TFTP's Monochrome March: Ernie Kovacs as Wolfgang von Sauerbraten (1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Kovac Corner'
Length - 2:46

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

Ernie Kovacs is a favorite at TFTP (see here, here, and here) so this is a Monochrome March special look at another of Ernie's classic characters, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Kovacs combined the German Oktoberfest-inspired costume (and moustache) and a mostly indecipherable German accent with the shtick of being a disc jockey to create some farcical humor.

Kovacs did this at a time when Germany was just re-emerging after the horrors of World War II, and he probably helped to re-establish some of these elements of a more benign image for German culture. Although the lampooning of ethnic characteristics can be seen as questionable today, seeing Kovacs portraying von Sauerbraten is a great window into his style of comedy.