.

The odds of public-run TV ever producing a puppet show with a talking "willy"?  Zero chance....their President of operations would resign before he'd allow a show like that to run on ARD or ZDF.