The original post: /r/television by /u/radioslave on 2024-05-31 01:45:31.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time on and off in Germany but only in the past few months turned the TV on during late night and fallen into the Bernd das Brot rabbit hole. Here’s the jist of this character from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_das_Brot:
Bernd is a depressed and curmudgeonly pullman loaf, speaking in a deep, gloomy baritone. He is small, rectangular and golden brown with hands directly attached to his body, rings around his eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. According to himself, he belongs to the species homo brotus depressivus. His favourite activities include staring at his south wall at home, learning the pattern of his woodchip wallpaper by heart, reading his favourite magazine The Desert and You, and enlarging his collection of the most boring railway tracks on video. Bernd sympathizes firstly with himself, and is bad-tempered and fatalistic.
According to his in-universe backstory, the short-armed bread character made his first appearance as part of an advertising campaign for a bakery chain. When the campaign turned out unsuccessful, Bernd was forced to apply for job at the KiKA (more specifically, the MDR member of the ARD) which is also the reason for his permanent scowl. Bernd himself does not want to appear on television and thinks it is a “dirty business”.
His favorite expression is Mist., used in much the same way as the English “crap”. His other catchphrases are: “I would like to be left alone,” “I would like to leave this show,” and “My life is hell.”
So in short, a German producer created an anthropromorphic loaf of bread that resembles one of his coworkers, who hates everything and wants to be alone. From what I understand, he was just a kids show originally and then gained an adult following and is now broadcasted on loop just sitting in space, lamenting his existence, from about 10pm-6am every night while he floats in space. It seems to be popular as background post-club entertainment.
The Germans may not be known for humour, but creating a semi-suicidal and introverted loaf of bread that floats in space is one of the better things i’ve seen on TV.