By Nora Henze
Comedy heavyweights on Saturday night at the Beat the Star studio. Michael “Bully” Herbig (54) and Rick Kavanian (51) have not only been colleagues for many years (e.g. “Bullyparade”, “Der Schuh des Manitou”), but also very good friends. Nevertheless, they didn’t want to give each other anything that evening – after all, a suitcase with 100,000 euros was waiting for the winner of the evening.
Moderator Elton (51) was looking forward to his two guests like a snow king: “Like Ernie and Bert. Dolce and Gabbana. Thick and stupid.” Bully was confident of victory right from the start: “Since Rick is my opponent, I don’t have to do any special preparation. My greatest strength is that I know his weaknesses.”
Pee mishap on the studio floor
Even in the first game, however, the competitive spirit quickly receded into the background. Especially cute contemporaries were waiting for the two opponents: For the game “Attracting the dogs”, Bully and Rick had to get several puppies to come to their position with shouts and toys.
The first dog “Mo” trotted purposefully towards Rick and gave him the first point. With the next dog “Frieda”, Herbig went to a lot of trouble, sprawled on the floor and beckoned: “Look at Frieda, don’t go to him!” Frieda wobbled enthusiastically towards him, but lost a few drops of excitement.
The comedian reacted almost enthusiastically: “She wet my carpet!” The next dog, little “Kalle”, seemed completely lost, slipped several times and shortly afterwards also peed on the studio floor.
Now Bully felt sorry for the puppy: “I think Kalle wants to go home.” While the cuteness of the dogs caused enthusiasm among most viewers, some others vented their anger on Twitter: they sensed animal cruelty and rated the pee incident as puppies overwhelmed.
Elton has to question the notary
The other games were not entirely without irritation either. In the game “opinion research”, Pro Sieben asked viewers to give their opinion on various questions by telephone. Not only did each call cost 50 cents, but the questions chosen also caused incredulity among the viewers.
For example, Elton wanted to know: “Who do you think is more beautiful – Christian Lindner or Robert Habeck?” (Result: Lindner 49%, Habeck 51%).
Another question was even: “Where would you rather step in – shit or vomit?” Elton was embarrassed himself at the end when he revealed what other questions were still waiting for the viewers: “How would you rather die – burn or drown ?
In the game “Distract”, Elton even had to use the “Schlag den Star” notary. Here, the two candidates were asked to memorize and repeat a phrase while being distracted by the other. Here Bully despaired of his opponent.
Kavanian was able to repeat his sentence correctly: “Peter Gabriel sang with Genesis until 1975…”. However, despite the correct sentence, the “wrong” signal came from the control room. Bully quipped, “Someone fell on the button because they fell asleep.”
But Elton seemed desperate: “What are we going to do now?” It didn’t help at all – the moderator grabbed the red phone to ask the notary. Herbig claimed: “He’s calling Raab!” Kavanian meanwhile pointed to his opponent: “He said the R-word!”
Lucky in disguise: Rick Kavanian was allowed to try a new sentence and was able to dominate this game.
Bully Herbig wins “Beat the Star”
At first things hadn’t looked good for Rick Kavanian. In the meantime he was even behind by 3 to 42 points and hardly saw a chance of victory. The audience almost sensed an unusually early end of the show before midnight, but then Kavanian fought his way forward to a score of 50 to 55 points.
Elton was already sighing: “Mom, it’s going to be later. Who would have thought of that two hours ago?” The “Cover” game brought the decision: At 1:20 am Michael “Bully” Herbig won “Schlag den Star” and received the suitcase with 100,000 euros.
