Count Bobby

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Count Bobby is a fictional Viennese joke that was created around 1900 in the late phase of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and was extremely popular until the early 1990s .

character

The jokes mostly get their punch line from Bobby's ignorance and naivete. In most of the jokes about Count Bobby, Bobby's friends Rudi and Baron Mucki, who also don't really exist, act as sidekicks and key words. Count Bobby and his friends Count Rudi, Baron Mucki, Count Poldi and Baron Schmeidl are still part of the inventory and figurehead of Viennese folk humor.

The character became so popular in the 1950s that Count Bobby jokes not only appeared in anthologies and collections, but films with Count Bobby as the main character were also produced. Peter Alexander portrayed Graf Bobby in these successful movie comedies . Records with Graf Bobby jokes were also released in the 1960s and 1970s. Here, among others, Peter Igelhoff as Bobby and Fred Rauch as Rudi were well-known actors. The latter once characterized the typical Graf Bobby joke as follows: "Stories that don't want to hurt anyone and have only one goal: to spread cheerfulness and happiness."

Graf Bobby-Jokes (selection)

  • Count Bobby reads in the newspaper that a pedestrian is run over every hour in Munich. Shaken, he says: "How he can take it!"
  • Evening party with Altgraf Bobby. Childhood memories are exchanged. One of the guests said: "I was born in Munich and went to school in Vienna." Count Bobby regrets him: "But you had a long way to school!"
  • Count Bobby is sitting in his kitchen in front of a huge pile of sliced ​​rolls. Baron Mucki comes in and asks: “Yes, Bobby, what are you doing there?” - “I want to cook a pastry and it says in the cookbook: You cut three-day-old rolls. No, and I've only been cutting for two days. "
  • Count Bobby is called up. “How do you want to do your basic military service?” - “As a general, of course.” - “Are you insane ?!” - “Why, is that a condition?”
  • Count Bobby in November 1918, with a cup of replacement coffee in front of him: “I don't understand! Well, I really don't get it! Such a beautiful army I have had. Hussars, dragoons, the magnificent horses! Helmet! Plume! Pallash! And first the flags with the beautiful embroidery. The Kaiserjäger, the Hoch- and Deutschmeister! And the regimental music! What a glory! You can say what you want, that was the most beautiful army in the world! And what happened to the army? They sent it to war! "
  • Count Bobby and his friend Rudi go out to eat. When they have eaten, Rudi explains: "Everything we ate was from the horse." Count Bobby horrified: "Yuck, the applesauce too?"

Media reception

Books (selection)

  • 1940: Count Bobby and Baron Mucki: Stories from Old Vienna (Author: Gunter Groll under the pseudonym Sebastian Grill )
An anthology published in Munich by Verlag Ernst Heimeran , which for the first time presented a large-scale collection of Graf Bobby jokes in book form. This book became a classic and long-seller in the Graf Bobby profession, which resulted in many more joke anthologies by other well-known authors about the funny count. In 1989 there was a new edition, but this time by Piper-Verlag. The cover, drawn by the illustrator Beatrice Braun-Fock and showing Count Bobby and Baron Mucki in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral , has cult status among Graf Bobby's illustrations.
  • 1963: Graf Bobby Witze (Ed .: Fritz Riha , Schuler-Verlag, Stuttgart)
  • 1971: My best friends: Tünnes and Schäl, Klein Erna, Graf Bobby (Author: Willy Millowitsch , Lichtenberg-Verlag, Munich)
  • 1972: Count Bobby Witze (author: Reinhard Federmann , Gütersloh Bertelsmann, Stuttgart)
  • 1976: Count Bobby, Baron Mucki and Poldi: 123 times in words and pictures (Author: Gunter Groll, Verlag Ernst Heimeran, Munich)

Film adaptations

Because he was completely burned down, Count Bobby (Peter Alexander) pretends to be his own aunt. In women's clothes, he accompanies the millionaire's daughter Mary ( Vivi Bach ) as a chaperone on her trip to Europe. When he falls in love with Mary, the mess is perfect.
Count Bobby (Peter Alexander) and his friend Mucki ( Gunther Philipp ) want to make money as detectives. Bobby disguises himself as a woman to investigate an alleged girl trafficking undetected. He falls in love with the dancer Vera.
Count Bobby (Peter Alexander) inherited a gold mine in Arizona. When he arrives there with his friend Mucki (Gunter Philipp), the villainous lawyer Doc Harper gets in his way. With the help of some joke articles, Bobby and Mucki get the reputation of being real gunslingers.

Others

  • The Bobby chocolate bar is named after Count Bobby.
  • In Hungary the Graf Bobby jokes are told with Baron Mikosch.
  • In Slovakia with Aristid and Tassilo.
  • In the German Empire, Major von Zitzewitz and Major von Bülow appeared as corresponding joke characters.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Payer: The stupid sweet pages , Die Presse, March 25, 2011.