Stefan Raab

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Stefan Raab (full name Stefan Konrad Raab, born on October 20, 1966 in Cologne, Germany) is a German entertainer and comedian. Before entering the media world, he worked as a butcher ^[1] and studied law before dropping out of college after five semesters. Stefan Raab became popular as the host of the comedy show Vivasion for the German music TV channel VIVA in 1996. Since 1999 he has hosted his own show TV total on the channel ProSieben. While TV total started as a comedy format, it soon turned into a late night show with musical performances, remotely similar to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He also presents occasional game show Schlag den Raab on the same network.

Contents 1 Musical career 2 TV total 3 Private life 4 Legal actions 5 External links

[edit] Musical career

Raab began working as a freelance producer and composer of Jingles and Radio commercials in 1990 at his own studio in Cologne.

He wrote the music for the German entry in the Eurovision Song Contest of 1998, Guildo Horn's "Guildo hat Euch Lieb", and in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 he performed himself with the nonsense song "Wadde Hadde Dudde Da?" ("What do you have there?"). Other famous songs include "Böörti Böörti Vogts" (a song about Berti Vogts), "Hier kommt die Maus" ("Here comes the mouse" a tribute to the TV show Die Sendung mit der Maus), "Maschendrahtzaun", "Gebt das Hanf frei!" ("Legalize Hemp!", featuring Shaggy and samples from German politician Hans-Christian Ströbele) and "Space Taxi".

Raab cast the German entry for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest on his show in a competition he called SSDSGPS ("Stefan sucht den Super-Grand-Prix-Star", "Stefan seeks the super Grand-Prix star" -- satirising the title of the German Idol series Deutschland sucht den Superstar ("Germany seeks the superstar"), commonly abbreviated to DSDS). The winner of this casting, Maximilian Mutzke, came in 8th place.

Bored with the Eurovision Song Contest, Raab came up with the Bundesvision Song Contest in 2005 (Germany officially being the Bundesrepublik Deutschland). The contest featured representatives from each of the 16 states of Germany (Bundesländer) and stipulated that their song had to be (at least partly) in German. The first contest in 2005 was won by the band Juli from Hesse, followed by Seeed from Berlin in 2006 and Oomph! from Lower Saxony in 2007.

He is an autodidact, playing various instruments, such as piano, drums, guitar, ukulele, bass and some wind instruments.

[edit] TV total

Stefan Raab can be called the inventor of wok racing, when in November 2003 he initiated the first "official" World Wok Racing Championships in Winterberg, Germany. While Raab won the title in 2003, he subsequently lost to Olympic luger Georg Hackl in 2004 and 2005,and then Joey Kelly in 2006. Special Guest since 2004 is the Jamaican Bobsled Team, which became famous through the film Cool Runnings. He also arranged and took part at different Sport-Events, like two boxing-matches against Regina Halmich (WIBF's world champion),which he lost both of course, and an ice-skating race against Claudia Pechstein.

[edit] Private life

There is hardly anything known about Raab's private life, which he keeps hidden from the media at all times. He has a girlfriend who is 8 years younger and a daughter, who was born April 17, 2004.

He likes sailing and American Country music.

[edit] Legal actions

During his career, many lawsuits have been filed against Stefan Raab, some of which have gained public attention. Two famous examples are:

The then 16-year-old model Lisa Loch was excessively ridiculed during some shows through Raab's assertion that her name ("Loch" meaning "hole" in German) made her more likely to find a job as an actress in pornographic movies. Loch claimed she received anonymous obscene telephone calls, was mocked by her classmates and in public and as a result suffered sleeplessness and was afraid to leave her home. The court in Hamm eventually ordered Raab to pay € 70000 in compensation due to gross infringement of privacy.

During the 6 September 2004 episode, Raab showed a clip, originally destined for a news broadcast, of the 28-year-old Turkish mother Nil S. holding a Schultüte. Raab's comment, "Unbelievable! The drug traffickers are disguising themselves better and better", resulted in repeated lawsuits, and after a Munich court ruled against Raab, Nil S. settled for € 20000 compensation accompanied by a written apology.

[edit] External links

• Stefan Raab at the Internet Movie Database
• Official TV total website features clips from past shows (in German)

Persondata
NAME	Raab, Stefan Konrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German entertainer and comedian
DATE OF BIRTH	October 20, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cologne, Germany
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH