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TV total
File:Tv total logo.png
Genre	Late-night talk show Variety show
Created by	Stefan Raab
Presented by	Stefan Raab
Country of origin	Germany
Language(s)	German
Production
Producer(s)	Stefan Raab
Running time	approx. 45 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	ProSieben
Original run	8 March 1999 – present
Chronology
Related shows	Wok racing Bundesvision Song Contest Schlag den Raab Autoball
External links
Website

TV total is a German late-night television comedy talk show that has run since 8 March 1999 on ProSieben, and is currently aired at around 23:15 from Monday to Thursday.

Created, produced, and hosted by Stefan Raab, TV total focuses in particular on mocking the funniest moments from other shows on German television; it also features Raab in his outside reports, and interviewing national and international celebrity guests. Raab is bilingual and interviews his English-speaking guests in English with little or no assistance by off-stage interpreters. Notable guests were the bands Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Coldplay, U2, Oasis, Metallica, and Manowar, martial-arts star Jackie Chan, 50 Cent, Eminem, D12, Mark Wahlberg, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Paris Hilton, and Kylie Minogue. The show has its own band, the Heavytones, and most of the guest musicians and comedians regularly perform live on stage.

Since February 2001, the show has also featured Elton as Raab's intern and sidekick.

The set of TV total includes a floating interview stage that can be moved from one studio corner to the other.^{[citation needed]} The show featured buttons with sounds and clips before Craig Ferguson's The Late Late Show (CBS TV series).^{[citation needed]}

In 2006 Stefan Raab managed to start a new talent contest that was shown as a bonus within his TV total show. This was named "SSDSGPS" (acronym for: Stefan sucht den Super-Grand-Prix-Star, meaning Stefan seeks the Super Grand-Prix Star) and only had a total of four attendees; this was a mock on the acronym DSDS for the German version of Pop Idol running on RTL. The winner of the show, a German singer named Max Mutzke, then performed at the Eurovision Song Contest for Germany. Though he only made it to the eighth position, he later became a quite successful singer and artist in Germany and Austria. The show later had another singing competition that finally carried it to extremes – Raab's talent contest SSDSDSSWEMUGABRTLAD (acronym for: Stefan sucht den Superstar, der singen soll, was er möchte, und gerne auch bei RTL auftreten darf, meaning: “Stefan seeks the Superstar who shall sing what he wants and who may perform on RTL if he likes”) was meant as a mock on RTL Television. He created it when Deutschland sucht den Superstar candidate Max Buskohl accepted an invitation to appear in TV total after he left the show in April 2007 but was denied this performance by RTL who cited their existing contract. Raab then started a campaign called Freiheit für Max Buskohl (Freedom for Max Buskohl) that got attention for using an edited RAF kidnapping photo. After this campaign failed he started his new casting show. The winner was Stefanie Heinzmann. RTL is often mocked by Stefan Raab within his show to be a terrible and awful television station.

From 2 February until 12 March 2010, the TV-broadcasters ProSieben and Das Erste (ARD) collaborated to find Germany's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. After 8 Unser Star für Oslo-Shows, Lena Meyer-Landrut was voted to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, where she won with 246 points.

References[link]

External links[link]

• TV total at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website of TV total (German)

Stefan Raab
Stefan Raab at a Eurovision Song Contest 2010 press conference
Born	Stefan Konrad Raab (1966-10-20) 20 October 1966 (age 45) Cologne, West Germany
Occupation	Entertainer, television host, comedian, musician
Years active	1990-present
Website
www.tvtotal.de

Stefan Konrad Raab (born 20 October 1966) is a German entertainer, television host, comedian and musician. Raab began his television career hosting the comedy show Vivasion in 1993 and has been hosting the late-night comedy show TV total since 1999. He became well known in 1994 after composing a hit single spoofing national football coach Berti Vogts in 1994. Raab has also been the creator of a number of other television shows, such as Schlag den Raab and Bundesvision Song Contest. He is considered the "most powerful man in German entertainment television".^[1]

Raab is also known for his recurring role as producer, writer and performer of German entries to the Eurovision Song Contest. He was involved in the organisation of the national pre-selection show Unser Star für Oslo (Our Star for Oslo), in which Germany's winning entry at the 2010 contest in Oslo was determined.

Early life and family[link]

Raab attended Jesuit boarding school Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn. Before entering the entertainment business, he worked as a butcher and studied law before dropping-out of university after five semesters.^[2] Other than this, there is little known about Raab's private life, which he deliberately keeps hidden from the media. He has a girlfriend, Nike and two daughters (born 2004 and 2006).^[3]

Career[link]

TV[link]

This section requires expansion.

Stefan Raab became popular as host of the comedy show Vivasion for the German music television channel VIVA from 1993 to 1998.^[4]

Since 1999 he has been the host and creator of TV total, which since April 2001 airs on ProSieben four times a week. While TV total started as a comedy format mainly showing and satirising funny and embarrassing sequences from other television programmes, it soon came to be more of a late night show featuring musical performances, in some ways similar to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or Late Night with Conan O'Brien.^[4][5]

After a boxing-match against Regina Halmich in 2001 (rematch 2007) and a speed skating race against Claudia Pechstein in 2002, he also created several other celebrity sports events that are produced regularly, including TV total Turmspringen (high diving) and TV total Stock Car Crash Challenge (stock car racing). He also invented new sports: In November 2003 he initiated the first "official" World Wok racing Championship in Winterberg, Germany. Modified Chinese woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsled track. The championship has taken place every year since, most recently in March 2011 in Innsbruck.^[5] 2007 was the year of the first Autoball EM, autoball being a version of football played in cars and using an exercise ball to score goals.^[6]

In 2006 Raab invented the game show Schlag den Raab (German for Beat the Raab, remade for British television as Beat the Star and as "Beat your host" in several other European countries), in which he competes against a contestant in various disciplines - some episodes of the show lasted more than five hours with excellent quotas.

Raab frequently organises PokerStars.de Nacht, a poker event featuring general celebrities.^[5]

Music[link]

Raab performing Satellite at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011

Raab began working as a freelance producer and composer of jingles and radio commercials in 1990 at his own studio in Cologne.^[2]

From 1994 onwards, he produced a number of popular songs, including "Böörti Böörti Vogts" (a song about Berti Vogts), "Hier kommt die Maus" ("Here comes the mouse", a tribute to the children's television series Die Sendung mit der Maus), "Maschendrahtzaun", "Wir kiffen", "Gebt das Hanf frei!" ("Legalise Dope!", featuring Shaggy and samples from German politician Hans-Christian Ströbele), "Hol' mir ma' 'ne Flasche Bier" ("Get me a bottle o' beer", containing samples from then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder), and "Space Taxi" from the soundtrack of the movie Traumschiff Surprise - Periode 1^[6]

He wrote the song for the German entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1998, Guildo Horn's "Guildo hat euch lieb!",^[5][7] and in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 he took part himself, performing the nonsense song "Wadde hadde dudde da?".^[7] Raab cast the German entry for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in a talent show contest called SSDSGPS ("Stefan sucht den Super-Grand-Prix-Star", "Stefan seeks the super Grand-Prix star", satirising the title of the German Idol series Deutschland sucht den Superstar).^[8] The winner, Maximilian Mutzke, came in eighth place.^[7]

Bored with the Eurovision Song Contest, Raab came up with the Bundesvision Song Contest in 2005 (Bundesrepublik Deutschland = Federal Republic of Germany). The contest features representatives from each of the 16 states of Germany and stipulates that their song has to be at least partly in German.

In 2009, Raab was approached by the public broadcaster NDR, a member of the ARD broadcasting consortium, to jointly organise a national preselection in order to determine the German entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. It was revealed that Raab initially refused the request, but that his television network ProSieben accepted the offer to work with ARD/NDR.^[9] As a result of the cooperation, the talent show contest Unser Star für Oslo (Our Star for Oslo) took place from 2 February 2010 onwards, stretching across 8 shows. Raab took a lead role in the programmes as head of the jury. In the national final on 12 March 2010 Lena Meyer-Landrut emerged as winner.^[10] On 29 May 2010 Meyer-Landrut won the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 with the song "Satellite", claiming the first German Eurovision victory in 28 years.^[11]

As a musician, Raab is an autodidact, playing various instruments, such as piano, drums, guitar, ukulele and some wind instruments.^[4]

Participation at the Eurovision Song Contest[link]

As of May 19, 2011 Raab ends his Eurovision career as a host, chairman of the jury, composer and musical producer.^[12]

Awards[link]

For his television show Vivasion Raab received the Goldener Löwe (Golden Lion), the predecessor to Deutscher Fernsehpreis (German Television Award), in 1996. For TV total he received the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 1999 as well as the comedy award Rose d’or in 2001.

For his talent show SSDSGPS he was awarded the Adolf-Grimme-Preis in 2005 in for the "discovery and support of young music talents". On 29 May 2005 Stefan Raab received the Deutsch-Türkischer Freundschaftspreis (German-Turkish Friendship Award) for his TV total specials from Istanbul in preparation for the Eurovision Song Contest 2004. He won the Bravo Otto in the category „Comedystar“ from 2000 to 2003. In 2000 and 2005 Raab was awarded the ECHO (German music award) as "Best National Producer". In 2005 he also received the ECHO award as "media partner of the year").

On the 29th September 2007 Raab received the Deutscher Fernsehpreis for "best entertainment show" for the fifth episode of Schlag den Raab. On 6 February 2008 the show was awarded the Goldene Kamera (Golden Camera). Furthermore Raab received the media award Bambi on 27 November 2008.^[13] In 2009 Raab won the Herbert Award 2009 for best television sports show with the TV total Turmspringen.^[14]

Madame Tussauds in Berlin displays a wax figure of Stefan Raab since April 2009.^[15]

As the initiator and president of the jury of the show Unser Star für Oslo he was awarded the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis (Bavarian television award) in 2010.

On 12 November 2011. Stefan Raab came 2nd in Synchronspringen teaming with Elton in Munich at the TV Total Turmspringen 2011 event. This was his first ever podium along with Elton at this event.

Controversies[link]

Raab has been the subject of lawsuits throughout his career, some of which have gained public attention. The two most referenced cases are:

• The case of then 16-year-old model Lisa Loch, who was ridiculed during some shows through Raab's assertion that her name ("Loch" meaning "hole" in German) made her more likely to find a job as an actress in pornographic movies. Loch claimed she received anonymous obscene telephone calls, was mocked by classmates and in public and as a result suffered sleeplessness and was afraid to leave her home. A court in Hamm ordered Raab to pay €70,000 in compensation due to infringement of personal rights.^[16]
• In an episode broadcast on 6 September 2004, Raab showed a clip, originally destined for a news broadcast, of a 28-year-old Turkish mother Nil S. holding a Schultüte (a cardboard cone, typically full of sweets, traditionally given to children in Germany on their first school day). Raab's comment, "Unbelievable! The drug traffickers are disguising themselves better and better" ("eine Tüte" also means "a marijuana joint" in German slang, hence the pun), resulted in repeated lawsuits, and after a Munich court ruled against Raab, Nil S. settled for €20,000 compensation accompanied by a written apology.^[17]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Stefan Raab at the Internet Movie Database
• Official TV total website (German)

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Sürpriz with Reise nach Jerusalem - Kudüs'e seyahat	Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000	Succeeded by Michelle with Wer Liebe lebt
Preceded by Nadia Hasnaoui, Haddy N'jie and Erik Solbakken	Eurovision Song Contest presenter (with Anke Engelke and Judith Rakers) 2011	Succeeded by Leyla Aliyeva, Nargiz Berk-Petersen and Eldar Gasimov