He’s back and this time he’s serious. German entertainer Stefan Raab is in Istanbul where he currently broadcasts Istanbul Total, a special edition of his show "TV Total" which is on every day of the week. For the third time he made the German finals for the Eurovision Song Contest which is held in Turkeye this year. First, Raab appeared as producer Alf Igel, a mockery of the music-producer Ralph Siegel, who had dominated the contest in Germany for decades. Raab had produced Schlagerking Guildo Horn, who had a strong fan-following with his parody of cheesy pop from Germany. Horn‘s real name is Horst Köhler by the way, the same as the future president of Germany. Strange coincidence....) He didn’t do too well in the finals, but Guildo Horn represented a strange change within Germany. For some reason everyone was taking this stupid song contest really serious and now the Germans sent this old man with a cape making fun of the whole thing and promising everyone rasberry-icecream and cake if they voted for him. What happened to the famous of lack of humour in Germany?

The year after, Stefan Raab won the first round on his own with "Wadde Hadde Dudde Da", a nonsense-song with a bombastic disco-production. The dada-title was easy to dance to and became a hit. The rest of Europe was stunned again. Even though Raab was a clown, he had come up with a great title, proving what he is best at: spontaneously coming up with lyrics and improvizing on his little ukulele with folks like Lionel Richie. Stefan Raab did a song about legalizing pot with Shaggy, he fought the female german boxing-champion and got his nose broken, he invented the wok-championship (bobsleigh with a wok!) and on Saturday he is out to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

This time it’s not about making fun. Raab appears as the producer and song-writer for Max Mutzke with "Can't wait until tonight". According to all european experts, Mutzke has good chances to win.

Max Mutzke was the winner of SSDSGPS (Stefan sucht den Super Grand Prix Star), a casting contest put up by "TV Total" as a reaction to all the fake-ass casting shows on TV. Compared to shows like "Popstars" or "American Idol", Raab managed to get real talent for his little contest. Instead of presenting good-looking bimbos who can dance, he found great voices and interesting singers. Even though, Germany had been casted to death, quite a few surprises appeared on the show. After Mutzke had been announced as the winner and the song had been promoted on the show for weeks, it skyrocketed into the German charts and the rest of the world is supposed to follow soon.

Stefan Raab is producing "TV Total" in Istanbul this week and the basic concept hasn’t changed much. There is the host playing the curious idiot commenting embarassing clips from other TV shows while his intern Elton makes a fool out of himself belly-dancing. They have turkish guests, teach the basic turkish and even though the show has seen better times, Raab is doing more for German-Turkish friendship right now than a lot of officials who have a problems with having muslims in the EU. But who are they afraid of? The turks sent Gökhan Özoguz and his band Athena this year, a tatooed punk with read hair and a ska-song.