Last bets on for TV show 'Wetten, dass..?'

The television show "Wetten, dass..?", once one of the most popular shows on German, Austrian and Swiss public television, ended its 34-year run on Saturday with a farewell program broadcast live from the southern city of Nuremberg.

"Wetten, dass..?", which translates roughly as "Do you want to bet that..?", featured both celebrity guests and members of the public who were asked to prove their claims of being able to carry out sometimes bizarre feats. The celebrities were requested to bet on whether they would succeed or not.

The challenges included such things as placing an eight-ton truck on four beer glasses - which five men succeeded in doing in 1981 - or rather unappetizing olfactory trials of skill such as recognizing the wearer of rubber boots by the smell left in them.

The show recently received a degree of somewhat negative media attention in the United States after Canadian comedian Will Arnett humorously told TV host Jimmy Kimmel about his confusion during an appearance on "Wetten, dass..?" in October.

US actor Tom Hanks, who also put in an appearance on the show two years ago, was equally nonplussed by the format.

Fond memories

But in German-speaking countries, the show, which began in early 1981, drew more than 20 million viewers in its heyday.

"Down the years, 'Wetten, dass..?' was the show that the whole family, from grandma to the kiddies, all watched together," said well-known German TV presenter Günther Jauch.

"Just about everyone used to talk abut it the day after," he added.

German Family Affairs Minister Manuela Schwesig also has fond memories of the show, saying "I associate it with my childhood when the whole family got on the sofa and watched it."

The public service broadcaster ZDF said it was pulling the show because of sharply declining ratings.

Nearly fatal stunt

A contributing factor to this decline was a serious accident in 2010, in which the then 23-year-old Samuel Koch fell while trying to leap over a moving car on power stilts.

Koch, a guest in the show's final episode, was paralyzed from the neck down after the accident. The disaster caused heated debate as to why such a stunt had been accepted for a live broadcast.

Stunts which were not accepted by the show's makers include wagers that a contestant could eat five live scorpions whole in three minutes or consume 10 daddy longlegs and five cockroaches and spit them out alive after five minutes.

An ulterior motive might be suspected in other rejected wagers, such as one by a man who claimed to be able to guess the hair color of 20 different female audience members by feeling their breasts.

Saturday's final episode, hosted by Markus Lanz, featured guests such as Hollywood star Ben Stiller and well-known German actor Til Schweiger.

tj/jm (dpa, AFP)