Kommissar Rex

While CBAM has found the joys of the BBC in jolly olde England, I am still stuck in Frogland with only three or four working television channels. All fall I found myself rushing home from the archives to catch the latest daily installment of Verliebt in Berlin (the German version of Ugly Betty dubbed into French - note: I still like our Ugly Betty much better). But alas, the story ended just before Christmas when Lisa dumped Renaud at the altar for David (yes I know you don't care, and I am getting to the point). This of course means that there is little to watch on television before 8 pm, so lately I've just had the tv on in the background and switch channels every once in a while. I'd been flipping past what I assumed to be some sort of German version of Rin Tin Tin until last week when I stopped on it and was strangely compelled by this program. Everyone knows I love an intelligent dog, but the German Shepherd in this program is incredible! My Wikipedia quest turned up that this is in fact an Austrian version of Rin Tin Tin called Kommissar Rex (Rex being the nickname of the dog, whose full name is Reginald von Ravenhorst). Here is a picture of Kommissar Rex with the wurst sandwiches he loves so much:


This dog is so smart! He is always playing tricks on one of the inspectors and loves to steal sausage rolls and other things and replace them with his rubber toys. And of course he always solves the crime. I think this program is so compelling because the quality both of the cinematography and of the crime solving seem to be from the early 1970s (think Quincy or Columbo), yet it was filmed between 1994 and 2004. Compared with the Jerry Bruckheimer smorgasbord one gets every night (every CSI, Cold Case, some FBI show), the inspectors on Kommissar Rex seem pretty crappy. However who needs fancy DNA testers when you have a brilliant dog who can just track the criminal based on his smell! A. is pretty amused at my new fondness for Kommissar Rex, especially since I was researching German Shepherd puppies and new puppy names so that we can add one to our list of future puppies. I think that if I got one, though, he would have to be named "Kommissar Rex".

In other news, A. has been spending his sleepless nights on YouTube and found this insanely brilliant gem:



Soon I will post some pictures of A.'s moving tribute to Princess Diana at the tunnel where she died. He's also wearing my beret in the pictures, although I couldn't get him to wear my mime shirt.