Have you ever heard of Jonny Buchardt? His name may sound like box office material, but he never made it big, let alone to Hollywood. And still, there is a good chance you\u2019ll run into him these days, on your phone or laptop, because he has gone massively viral. With a funny thing that happened many years ago, not on the way to the forum in ancient Rome but during Carnival season in 1970s Cologne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonny Buchardt was a German stand-up comedian (a rare species, but they do exist) and looks like a puffed-up version of Ricky Gervais. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Jonny turned out to be Ricky\u2019s dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The video clip\u00a0that\u2019ll pop up in your Instagram or Facebook feed shows him tricking a whole ballroom full of drunk dignitaries during a live TV broadcast into screaming the Nazi salute \u201cSieg Heil.\u201d He did it by priming the crowd with several call-and-response cheers like \u201cHip Hip\u2014Hurrah\u201d and the German \u201cZicke Zacke Zicke Zacke\u2014Hoi, Hoi, Hoi.\u201d Then finally, he gives them a booming \u201cSieg\u201d with the entire room roaring back a collective \u201cHeil.\u201d Immediately after that, the camera pans across the audience and zooms in on some partygoers in their 50s and 60s who seem genuinely surprised at themselves and have a dazed look on their face\u2014probably caused by generous pours of Rhine wine and the sudden realization that their Nazi shtick was just broadcast on national television. Which in those days meant that everyone was watching, or better, had to watch, since the number of channels was painfully limited in 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n