Yes I know it barely feels like two days since the last one, but SdS it is. This episode it’s a battle of the musicians as Joey Kelly, member of popular Irish-American band The Kelly Family takes on Alexander Klaws, who was in the German Tarzan Disney musical and won Germany’s first series of Pop Idol, Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Musical turns include Yvonne Catterfeld and Joy Denalane.
Also, and this is something I’m very excited about, one of the things we’ll be doing throughout the ad breaks and boring bits, our fil rouge if you will, is the very first English language (it probably isn’t but I’m trying to build excitement) edition of De Slimste Mens ter Wereld. “They” won’t make it so we bloody will. Which of our commentators will end the night as OFFICIALLY the smartest person in the world? Will there be technical issues? I don’t know! But join us on Saturday from 7:15pm (GMT) to find out!
Have we had a member of The Kelly Family before? Possibly even the same one? That name’s familiar, and I can’t place where from.
He has! He did it way back in 2010 when it was celeb vs civilian, and he was one of the few celebs to win.
The Kelly Family are one of those acts who are very famous elsewhere, but not so much in the UK.
He is actually appearing for the third time, once when it was Schlag den Star with civilians, once with celebs and nine games and this time.
It’s the latter, I didn’t see him compete with a normal contestant, but did see his Celeb vs Celeb bout.
In unrelated news and quite a early surprise is Robots wars has already been recommissioned for a tenth season (third season rebooted) and planned return in June/July this year. Here is the official confirmation
https://m.facebook.com/UKRobotWars/photos/a.576214792542874.1073741829.567507380080282/810626489101702/?type=3
The first episode of the most recent series was very well done, though somehow felt less than the sum of its parts.
The annoying video effect that plagued the last series was gone gone gone, making the show 5-10% better from a single decision, the distribution of fights throughout the show was rather smoother, the revised graphics package was excellent, the direction and camerawork more varied, the house robots felt a little further de-emphasised still and I think it was (and this feels rather unusual) a show where every single bout missed one particular, spoiler-y, component of robot combat.
The gritty league system took effect again, and after the two opening four-way bouts and the first two of the league system one-on-one bouts, there was effectively one (1) properly working robot remaining in the competition and a few others barely struggling by through the combined efforts of the pit. This is surely what the format was designed to produce, and the quantity and quality of robot damage was as considerable as you would hope for, but some of the bouts felt rather more filler-y as a result.
Angela Scanlon remains excellent and Dara remains strangely low-key; we’re not even getting School of Hard Sums Dara, let alone Go 8-Bit Dara or Mock The Week Dara, who would feel much better-placed.
It will be intersting to see how they will do with two diferent weight divisions being in the same series. It will be very likely it wil be longer than 6 episodes next run, otherwise they will be sacrificing battle footage. It will also be intersting if they reintroduce Sgt Bash & for better camera angles Ref bot.
If you read this description it would be nice to hear peoples opinions on wether there should be background musicin the battles or not?
Enjoy watching Schlag den Star…
Will it ever be done with two females – seems bizarre for it always to be men?
This is certainly a question, they’ve had females in the past before it became full-length.
Last female/female matchup was 18th July ’15, the episode before the Elton one. I think it’s fair to say we’re long overdue for another!
Lovely story from Joko and Klaas:
Die Goldene Kamera is one of the biggest award shows in Germany. It has been known for giving random people random awards (e.g. Best Actor to Hollywood people who didn’t release a movie once in the last year just because they were able to make it to the ceremony). But since it is one of the biggest awards here, Joko and Klaas wanted to win it anyway before ending their late night show Circus Halligalli. They created an artists agency called Conrad Hertz & Gravemann (with the initials of Circus Halligalli) and wrote an e-mail to the producers of the award ceremony claiming Ryan Gosling was available to head to the ceremony after shooting a commercial in Hamburg that day. The producers called within ninety seconds to have him on the show. After some negotiations Joko and Klaas’s assistants (one was called the latin word for prank, very mole-ish hint) said Ryan Gosling would just go to the Goldene Kamera if he won an award, could come in late, would not be featured in any advertisements for the show, wouldn’t have to sit in the studio, etc. And the producers agreed with everything, creating an award for Best Picture (Best Actor was already given to Colin Farrell). Then Joko and Klaas hired a Ryan Gosling Doppelgänger (looking like a less sporty version of the original and pretty easy to spot the difference) and created an entourage with almost 20 people. They went to the Goldene Kamera (without Joko and Klaas) and actually got the award and made it out of the building without being recognised, not even by Steven Gätjen, the biggest German Hollywood expert on telly. It was hilarious and you can watch it right here:
https://youtu.be/SHWPaF10gpM
The Funke Media Group (creators of Die Goldene Kamera) have been surprised and claim there were no safety issues, Joko and Klaas just knew exactly how the show would work to work around the safety barriers. And the want to have the award back, claiming Joko and Klaas stole it.
ZDF was just the broadcaster for it and not involved in any other way. But it creates the question why public broadcasters still show such award shows if they are rigged and don’t pull in big numbers.
Steven Gätjen congratulated Joko and Klaas at the end of the ceremony and was really professional about everything that happened. He’s done a great job.
It’s my favourite media story in a year or so, so I just wanted to share it with you.
That’s brilliant!
Daily Mail have covered this here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4293342/Fake-Ryan-Gosling-accepts-La-La-Land-Goldene-Kamera-award.html
Apparently, the next Schlag den Star is on the 8th of April!
Apparently, the next Schlag den Star (after the one this Saturday) is on the 8th of April!
Crikey, are they burning through them deliberately?
Not sure. But Prosieben is having a rough time of it at the moment. Outside of Germany’s Next Topmodel and The Big Bang Theory, nothing’s really rating.