Midnight Peaks (WDR)

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Television series
Original title Midnight peaks
Country of production Germany
original language German
Year (s) since 1988
Production
company
Westdeutscher Rundfunk in cooperation with Mitternachtsspitzen GbR until 2017 / since 2018 with Pro TV Produktion GmbH
length 60 minutes
genre political cabaret
Theme music Quincy Jones Soul Bossa Nova
First broadcast September 17, 1988 on West 3
occupation

Leading actor: contributors in every show

Supporting actors: guests

  • see chronological listing

The midnight peaks are the longest existing cabaret show on German-speaking television. They are produced in front of an audience at irregular intervals on Thursday evenings. They are distributed on Thursday evenings as a live stream , on the following Saturday they can be accessed online from 8 a.m. and can be viewed linearly at 9.45 p.m. on WDR television.

The program title alludes to the genre-specific verbal exaggerations and the initially late transmission time until the last hour before midnight. A confusion with the feature film of the same name Midnight Peaks from 1960 was accepted approvingly.

Program structure and regular cast

The program has a relatively constant structure. In an introduction, host Jürgen Becker discusses current events.

This is followed by a fake live switch to Berlin, to “Deppendorf”, named after Ulrich Deppendorf , the former WDR editor-in-chief and television director, who appeared as head of the ARD capital studio until his retirement in 2015. In this column, Wilfried Schmickler satirized the current coverage of the ARD for years with numerous satirical photo montages, first as "Uli from Deppendorf", then as "Thomas from Deppendorf" in allusion to Thomas Roth . Wilfried Schmickler currently embodies a poetic hipster because the WDR has prescribed rejuvenation. The satire of a news program has turned into a lecture like a poetry slam .

Following the “News from Deppendorf”, the first of three guest appearances by well-known cabaret artists or aspiring young artists will take place.

Another integral part of the program were fake dialogues between Jürgen Becker and celebrities: For this purpose, original moving images from the archive were underlaid with false texts, spoken by voice imitator Elmar Brandt . Most of the celebrities were domestic and foreign politicians, athletes, crowned heads or the Pope. Since the summer of 2015 there have been dialogues with Käpt'n Blaubär (imitation of the voice of the original speaker Wolfgang Völz also by Elmar Brandt), whose “sailor's thread” is illustrated with specially made new animations .

Members of the regular cast also appear in pairs in every program: For a long time these were Jürgen Becker and Wilfried Schmickler as the Cologne twins "Spitz & Spitz". "Loki & Smoky" followed with Wilfried Schmickler as Loki Schmidt and Uwe Lyko as former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . After the death of Loki Schmidt, the sketch section "Overrated couples in world history" was established, in which Wilfried Schmickler mostly appears as Chancellor Angela Merkel and Uwe Lyko in various roles, for example as husband Joachim Sauer , Benedict XVI. , Silvio Berlusconi , Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , Adolf Hitler , Karl Lagerfeld , Jogi Löw , Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy . Until 2015, Uwe Lyko sometimes played the widower Helmut Schmidt in this category and especially in the "News from Deppendorf" section. After the death of the former Federal Chancellor, “Loki & Smoky in Heaven” comment on earthly events, but only on very special occasions. Wilfried Schmickler and Uwe Lyko also rarely parody dazzling couples such as “the Geissens” or previously “the Wulffs” and “the Guttenbergs”.

Since 1996, Herbert Knebel , a pensioner from the Ruhr area, has appeared in the last quarter of every broadcast, also played by Uwe Lyko. From 1992 to the summer of 2015, Jürgen Becker then slipped under a large set of antlers, put on highly magnifying horn-rimmed glasses and raved in the smoke of a cigar as a coarse folk “home deer” about God and the world. Jürgen Becker is currently acting in the first third of the show or shortly before the finale in various roles, such as Horst Lichter , Richard David Precht or the fictional Cologne chief inspector Peter Pütz. His partner is often Susanne Pätzold , who has been part of the regular cast since the summer of 2014 and parodies Ursula von der Leyen , Andrea Nahles , Frauke Petry , Sabine Rau , Claudia Roth , Jörg Schönenborn or Sahra Wagenknecht . With the cry: "Stop, Mr. Becker, stop!", Wilfried Schmickler begins his final moral sermon in every program since 1992, in which he denounces current grievances or the current evildoers in politics and society with great power of speech. Jürgen Becker concludes the farewell to the guest artists (each with a glass of Kölsch ) and the audience with a reference to the next edition of Midnight Speaks and the sentence: "Tie a knot in the remote control!" (With a suitably designed prop in hand ).

For many years , the regular cast behind the cameras has included author Dietmar Jacobs , voice imitator Elmar Brandt , editor Klaus Michael Heinz and director Helmut Zanoskar. Before that, and for more than a decade, the team included director Alexander Arnz until his death in 2004 and the former Monitor editor Rolf Bringmann until his retirement in 2005 .

Recording location

The midnight peaks are recorded in the waiting room at the cathedral under Cologne Central Station . Due to renovation work, the program was temporarily produced from February to June 2014 at the Eltzhof cultural property in Cologne-Wahn . The midnight peak EXTRA in January 2015 took place in the Comedia Theater in Cologne's Südstadt district, the programs in December 2016 and 2017 were produced in the Luther Church in Cologne's Nippes district, which is used as a cultural church. The midnight peak EXTRA at the end of March 2020 consisted of many contributions, each recorded in the private environment of the artists, as exit restrictions applied across Germany due to the corona pandemic . For the same reason, the regular programs in spring 2020 were not produced in the waiting room at the cathedral, but at the beginning of May in a green courtyard in the new Clouth Quartier in Cologne's Nippes district, where around 200 residents could watch the program on balconies or terraces and from apartment windows , and at the beginning of June in the beer garden of the venue Die Halle Tor 2 in the Vogelsang district of Cologne, which was admitted to 100 spectators.

history

The premiere broadcast took place on September 17, 1988. Richard Rogler was the host and moderator . After 28 broadcasts, however, he threw in the towel in the fall of 1991 after the WDR Broadcasting Council expressed itself extremely critically and some members demanded Rogler's resignation. On May 14, 1992 Jürgen Becker took over the role of host and moderator. And he set a strong accent right in his first broadcast: in a "hate sermon" about the then just-designated Cardinal Joachim Meisner from Cologne .

On November 9, 1989, guest artist Horst Schroth , who had arrived late, burst into the midnight peaks moderated by Richard Rogler with a very special punch: "The wall is open!" He had heard on the car radio on the way what everyone else in the Cologne waiting room was not yet aware of.

On September 24, 1998, immediately before the federal elections, the midnight leaders presented a special kind of electoral studio: young women and men, completely naked upstairs, sorted the first results from individual constituencies behind Wilfried Schmickler as “Uli from Deppendorf”.

Subsequent to the tenth anniversary of the series, Jürgen Becker and Wilfried Schmickler traveled to the new old German capital Berlin on April 29, 1999 and visited cabaret colleagues in the west and east of the city. Filming locations included the cabaret and cabaret stages Die Distel , Die Wühlmäuse and the Bar every reason , but also the construction site of the Holocaust memorial and the Berlin Olympic Stadium.

On May 23, 2002, Wilfried Schmickler presented the fake news block as "Uli from Deppendorf" together with his real role model Ulrich Deppendorf, the new head of the ARD capital studio in Berlin.

For the 20th birthday of the series in 2008, the WDR Big Band and Anke Engelke were among the guests.

“Always stop! - 25 years of midnight peaks "was the title of the 2013 special broadcast by Klaus Michael Heinz , in which presenter Bettina Böttinger asked cabaret artists Jürgen Becker, Uwe Lyko, Richard Rogler and Wilfried Schmickler about their activities, using numerous excerpts from the more than 200 programs of the last quarter of a century Raised critical issues about cabaret.

On the occasion of the attack on Charlie Hebdo , the winter break 2014/2015 was interrupted and a midnight peak EXTRA was broadcast on January 17, 2015 .

After Uwe Steimle asked in the May 2015 broadcast “Why do the Americans and Israelis start wars and we Germans are allowed to pay the shit?” Jan-Philipp Hein deciphered this for the SHZ to the effect that the Jews are setting the world on fire again would control the US government and squeeze the funds for it from the Germans, in which they have been profiting from their guilty conscience regarding the Holocaust for decades. Hein interpreted this as proof that anti-Semitic resentments live on in German television cabaret disguised as humor. Steimle must u. a. on the basis of this statement, in accordance with a final judgment by the Meißen district court, dropped the charge of being " Völkisch - anti-Semitic Jammer-Ossi ".

In the 30th year of the midnight peaks, www.wdr.de presented a so-called countdown from February 2018 until the anniversary broadcast in September: artist performances from the midnight peaks were published for 30 weeks, in chronological order from 1988 to 2017.

On the occasion of the corona pandemic and far-reaching exit restrictions, the Easter break in 2020 was interrupted and a midnight peak EXTRA was broadcast on March 30, 2020 .

In the talk show " Kölner Treff " broadcast by WDR on August 21, 2020, both presenter Bettina Böttinger and Jürgen Becker, who was invited as a guest, said that in addition to the well-known departure of Uwe Lyko and Wilfried Schmickler, Becker would also stop at the end of 2020. From January 2021, Christoph Sieber will moderate the show.

9 programs in 2020

9 broadcasts 2019

8 shows 2018 (30 years)

9 programs in 2017

8 broadcasts in 2016

9 broadcasts in 2015

8 programs in 2014

10 programs in 2013 (25 years)

8 broadcasts in 2012

8 broadcasts in 2011

9 programs in 2010 (200th program)

8 broadcasts in 2009

8 programs in 2008 (20 years)

9 programs in 2007

10 broadcasts in 2006

9 programs in 2005

9 broadcasts in 2004

9 programs in 2003 (change of broadcast slot)

10 programs in 2002 (10 years with Jürgen Becker)

13 broadcasts in 2001

11 broadcasts in 2000

11 broadcasts in 1999

10 programs in 1998 (10 years)

11 programs in 1997

12 broadcasts in 1996

8 programs in 1995 (50th program)

8 broadcasts in 1994

6 broadcasts in 1993

6 broadcasts in 1992

6 broadcasts in 1991

6 broadcasts in 1990

10 broadcasts in 1989

4 broadcasts in 1988

Award

Web links

swell

  1. Midnight peaks move to the Eltzhof alternative quarter. Retrieved March 30, 2014 .
  2. Home stags and cleaners. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. June 18, 2008, accessed September 23, 2013 .
  3. Midnight Tips EXTRA: Nous sommes Charlie. WDR , accessed February 1, 2015 .
  4. Jan-Philipp Hein TV cabaret - Da where anti-Semitism blooms shz from June 7, 2015
  5. Steimle has to put up with that , Sächsische Zeitung of November 9, 2017
  6. Steimle legally binding “Jammerossi” ( memento from January 4, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), Sächsische Zeitung from November 17, 2017
  7. WDR: Christoph Sieber will take over the WDR “Mitternachtsspitzen” press lounge in 2021. August 20, 2020, accessed August 21, 2020 .