“Bet that…?”: The campfire has gone out – but that’s not Thomas Gottschalk’s fault

Opinion

For the last time “Bet that…?”
The campfire has finally gone out – but that’s not Thommy’s fault

His time is over, gone with him. Many critics judged Thomas Gottschalk’s final “Wetten, dass…?” program so mercilessly. Our author believes that this is unfair. The quirks that the presenter is accused of today have kept us in front of the television for years.

It was an image with calculated symbolism: As When Thomas Gottschalk finished what was supposed to be his last broadcast as “Wetten, dass…?” presenter on Saturday evening around 11:15 p.m., he was carted off the stage in an excavator shovel. Eroded like sediment from the Mesozoic era of TV entertainment. And disposed of, one could scoff, on the trash heap of television history.

That’s how many critics saw it, who stomped Gottschalk’s performance into the ground one last time in devastating texts. ““This television legend buried herself with a pomaded performance,” it said “T Online”. Others were no more mild in their swansong fury.

Thomas Gottschalk has always been like that

Of course, there are definitely good reasons to welcome the moderator’s final departure. His famous unwillingness to remember the names of his guests. This noticeable strangeness with stars who have only been practicing their art since this millennium. The sexism with which Gottschalk grabs almost every female hand and hugs her hip. And which also becomes all too visible in the conversations, for example when he talks about world star Ana Ivanović wants to know whether her husband also helps around the house.

Yes, there is a tragedy in this that is no longer funny.

The only thing you should keep in mind is that these are not new pages from Thomas Gottschalk – he has always been like that. Above all, it is the times that have changed and with them the customs, customs and etiquette. The 73-year-old came to television in the 1970s, when there were only three channels. As Frank Elstner “Wetten, dass…?” Launched in 1981, the show aimed to provide entertainment for the entire family and society.

A demand that could only be met with difficulty when Gottschalk took office in 1987. After all, private broadcasters RTL and Sat.1 were already at the start and were preparing to split up the media landscape and divide it into target groups. Over the years, children’s, youth, music and other special interest channels were added. From the mid-90s onwards, the Internet created countless other partial public spheres, and the common marketplace was destroyed by then.

Essentially, Thomas Gottschalk achieved the impossible

So if Gottschalk succeeded in something, it was nothing less than the impossible: he created the illusion of a place where society gathers to be entertained, linearly, together and regardless of taste, at least for three hours. The famous Campfire of the nation, Gottschalk threw log after log into it.

Thanks to his entertainer qualities, it continued to glow into the new millennium, while in other countries people were already bowing over the ashes of Saturday evening. When Lanz took over the show in 2012, the fire had finally cooled down in Germany.

On Saturday we experienced one final afterglow of an era that has faded. Gottschalk and the entire format seemed all too obviously out of date. The moderator, he acted like a dinosaur in a world that he no longer understands. You can criticize him for that. But you could also just be happy that he kept the fire burning for so long.