Wetten, Dass...The Ultimate TV Show

Anyone who's ever talked to me about German television has heard of Wetten, dass... You can read about the first time I saw it here. Long story short: It's this crazy show with weird talents that celebrities bet on and it's on once a month. It's also the most popular TV show in German speaking countries here in Europe. I've been applying to get tickets for the show ever since I got back to Germany with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program, even if the show was being taped in cities like Mannheim or Leipzig, where I have no connections.

I finally got tickets for last night's show here in Düsseldorf, where the guests were Jennifer Aniston & Owen Wilson promoting Marley & Me, Boris Becker and on-and-off-girlfriend Lilly Kerssenberger, the Oscar winner for best animated short Jochen Alexander Freydank, and German actors Heike Makatsch, Andrea Sawatzki, and Heino Ferch. The musical guests were some band called Reamonn, German comedian Hape Kerkeling as his (female) singer-character Uschi Blum, Duffy, and Oasis. Christian and I had seats in the third from last row, but I was nonetheless super excited to be there.


The first bet was a woman who said she could recognize which of her 30 dogs was drinking from a bowl solely from the noise the dog makes when drinking. She only had to name five dogs, but Owen Wilson said she wouldn't be able to do it. Because she could, he had to eat a dog biscuit and split it with Jennifer Aniston. She kept insisting, "But I said she could do it!" Host Thomas Gottschalk's reply was simply, "Well, you're a team, so too bad, you have to eat the half." Only on German television could you get an American celebrity to do something like that! The entire time that the two were there, Jennifer Aniston kept looking around in disbelief (like the most American celebrities do when on Wetten, dass...) At one point, Thomas Gottschalk actually just said to her, "See? This is what we do on German television...every week!" To say the least, she looked shocked, confused, and in disbelief. It was pretty amusing.

The highlight of the night had to definitely be the Außenwette (outside bet), which was held on one of the runways at the Düsseldorf Airport. The bet was that while a man rode his motorcycle on the back wheel, his partner could change the front tire. I've been watching the show for about three years and I have to say, this had to be the best outdoor bet that I've ever seen. Check out the video:

The motorcycle weighed around 400 kilograms if I recall correctly and to say the least, definitely one of the most dangerous bets I've ever seen.

If you want to see the highlights of the show, you can go to the ZDF Wetten, dass... site. The show lasted three hours, though it's usually only scheduled for two. It was certainly a good time, but considering the cost of the tickets (30€ per person) how early we had to get to the Messe where they were taping and then the show time itself, I don't think I would go again.