Loriot

German Humour: Does Germany Have a Sense of Humour?

Course 1 · Chapter 7 · Loriot and the Comedy of Manners

Ask Germans which comedian best represents their humour and the answer, more often than not, is Loriot. A courteous, formally dressed man who drew cartoons and made television sketches, he turned ordinary politeness into a trap: two people try so hard to be correct that they cannot say what they mean, and a small mishap becomes a catastrophe. His lines are quoted in conversation, and some of his sketches are shown on television every year. This chapter looks at the man, the work, the method and the reasons he is loved. Sketches are described and only short, attributed lines are quoted. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Man Behind the Name

Vicco von Bülow

Born in 1923 in Brandenburg an der Havel, from an old noble family, and died in 2011 (check). He served as an officer in the Second World War, then studied art in Hamburg and worked as a graphic artist and cartoonist (check the details of his war service).

The pseudonym

"Loriot" is French for the oriole, a bird that appears in the Bülow family's coat of arms (check). He used it for his cartoons from the 1950s in the magazine Stern and elsewhere, and it became the name by which Germans know him.

The partner

The actress Evelyn Hamann (1942 to 2007) played opposite him in many of his television sketches from the late 1970s, and became one of Germany's best-loved comic actresses (check the dates). The pairing is often compared with a classic double act.

From Cartoons to Television

Work (check each)	Note
Cartoons	Drawings of round-nosed, bald and moustached men and their wives in everyday situations, often with a caption showing a polite exchange going wrong. Published in magazines and books from the 1950s.
Television programmes	He presented cartoon and sketch series on television from the late 1960s, followed by the series Loriot (1976 to 1978), made for Radio Bremen, in which he and Evelyn Hamann performed sketches that mix animated drawing and live action.
Films	The feature films Ödipussi (1988) and Pappa ante portas (1991), which he wrote, directed and starred in. They carry the sketch method into longer stories about a middle-aged man and the people around him.
Other	He also directed opera productions and wrote books, and a mock entry for an imaginary creature, the "Steinlaus" (stone louse), which he invented, made its way into a medical dictionary (check).

The Comedy of Manners

Politeness as a trap. His characters speak in formal, correct language, use titles and the formal "Sie", and try to avoid offence. The harder they try, the more the conversation drifts out of control (check).
Small things, big results. A breakfast egg cooked for the wrong time, a bath shared by two strangers, a quarrel over a table, or a dinner with a cheese plate becomes an occasion for quarrel, humiliation or absurdity.
Language that fails. A character announces what he is going to say and then cannot say it, or speaks in a stock phrase that does not fit the occasion. Here Loriot is close to Valentin's breakdown of language (Chapter 5), but his setting is the polite middle-class home and not the Munich stage (check).
The mild tone. His humour is gentle and affectionate towards his characters. The target is the form of conduct, not a political enemy or a social group.
Timing. The comedy depends on pauses, glances and a perfectly serious face, which is why live performance and film carry it better than text.

Sketches People Know

Four sketches, described The breakfast egg. A wife and husband disagree about how long the egg has been cooked, and a calm exchange about the answer turns into a domestic collision. The husband's remark that the egg is "hard" has become a catchphrase (check). The bath. Two formally dressed men, strangers, find themselves in the same small bathtub in a hotel and continue a courteous conversation as if nothing were unusual, with the duck, in the line often quoted, to remain outside the tub (check the details). Christmas. A family Christmas in which a grandfather's speech about how there used to be more tinsel is interrupted by the ordinary chaos of the occasion (check). The television evening. A couple's evening at home goes wrong because of a misunderstanding about the programme, the remote and what each wants.

The Christmas sketch is shown on German television most years, and for many families it is part of the season. In this respect it matches the New Year's Eve ritual of Dinner for One, discussed in The German Festival Year: a recorded comedy that has become a seasonal tradition, with the difference that Loriot's is German in origin (check how often and where it is shown).

Why His Lines Are Quoted

Everyday use. People quote his lines in family and office conversations as a way of naming a situation, such as someone being too correct or a plan going quietly wrong (check examples).
A shared reference. Because many Germans have seen the same sketches, a short phrase can call up the whole scene, much as a line from Fawlty Towers can in Britain.
Across generations. His work is repeated on television and sold on disc and in books, and viewers of different ages know it (check the figures).
Respect. He received honours, including state awards and honorary degrees, and is often treated as a national treasure (check the details). His death in 2011 was marked by many tributes.

What He Shows About the Stereotype

The stiff German is the joke. Loriot's comedy takes the stereotype of formal, correct, repressed Germans and turns it on itself. The stereotype becomes material, and the laugh is on the formality (check).
A humour of understatement. His quiet, ironic and polite comedy is close to British humour, which suggests the contrast between the two countries is smaller than the stereotype says (check; compare Chapter 10).
Not representative alone. Loriot is one strand. German comedy also includes loud slapstick, political satire and the stand-up of later decades (Chapter 8).

A British comparison The nearest British relatives are the comedies of embarrassment and manners: Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), where Basil's attempts to keep up appearances collapse into disaster, Keeping Up Appearances (1990 to 1995) and the sketches of Alan Bennett (check each). Where Basil explodes, Loriot's characters stay calm, which is more restrained and perhaps closer to the English tradition of the stiff upper lip than to the Scottish. A viewer from Edinburgh might recognise the polite deadlock of an overcorrect conversation.

Check the details Dates, titles of series, the names of sketches and the wording of quoted lines vary between sources, and several are widely misquoted. Verify with the official editions of his work and a reliable biography. Sketches are described here, not transcribed, and the lines quoted are brief and attributed.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Choose one Loriot sketch from the chapter and explain in your own words how the comedy works: the setting, the mistake, the escalation and the ending.

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Exercise 2

Compare Loriot and Basil Fawlty as comedians of manners: what is shared, what differs, and what each suggests about his country.

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Exercise 3

Explain how Loriot's work could be used as evidence for and against the stereotype that Germans are stiff and humourless.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Who: Vicco von Bülow, "Loriot" (1923 to 2011); partner Evelyn Hamann (check)
Work: cartoons from the 1950s; television series 1976 to 1978; films Ödipussi and Pappa ante portas
Method: politeness as a trap; failed communication; understatement
Famous sketches: the breakfast egg, the bath, Christmas at the Hoppenstedts (check)
Lesson: the stiff German is his material, not his limit