Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! (found episodes of MTV Germany claymation series; early 2000s)
Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! is a German variant of the hit MTV show Celebrity Deathmatch. In Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany!, German celebrities would fight in a claymation style. Many of the celebrities were politicians or German musicians that were not well known to the general public. The show ran from 2001-2002 before being canceled due to poor ratings.
Background
In the 1990s, MTV debuted a hit series of claymation shorts entitled Celebrity Deathmatch. The series involved celebrities fighting against each other in a wrestling ring and started way back on Cartoon Sushi with the very first fight, murderer Charles Manson vs. shock-rocker Marilyn Manson. It was later revived in 1998 for MTV's Super Bowl XXXII halftime special, then made into a regular program three months later, and eventually canceled in 2002 after four years.
In the late 1990s, reruns of Celebrity Deathmatch would air on MTV Germany with subtitles. Initially, the reruns were placed late at night, but despite this, the show was still very popular among German viewers. The spike in viewership also helped place MTV Germany head of its competitor Viva as the most popular music TV channel in Germany. This also paved the way for Germany's own variant of Celebrity Deathmatch.
Broadcast
Airing in 2001 on MTV Germany, Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! sought to add its own twists to the famous TV show. In order to help make the show have a better appeal for a German audience, the commentary duo Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond were replaced with Harry Huber. Other changes made to Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! saw the use of German celebrities and politicians fighting as opposed to more world-renowned celebrities in its American counterpart. This caused a massive issue among viewers as many of these public figures were not that well known to the whole of Germany. Despite the massive amount of money that was being poured into the promotion of Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany, the show was canceled in 2002 due to low ratings, and poor reception among viewers. Aside from the regional differences, critics also panned the quality of claymation used.
Matches
- Harald Schmidt vs. Stefan Raab
- Udo Lindenberg vs. Harald Juhnke
- Michael Schuhmacher vs. Boris Becker
- Sven Vaeth vs. Westbam
- Anke Engelke VS Sabrina Setlur
- Campino VS Bela B.
- Joschka Fischer VS Gerhard Schroder
- Stefan Kretzschmar vs. Mario Basler
- Gronemeyer VS Muller-Westerhagen
- Thomas Gottschalk VS Kai Pflaume
- Xavier Naidoo VS Thomas D.
Availability
DrClark Wyman ripped all the fights from VHS and uploaded them on YouTube in 2014, which he later took down due to the videos being blocked worldwide. The videos were reuploaded onto Dailymotion.
External Link
- Website that talks about the broadcast history of Celebrity Deathmatch Hits Germany! Retrieved 18 Jan '19