Hape Kerkeling
| Hape Kerkeling | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Hans Peter Wilhelm Kerkeling 9 December 1964 Recklinghausen, West Germany |
| Occupation | comedian, author, presenter, actor, singer, voice actor |
| Website | http://www.hapekerkeling.de/ |
Hans Peter Wilhelm "Hape" Kerkeling (German pronunciation: [ˈhaːpə ˈkɛʁkəlɪŋ]; born 9 December 1964, in Recklinghausen, Germany) is a German actor, presenter and comedian with Dutch roots.
At secondary school in Recklinghausen, Hape Kerkeling and some fellow students formed a band (Gesundfutter, meaning: health fodder) and published a record (Hawaii).
Kerkeling started his career as a comedian in radio, working for various German broadcasting companies, such as WDR and BR.
The real breakthrough came in 1984/85 when, still aged only 19, Kerkeling got a role in the Känguru [sic] television comedy show (the German word for kangaroo deliberately spelt without an "h" at the end although this broke the spelling rules at that time). The best-known character in this show was the little boy Hannilein, played by Kerkeling, an irritating child with red hair in a pudding-basin style, dungarees and sitting on giant-sized chairs, who commented on the world of adults.
Later came guest appearances and sketches on the Radio Bremen show Extratour. Then in 1989 Kerkeling started up his own comedy TV show, Total Normal (Totally Normal) along with pianist Achim Hagemann. This show, a satirical spoof on prime-time TV-Shows, had a totally new format and was awarded several television prizes such as the Goldene Kamera, the Adolf-Grimme-Preis and the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis.
On the show, Kerkeling made television history on 25 April 1991 when he dressed up as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on a state visit to Berlin and almost managed to get into Schloss Bellevue to meet the President of Germany for lunch. The satirical song from this show, Das ganze Leben ist ein Quiz (All life is a quiz) made it into the German pop charts.
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