The Funniest Movie/TV Series Scenes

The funniest German series on TV EVER was "Loriot". It had six episodes only which aired between March 1976 and December 1978. Each episode consisted of a number of skits, mostly with actors, occasionally as cartoons, many of which have become classics of German TV. Many phrases from these skits made it into German everyday speech, like for example "Ein Klavier, ein Klavier!" ("a piano, a piano"; used for gifts nobody really enjoys), "Da hast du was Eigenes" ("you have something of your own there"; used for describing something that is doubtful to have), "das Jodeldiplom" ("the Yodeling Diploma"; used for some education or training that is totally worthless), "Die Ente bleibt draußen!" ("The duck stays out!" when there is something you absolutely don't want) or the simple interjection "ach!" for feigning surprise. And that's just naming a few of these phrases.

One skit that was partially cartoon was about a fictitious animal, the so-called "Steinlaus" ("stone louse"). This fictitious animal is so small it can only be seen under a microscope. It even has an entry in "Pschyrembel", a medical dictionary in Germany that every medical student knows. They had it in there for a few editions, but at a certain point the editors of the dictionary decided to remove the entry. But they received so many letters from readers asking "where is the stone louse"? that they decided to call back that edition, and all following editions had the entry again. The entry is being updated from time to time with new "scientific discoveries" about this fictitious animal. Also several German zoos have compounds in which this fictitious animal is allegedly kept. This goes to show how immensely popular the series was (and still is, even in the young generation; there are reruns from time to time) in Germany.

Vicco von Bülow, better known under his pseudonym "Loriot" (French for "oriole"; the von Bülow family crest depicts this bird), is generally considered to be the greatest German comedian ever. He not only created this TV-series but also two very funny movies, "Oedipussi" and "Pappa ante portas", and published several books containing cartoons of him.

There are two typical aspects to Loriot's humor. The first is people desperately trying to keep their dignity in embarrassing or undignifying situations. The second is misunderstandings in communication, especially between the two sexes.

The von Bülow family crest:

This is another example of German humour, a mockumentary about a certain Georg (called "Schorsch") Aigner (played by German comedian Olli Dittrich who also wrote the script) who, as this 40 minutes feature claims, often acted as a double for famous soccer player Franz Beckenbauer. The mockumentary is from 2015.

The funny thing about this mockumentary is that it sounds absolutely plausible. The people appearing in this video all play themselves except for Dittrich. Ralph Siegel really is a famous music producer in Germany, Uwe Seeler is another famous German soccer player who played in the German national team alongside Beckenbauer, Dieter Kürten is a famous sports journalist in Germany, and all the events mentioned in this mockumentary REALLY happened, except for the fact that there never was a double for Franz Beckenbauer. Or was there? At a certain time in his career Beckenbauer really scored two own goals within one week; the movie claims that this was when Georg Aigner, who allegedly is a bad soccer player, played instead of Beckenbauer.

Olli Dittrich gets Franz Beckenbauer down to a T and even looks like him. The whole movie is an elaborate hoax and brilliantly funny. For a German viewer, that is.

The mockumentary won a Grimme award in 2016. The Grimme awards are the most prestigious TV-awards in Germany and given in several categories; they can be compared to the Emmie awards in the USA.

I think so.  I certainly don't get what's funny about it.

Can you explain it to me?

 

However, the funniest (cleverest) scene I've seen is from "Top Secret!", the Swedish bookstore scene: