100 years of Heinz Schenk: The Grand Master of Popularity

Since his death in 2014, TV legend Heinz Schenk (1924-2014) seems to be increasingly forgotten. The cult presenter was one of the defining figures of the German television world for over two decades. Between 1966 and 1987, no one who wanted to achieve success in pop and folk music came around the “Ebbelwoi-Babbler” and his entertainment show “Zum Blauen Bock”.

After starting out in post-war cabaret and as a radio presenter at Hessischer Rundfunk, Schenk took over moderation of the popular television program in 1966 after his predecessor Otto Höpfner (1924-2005) had thrown in the towel due to fee disputes with the station. At this point, “Zum Blauen Bock” was already one of the most popular shows in the black and white TV program at the time, and Höpfner was one of its biggest stars.

However, fears that the show could quickly go down the drain with the still largely unknown new presenter were not to be fulfilled. Quite the opposite: Under the leadership of Heinz Schenk, the show finally achieved gigantic ratings, with up to 20 million people tuning in regularly.

“Zum Blauen Bock” was a special kind of television program. Originally, Hessischer Rundfunk had conceived the format simply as an accompanying program to the 1957 radio exhibition in Frankfurt am Main, but due to its great success, the show was continued after the end of the technology fair – for the whole 30th for years.

The concept was to record the show in a stage-like replica of the Ebbelwoi tavern called “Zum Blauen Bock” and have the moderator Otto Höpfner, as the host, lead through a varied program of musical performances, small sketches and humorous conversations with invited guests. The audience sat at typical pub tables in the middle of the studio and thus became part of the event themselves – often drinking cider and schnapps in the picture. Each prominent guest on the show received a cider jug ​​called a “Bembel” with the show’s logo on it as a souvenir.

When Heinz Schenk took over the show, he made some changes to the basic structure. Instead of as a host, he appeared in his moderator role as a waiter (later as managing director), while his colleague and sketch partner Lia Wöhr (1911-1994) took on the role of landlady. He also spiced up the show with a more upscale selection of musical guests, including folk musicians and pop stars, as well as opera icons such as Rudolf Schock (1915-1986) and Anneliese Rothenberger (1919-2010).

Glamorous cosmopolitanism, as Schenk’s TV colleagues Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff (1928-1998), Dieter Thomas Heck (1937-2018) and Rudi Carrell (1934-2006) celebrated in their shows, was not planned for in the “Blauer Bock” from the outset . With his “Hessian flabby mouth,” the presenter relied on brightly colored local color and a lower-middle-class festival atmosphere. In his self-written sketches, presentations and his own songs, he often used a very old-fashioned sense of humor in which the Mainz carnival had clearly left its mark.

By the 1980s at the latest, “Zum Blauen Bock” was seen by German youth as the epitome of television bourgeoisie and its conceptual provinciality made it stand out ever more grotesquely from the television landscape of the time. Nevertheless, the show and its showmaster remained a clearly defined entertainment brand until the end, which has burned itself deeply into the collective memory of several generations.

After the show was taken off the program in 1987, ARD started a less successful project with Heinz Schenk between 1993 and 1996 under the title “Fröhlich einSchenkt”. When his impressive TV career came to an end, star comedian Hape Kerkeling (60) created a cinematic monument to him in his showbiz satire “Kein Pardon” in 1994. In the shrill box office hit, Schenk embodied a washed-up television presenter with a penchant for choleric outbursts. Even die-hard “Zum Blauen Bock” haters noted the fact that he showed so much self-irony in his old age with respect and a conciliatory smile.

In his last years, Heinz Schenk limited himself to sporadic guest appearances at the Frankfurter Volkstheater and occasional appearances on other presenters’ television shows. Otherwise, he spent his retirement in seclusion at the side of his wife Gerti in his bungalow in Wiesbaden-Naurod. Schenk had been happily married to the trained hairdresser since 1951; the couple remained childless.

After Gerti’s death in December 2013, the elderly entertainer ordered in his will that his entire estate be auctioned off and transferred to a foundation that supports young up-and-coming artists “who make people laugh.” He appointed his long-time manager Horst Klemmer as the estate administrator, who took care of the establishment of the Heinz Schenk Foundation after Schenk’s death on May 1, 2014.

To finance the foundation, Schenk’s home was sold in 2016, and a total of 9,000 items from his estate went under the hammer in a large-scale auction, including numerous memorabilia of the “Blue Bock”. Since 2017, the foundation has been calling on young entertainment talents to apply for prize money of 10,000 euros. The first awards ceremony was announced for 2019, but has not yet taken place – which would certainly not have thrilled the showmaster, who is known to be an extremely perfectionist.

On Heinz Schenk’s 100th birthday, ARD is honoring the legendary “Hardcore Hessian” with the , which has been available in the ARD media library since December 3rd. A wonderful opportunity for old and new fans of the star presenter to once again immerse themselves in the most dazzling times of German television.