Hugo Egon Balder becomes 75: from herb rocker to the television star

In order to provide the German television audience with gaudy entertainment, Hugo Egon Balder (75) always gave everything in his long career – and was a shame for almost nothing. With weird formats like “Tutti Frutti” and “Nothing anything or?!” In the early 1990s he shaped the wild early days of private television like no other. Even at the age of 75, he is still one of the most prominent fun of the TV scene.

Even though the entertainer, born in West Berlin in 1950, has acquired his fame, especially in the field of the Klamuchian television entertainment, he is a man of many talents.

He initially started his career as a musician at the end of the 1960s. Already at 15 he drummed in various beat combos and in 1967, as a drummer, was one of the founding members of the Krautrock Cult band Birth Control. Shortly before the international breakthrough of the psychedelic music group, he rose there again in 1968 to henceforth standing in the spotlight himself.

After a demolished graphic and art studies, he completed an apprenticeship at the private drama school of the UFA legend Else Bongers (1901-1993) in Berlin from 1970 and then belonged to the ensemble of the renowned Berlin Schillertheater between 1973 and 1979, where he discovered his comedic talent and his preference for improvisation.

From 1985 he participated in the Düsseldorf cabaret “Kom (m) Ödchen”, where he brought programs together with the cabaret artist Lore Lorenz (1920-1994) and later TV legend Harald Schmidt (67). In addition, he tried as a humorous pop singer and even landed one or the other hit with gaga songs such as “Blackening” (1982) or “Erna coming” (1984).

After the start of private television in 1984, the first private TV channels were desperately searched for flexible and as cost-effective moderation talents, to which RTL Plus soon also came into play in various formats.

From 1988 he celebrated his big breakthrough along the side of Hella von Sinnen (66) with the shrill comedy game show “All nothing or?!”, An anarchist “children’s birthday for adults”, in the final of which cakes always flew into the faces of the moderators or prominent guests.

As a moderator of the first German erotic game show “Tutti Frutti”, he finally wrote television history between 1990 and 1993. In the legendary cheap format, the candidates dropped the covers to collect points. The revealing “Ballet Cin Cin”, a group of six models, provided additional nudity, which – in keeping with the title of the program – represented a certain fruit.

To the memorable striptease show: “At that time the show was one of the first really thick scandals on TV. What did we get. He proudly added this: “But people liked it”.

After the resounding success of “Tutti Frutti”, the entertainer at RTL moderated other obscure formats such as “Fata Morgana – the desert orient show” in the further years, but also worked as a producer behind the scenes. Especially with the comedy series “RTL Saturday night”, he earned for the first time away from the trash TV Mediale Lorbeeren.

In front of the camera, however, he was only able to build on his great success after moving to Sat.1 in 2003. Above all, the comedy quiz he designed “Awesome next to it” developed into a real long-running. Further new editions should follow the original version produced between 2003 and 2011, and Hugo Egon Balder reliably ensures fun entertainment there today.

The TV star always lets the accusation that this is often trashy and infantile. : “I just do nonsense, I’m just doing entertainment. If people have worked hard all day, they just want to be entertained in the evening.” He tried a lot in his career and had to suffer some flops. In this regard, his motto is: “Even if people find shit, what you do, at least they have to notice that it is honest shit”.