Gottschalk Late Night
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Gottschalk Late Night |
| Country of production |
 Germany
|
| Year (s) | 1992 to 1995 |
| length | 60 minutes |
| genre | Late night show |
| Moderation | Thomas Gottschalk |
| First broadcast | September 28, 1992 on RTLplus |
Gottschalk Late Night was a program moderated by Thomas Gottschalk on the private broadcaster RTL . It was the first daily entertainment format after 10 p.m. in Germany. It was developed by the two brothers Thomas and Christoph Gottschalk .
background
Gottschalk switched from public broadcasters to RTL in May 1992. This move and the announcement of a daily entertainment program to be broadcast in the late evening program were controversial. On the one hand, he moderated the successful show Wetten, dass ..? on the other hand, with this project he was breaking completely new ground in the German television world. Initially, the show was only supposed to be a German version of the corresponding US formats by Johnny Carson and David Letterman , but the concept was changed so that the show showed significant differences to these two late-night shows. Gottschalk Late Night was more like a talk show with celebrity guests. In addition, borrowings from well-known entertainment shows were unmistakable, such as a long staircase that Gottschalk used to enter the studio.
Charisma
The show premiered on September 28, 1992. The show initially ran on weekdays from 11:15 pm, and from January 1993 it was broadcast from Tuesday to Friday. The show paused in the summer months; Repetitions of old episodes were occasionally shown.
The end of the show came as a surprise. After it became known in February 1995 that Gottschalk would switch to competitor Sat.1 at the beginning of 1996 , his contract, which ran until December, was terminated in April 1995 by RTL. The reason given was that the program had fallen below the contractually agreed minimum limit of 17% audience share.
Gottschalk Late Night established this TV format on German television after numerous late night elements had already been seen in Schmidt Another, and was thus a pioneer for other programs such as Die Harald Schmidt Show or TV total .
content
The program initially consisted of a monologue of several minutes by Gottschalk with comments on current topics. The main part of the show followed, in which he chatted with invited celebrities. Gottschalk was seen in various sketch roles in small feature films that were inserted in between. Each program also included a live broadcast in the living room of a previously selected family. Christoph Pauli and his band provided the background music.
In the course of the broadcast, content changes were made several times. The increase in the number of guests (in the end there were five per broadcast) went hand in hand with the reduced demands on those invited; Initially mainly well-known figures from entertainment, sport and society came to the show, later on there were increasingly so-called B and C celebrities. In addition, the name of the program was changed to "Gottschalk daily".
The show also had an animal mascot, the dwarf Spitz Dicker (* 1985). The dog, which belonged to the unit manager Nick Krause, received a monthly "fee" of 5000 DM and gained greater fame through regular appearances on the show. Due to differences in contract negotiations, the dog was deleted from the program in 1994.
Criticism and success
Gottschalk's departure from the entertainment horse “Wetten, dass ..?” Gave quite a few critics an opportunity to question his future career. The format of a daily late night show seemed too risky for the German television market, too little promising. The show fell through with the majority of the critics, the concept of the program was sharply attacked and Gottschalk showered with malice.
“It's strange: Although he does everything as usual, he does - all of a sudden - everything wrong. The joke has become stale, the charm shoddy, the pace just superficial dynamism. "
The invitation of the chairman of the right-wing party Die Republikaner , Franz Schönhuber , for the episode of November 26, 1992, caused a major scandal . The politician's presence only a few days after the Mölln assassination attempt caused widespread outrage. Gottschalk was accused of making right-wing extremists socially acceptable and giving them a forum. The moderator later apologized for being "too naive" on the matter.
The audience's response to the show was initially very good. In the first few months up to 3.5 million viewers tuned in, which was a considerable number given the late broadcast date. Later the value leveled off for a long time with an average of 2 million viewers. In the last few episodes, the number of viewers had dropped to around 1.5 million in some cases.
Gottschalk received the Golden Camera for the 1994 show .
Others
- At the end of 1992 Gottschalk organized the Model '92 competition on the show . The winner was the then 19-year-old Heidi Klum , who later rose to become a world-famous top model.
- In order to bridge the summer break in 1994, the conceptually largely identical RTL night show was launched; The moderator was Thomas Koschwitz , who also succeeded him after Gottschalk left RTL.
- The editors included the former Titanic editor-in-chief Jörg Metes and the later Titanic editor-in-chief Oliver Maria Schmitt .
Web links
- Gottschalk Late Night at the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.imdb.de/title/tt0106016/
- ↑ http://www.fernsehserien.de/index.php?serie=6682
- ↑ Jewels of television: «Schmidtanders» on quotenmeter.de.
- ↑ Gottschalk fires his TV dog, Bild newspaper from September 16, 1994
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Petra Erdmann: At night in the joke bazaar . In: Der Standard , September 24, 1993.
- ↑ Uta Rasche: Favorite places: the water house . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , December 21, 1997.
