New year, new jungle camp: What was once branded as disgusting TV has now become a ritual that many in the audience can agree on.
Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first on Mount Everest – and Costa Cordalis was the first to climb into the snake pit for German television. In January 2004, the pop bard with the magnificent black mane (“I found her somewhere alone in Mexico, Anita”) did pioneering work.
At the time, Cordalis was the first candidate to appear on the brand new show “I’m a Star – Get Me Out of Here!” went into a so-called jungle test in distant Australia and allowed himself to be maltreated to the amusement of the audience. It was hard to predict at the time how many would follow his example.
Successful show
We now know: In 2024, the RTL jungle camp will still exist – on January 9th it will have been exactly 20 years. From Claudia Effenberg to Rainer Langhans, from Dolly Buster to Thomas Häßler, all sorts of C-list celebrities have been funneled through the flatbed warehouse since then. And the next season starts on January 19th. In the anniversary year, among others, actor Heinz Hoenig (72), an honorary character mime in large multi-part films, will be filmed through the jungle mill.
Persevere on meager food, survive more or less nasty tests – the program is well-tested. “Apart from “Wetten, dass…?”, the jungle camp is the last remaining campfire on traditional television that has a wide reach,” says media scientist Joan Bleicher. And “Bet that…?” Depending on ZDF’s decision, it may never be seen again.
Even at the beginning, in 2004, top ratings were achieved. According to RTL, the first jungle season achieved a fabulous average market share of 31.3 percent. The show was immediately the topic of conversation in living rooms, cafeterias and schoolyards.
A real novelty on TV
The first protagonists, on the other hand, didn’t really have any idea what they had gotten themselves into. “We didn’t know what they were planning to do with us in this camp,” Cordalis admitted in 2015. The show has actually been around in Great Britain since 2002. Presenter Caroline Beil and musician Werner Böhm (Gottlieb Wendehals) moved into the German camp. From the perspective of the time, they were semi-celebrities who were assumed to simply have nothing to do in January.
But at the latest when the casting candidate Daniel Küblböck (DSDS), then 18 years old, trembled at 30,000 cockroaches in an exam, the indignation was great. Up until now, celebrities on German television had mostly been made fun of in sterile TV studios.
Now, like Küblböck, they lay almost whimpering in a glass coffin on the other side of the world. Some called it “disgusting TV,” others called it “Guantanamo Bay of the German fun society” (“Der Spiegel”). Just four days after the start, the Catholic Parenthood of Germany (KED) felt it was their duty to demand the cancellation.
“There was nothing comparable on German television back then,” remembers RTL entertainment director Markus Küttner. “The show was louder and more extreme than any other TV show at the time and was therefore quite polarizing.” Back then, people got involved in the jungle camp because they believed in the format.
“But the fact that the ratings went through the roof really surprised us,” he says. In the first few years it was also much more difficult to attract celebrities to the show. “We always moved from season to season,” he says.
The image change
Over the years, however, the image of the jungle circus changed, although fish entrails and “barf fruits” continued to be served. What had previously been supposedly stupid TV for simple minds was increasingly seen as a chamber drama for an educated middle class exhausted by the gray January. Great theater, just with animal testicles.
The television scientist Lothar Mikos wrote in 2004 that the highlight of the show was that it offered “different meanings”. Game, reality soap, tabloid and comedy mixed together. The audience can set different “emphasis” “depending on the situational and socio-cultural context”. In other words, there is something for everyone, from top to bottom.
The 2011 season, for example, was remembered in which model Sarah Knappik was begged on her knees by actor Mathieu Carrière to get out voluntarily (“Sarah, please leave us!”) as part of the greatest intrigue. In the same season, a liaison between Bro’Sis singer Indira Weis and US5 musician Jay Khan came under acute suspicion of hypocrisy. Actress Ingrid van Bergen, who in 2009, when she was 77 years old, choked down live maggots with all her remaining grandeur – and won, should not be missing from any jungle chronicle.
Costa Cordalis himself, who died in 2019, was happy with his decision to take part throughout his life – he also won the relay. However, the snake pit wasn’t the biggest problem back then. He later reported that he had endangered his marriage by taking part. Wife Ingrid threatened to divorce.