The entertainment director and TV presenter (“Talentschuppen”), Dieter Pröttel, in one of his shows (undated recording) Photo: dpa
From BZ/dpa
He staged West Germany’s start into the color television era: Busy entertainment director Dieter Pröttel is dead.
The Südwestrundfunk (SWR) in Baden-Baden and the television producer Werner Kimmig confirmed this on Wednesday at the request of the German Press Agency.
Pröttel was considered a legend in the industry: the best known are probably his directing work on the comedies “Die Supernasen” (1983) and “Zwei Nase tanken Super” (1984) with Mike Krüger and Thomas Gottschalk. But he also shaped a lot of popular entertainment shows from the 1960s to the 1990s, such as the “Rudi Carrell Show”, “The Pyramid”, “Talentschuppen” or “Auf Los geht’s los”.
Pröttel also directed Germany’s first color television program in 1967: the transmission from the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in West Berlin had begun as a black-and-white broadcast. At that time, Vice Chancellor Willy Brandt pressed a red button to convert the live transmission from the trade fair to color TV.
After more than 3000 productions, Dieter Pröttel ended his active work as a director in 2006. He died on December 26 at the age of 89 “with the family” near Starnberg, as it was said.