I’ve recently discovered and become a big fan of one of the most hilarious political parody shows on the planet, “Die Gerd Show,” which is the creation of impersonator Elmar Brandt and writer Peter Burtz. It’s an astonishingly funny send off of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his antics. Their biggest hit has been “Der Steuersong” (“The Taxsong”), which is a truly brilliant parody of the Chancellor’s plans to fleece the German taxpayers. (You can find an interview with Elmar Brandt at this site; if you wait a few minutes through the interview–which is in German, you’ll get to the outstanding video of Gerhard Schroeder, in which he is portrayed as thief, a vampire, and worse, all in the lively style of the British puppet show “Spitting Image.”) More recently, they’ve featured a quite funny meeting between “Gerd” and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which the former seeks the political advice of the Terminator-Candidate for the California governorship, and a song “At Home” (“Zuhause”), in which the Chancellor sings of the advantages of vacationing at home, rather than in Italy. If you know even a little German, you’ll find these items side splittingly funny. Visit www.DieGerdShow.de and click on “Downloads” or “Hoeren + Sehen” and then use RealPlayer or one of the other streaming programs to play the various items. (You can also buy CDs of the various Gerd Show parodies.)
