The golden shot
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The golden shot |
| Country of production | Federal Republic of Germany |
| original language | German |
| Year (s) | 1964-1970 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Episodes | 50 |
| Broadcasting cycle |
8 to 9 times a year |
| genre | Game show |
| Moderation |
|
| First broadcast | December 4, 1964 on ZDF |
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The golden shot was a 90-minute game show on ZDF . It was one of the most popular television shows of the 1960s.
Emergence
ARD relied on Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff and Otto Höpfner for their big entertainment shows . In order to counter the two very popular presenters, ZDF engaged Peter Frankenfeld and Lou van Burg . With Forget-Me-Not, Frankenfeld presented a show that he had invented himself and that ran from 1964 to 1970, just like The Golden Shot . Lou van Burg was offered a show: The golden shot was a technically complex game idea that required over a year of preparation before it could go on air. It was based on the famous apple shot scene from Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell .
The special feature was that the viewers could intervene directly in the program by telephone: There was a movable crossbow mounted on a tripod with a television camera behind it. The optical axis of the camera lens was identical to the line of sight - front sight - target. For example, the spectator playing at home could shoot at a target using the commands raise, lower, right, left and shot, while a cameraman performed the actions blindfolded on a joystick located on a pillar next to the crossbow. It was the first interactive television broadcast in Europe. Shooters who were in the hall fired the shot directly with the joystick.
The golden shot ran on Thursdays from 8 p.m. to 9.30 p.m., and from 1969 from 8.15 p.m. to 9.45 p.m.
Significance in television history
The 25th edition was broadcast live on the evening of August 25, 1967 by the Deutsche Funkausstellung in Berlin as the first officially broadcast color show on German television after PAL color television was introduced on the morning of the same day. But only the familiar black and white camera could be used for the crossbow, as color cameras were still sensitive to vibrations. The event took place in the Deutschlandhalle with 5,000 spectators.
Game flow
The program had a complicated process, which is why Lou van Burg or his assistant often mixed up something and calculated a candidate's score incorrectly.
- Honor shot
- At the beginning of the broadcast, a representative from the host city fired a shot with the crossbow, which set off an optical effect such as fireworks. This demonstrated the functionality of the device once again.
- Qualifying shot
- In order to participate, a postcard had to be sent to ZDF. These were then drawn in the broadcast: two telephone candidates, one non-telephone candidate and one telephone candidate from abroad. The phone candidates were called and had to fire a qualifying shot. If they didn't meet, spectators from the audience got their chance, who also had to shoot. The winners were invited to the next show. The non-telephone candidate had to go to the apartment of a friend with a telephone and television for his qualification shot for the next program and, if successful, was invited to the next but one program. The players in the first edition were identified in an introductory broadcast.
- First round of the game
- The four participants played against each other in pairs and had to score points in a game of skill that had nothing to do with the crossbow. For example, balls had to be thrown.
- Celebrity shot
- A celebrity who was in attendance at the show fired a shot. With this it was determined for which charitable purpose the entrance fee of the hall audience is to be used. From December 1966, there was no longer any question of a politician, since a representative who was about to be elected had previously caused displeasure.
- Tele-Tell
- From March to June 1966, three state rifle champions competed against each other on the crossbow in order to take part in the final round in August, in which the title Tele-Tell was about .
- Trick shot
- In the second round of the game, the winning pair from the first round had to compete against each other. The king of the rifle was determined who was allowed to carry out the golden shot.
- The golden shot
- The rifle king was allowed to take the golden shot. A bag of gold hung on a thread between the crossbow and the target. If the rifle king hit the thread, he was allowed to take the gold home with him. If he didn't hit the thread, but hit the target, he was allowed to fire again in the following broadcast.
Show part
In addition to the games, there were four show blocks in each program, with Lou van Burg himself appearing in one part. The musical accompaniment was always provided by Max Greger with his big band, who had signed a contract with ZDF and could therefore be seen in various shows on the station. The first part of the show followed the qualifying shooting and the second part of the first round of the game. The third part took place before the rifle king was determined, the fourth and longest part took place afterwards.
There was a specific motto for each issue. The stage design, the first round of play, a prominent guest and some of the show blocks were adapted to this. For example, the motto was once après ski with the famous shooter Luis Trenker , the 16th episode even came from the casino in Monte Carlo with Princess Gracia Patricia .
production
The Zurich TV and theater entrepreneur Werner Schmid produced the program with Schmid Productions for around 250,000 DM per episode, which was considered cheap for a large evening show. The presenter had a contract with Schmid Productions and received DM 15,000 for an episode, with a "good conduct clause" allowing ZDF to reject him.
The golden cassette was developed in time for the introduction of color television . It was a device into which the telephone receiver could be inserted like later with the modem. The crossbow could then be controlled directly by pressing a button. This was done with sine tones of different frequencies that were transmitted over the telephone line to an associated control device on the crossbow. Werner Schmid worked in the creative field with Hannes Schmid, to whom he was not related. Overall, only Werner Schmid was responsible for the shows and also the copyright holder.
Lou van Burg
Lou van Burg was already known to German viewers from the ARD show Sing mit mir - spiel mit mir , which was canceled prematurely , which is why the introductory program was also called Reunion with Lou van Burg . On December 4, 1964, the show celebrated as "Mr. Wunnebar “well-known Dutch entertainer premiered in the Centennial Hall Hoechst . It quickly became popular and its visual participation was always over 40%, in 1967 it even reached 72%. Van Burg presented the show with great dedication and an unmistakable Dutch accent, especially in the episode from Monte Carlo, he was also able to shine with his language skills, as he managed without an interpreter during the interview with Gracia Patricia. The initially unimaginative questions to the guests were helped by the show authors after a while with suggestions for topics and gags.
Lou was still married but lived with his 41-year-old girlfriend, Angèle Durand . At the press conference for the 24th edition in June 1967, Durand told the journalists that van Burg had left them to start an affair with his tour assistant. It was about the Rhinelander Marianne Krems, she was 29 years old, married and had a three-year-old child. The Bild newspaper and various magazines reported on this, which turned into a real television scandal. On July 11, 1967, ZDF separated from van Burg. The director Karl Holzamer said that it was not personal life but the publication in all tabloid media that was decisive. In particular, it was feared that the audience would express displeasure at the prestigious episode of the radio exhibition.
Vico Torriani
A ZDF press release of July 15, 1967 announced Rudi Carrell for the edition of the German radio exhibition in Berlin, but he then canceled. Vico Torriani then stepped in , even though he was on a spa tour during rehearsals. It was then kept for the following editions.
Torriani was also well received by the audience, but not as much as his predecessor. In the telephone audience survey, it only achieved a value of +3.7 compared to +4.5 for Lou van Burg. Torriani's skills were more singing than talking to guests, which he didn't think was his forte, and he seemed a little awkward. However, visual participation did not decrease and remained unchanged at peak values of over 70%. Nevertheless, the show was discontinued in the summer of 1970 with the 50th broadcast, because the ZDF wanted to redesign its program for the 1970s.
Anecdotes
Since using the target, the assistant Alexandra Marischka has usually announced the number of points achieved after a kill , with 100 being the maximum. In the event of a hit in the center of the target, the ritual announcement was made. The candidate has 100 points. This phrase became a popular phrase in parts of the population and was used repeatedly for a while in everyday life when someone agreed to an appropriate statement. In one of the broadcasts, the assistant caused a lot of laughter when, in a completely unusual way, when she hit the edge of the target center, she announced: “The candidate has 99 points”, which in no way corresponded to the rough gradations of the point values assigned to the target rings.
Before firing, an employee named Peter always had to insert a bolt into the crossbow. Vico Torriani always gave the same ritual instruction: "Please, Peter, the bolt." In an issue of Wetten, dass ..? there was once a similar process in which the moderator Thomas Gottschalk also instructed with the words "Please, Peter, the bolt". Then Gottschalk jokingly remarked: "Since the golden shot we have known that bolts are always called Peter."
The golden shot at other television stations
From 1965 the golden shot ran on several foreign television stations, first in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, where it was hosted under the name Tele-Tell, among others by Manni Weber . France and Italy followed, and later even non-European countries. In the mid-1970s, the show was still running in over 20 countries around the world.
The private broadcaster SAT.1 broadcast a new edition from October 1, 1988 to 1989, initially as part of its breakfast program Guten Morgen with Sat.1 , then as an independent daily program in the afternoon program with weekly moderators (including Rita Werner , Jörg Draeger , Hans-Jörg Karrenbrock and Bodo Henkel ).
Play with Uncle Lou
As early as 1976, speculations were circulating in the press about a re-edition of The Golden Shot , but it wasn't until January 1983 that ZDF announced a shortened form of crossbow shooting . With the title Game with Onkel Lou ran from March 12 to May 21, 1983 six episodes directed by Horst Eppinger. The broadcast ran Saturday at 6 p.m., parallel to the ARD sports show, and was 50 minutes long. The gameplay was changed compared to the original:
- Tele-Tip
- There were four players in the studio. The viewers in the studio should use a voting card to choose whoever they thought would win. From among the correct answers, two participants were drawn for the following edition of the show.
- 1 round
- The teammates could no longer be eliminated in the first round, but instead collect points in three rounds. In the first round they had to shoot the crossbow.
- Qualifying shooting of the telephone candidates
- As before, two postcards were drawn to call the sender so that he could qualify for participation in the next program. There were no more foreign or non-telephone candidates.
- Trick shooting
- The crossbow was also used in the second round.
- Celebrity shot
- Originally, the idea was to select a show block with the celebrity shot, which should then be shown via video and could be shortened if necessary. Then it was decided to popularize the lottery on Wednesday , which had only been introduced the year before and for which ZDF carried out the drawing. The shot determined how often a viewer drawn from the postcards sent in was allowed to play the lottery for free.
- Comet shot
- For the third round of the game they had come up with something new. The teammates got 1,000 points each and this number decreased the longer they took to fire the shot. Then all the points were added up and converted into a DM amount that the players could take home. The one with the most points had the chance to double the amount with the Golden Shot.
- The golden shot
- With the golden shot, a thread had to be shot through again, but instead of a gold sack, it was a golden apple.
- Show part
- After the first round of the game and after the qualifying shoots, there was a show block each.
Spiel mit Uncle Lou had disappointing audience figures with an average of 3.7 million viewers. In addition, since the calls from viewers were mostly negative and many complained about the moderator's now immense preponderance, there was no further season. The failure was also supported by a very small studio and the hustle and bustle that the short airtime brought with it. For Lou van Burg it was the last presentation on television.
Broadcasts on ZDF
The programs were broadcast on ZDF on the following dates.
According to the ZDF archive, most of the show's tapes are now considered deleted. Recordings are only available from issues 16, 30, 49 and 50.
literature
- Ricarda Strobel , Werner Faulstich : The German TV stars, show and singing stars . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-20797-2 .
- The Lou van Burg case . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1967 ( online ).
- Watching hurts . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1967 ( online - premiere of color television in Berlin).
Web links
- The golden shot at the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Online archive of the Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung and the Hamburger Abendblatt, credits of the original broadcasts