Loriot
These five skits will be remembered
Loriot and his green sofa are inseparable.
© imago images / TBM United Archives
Loriot died on August 22, 2011. Even ten years after his death, his skits and caricatures will be remembered.
Loriot (1923-2011), the master of good entertainment, died ten years ago – on August 22, 2011 – in Ammerland on Lake Starnberg. The well-known humorist was 87 years old. Loriot lives on to this day through his skits and caricatures. His bulbous noses became particularly well known. His works include books, series and films, and Loriot has staged operas and plays. Sentences like “There used to be more tinsel!”, “A piano, a piano!” and “Please don’t say anything …” quote Loriot fans to this day.
Loriot was always a great observer of people – he was particularly fond of “communication dysfunctional”, as he once said himself. These people would interest him “most of all”. “Everything that I find strange arises from the crumbled communication, from talking past each other.” His short skits and cartoons, which he always commented on from an iconic green sofa, live from this. You should know at least five of them.
“The breakfast egg”
This sketch is sometimes just called “The Egg” and is one of Loriot’s most popular skits. The animated short film is about the everyday life of a married couple. The two are sitting at the breakfast table. The man grimly explains: “Berta, the egg is hard!”, To which his wife replies: “I heard it.” Then there is a dialogue in which the two – as so often in Loriot’s films – talk past each other. Hermann accuses his wife of not being able to boil the egg for four and a half minutes. “I can feel it when the egg is soft,” explains Berta. At the end Hermann says: “I’ll kill her. Tomorrow I’ll kill her.”
“Gentlemen in the bathroom”
“Gentlemen in the bathroom” is also one of Loriot’s best-known skits. The protagonists are Mr. Müller-Lüdenscheidt, Dr. Klöbner and a rubber duck. The two gentlemen sit together in the bathtub of a hotel room – Dr. Klöbner made a mistake in the room number. Neither of them wants to leave the tub, however, so they coordinate the water temperature. Dr. Klöbner would like to bathe with his rubber duck, which Mr. Müller-Lüdenscheidt vehemently rejects. The dialogue continues and ends in a diving competition. At the end of the sketch, a third man appears in the door – while the other two are diving – and asks: “Is this room 107?”
“Mother’s Piano”
The sketch is also known as “Home TV”. In contrast to the two previous cartoon strips, this one is a real-life film. The exclamation “One piano, one piano!” developed into a catchphrase thanks to the sketch. The Panislowski family receives a piano from mother Berta in Massachusetts. Mr. Panislowski (Loriot) would like to capture this moment together with the whole family with a film camera: Son Thomas (Rudolf Kowalski) follows the instructions. He has to repeat the question “Is the tape running?” ask, whereupon he increasingly exasperated with “Yes, yes!” answers.
Panislowski’s wife, called “Muttilein” (Ingeborg Heydorn), as well as grandchildren, daughter-in-law and the movers, are also given precise instructions by Mr. Panislowski. Again and again something goes wrong when transporting the piano, so that the film has to be started over and over again.
“The noodle”
A man (Loriot) and a woman named Hildegard (Evelyn Hamann) meet for a romantic meal in an Italian restaurant. Both eat a pasta dish. When the man wipes his mouth with the napkin, an elongated noodle sticks to his lower lip. He then confesses his love for her, but Hildegard is distracted by the noodle. During his confession of love, he repeatedly touches his face in such a way that the noodle always sticks to a different point on his face. At the beginning Hildegard tries to interrupt his torrent of speech, then she just looks on, speechless.
“Christmas at Hoppenstedts”
Like many of Loriot’s skits, this one comes from Loriot’s TV series of the same name. “Christmas at Hoppenstedts” lasts a full 25 minutes and consists of different scenes from the preparations for the Christmas festival to buying gifts to actually celebrating with the family. Grandpa Hoppenstedt (Loriot) first buys his grandson Dicki (Katja Bogdanski) a Christmas present, the model kit “We’re going to build a nuclear power plant”.
In another scene, mother Hoppenstedt (Evelyn Hamann) receives a visit from three representatives at home. While wine salesman Blümel (Loriot) infuses her with more and more alcohol, vacuum cleaner salesman Jürgens (Rudolf Kowalski) presents his “suction blower Heinzelmann”, with which one can dust as well as dry hair. Finally, insurance agent Schober (Kurt Ackermann) joins them. All four are getting increasingly drunk.
Finally, on Christmas Eve, the Hoppenstedt family wants to spend a peaceful Christmas party, but it goes really wrong. Grandpa complains with the cult slogans “There used to be more tinsel!” and “I want my present now!” Dicki reads “Zicke Zacke Hühnerkacke” as a Christmas poem. And the donated nuclear power plant for the grandson blows a hole in the floor – much to the annoyance of the neighbors.