Die Wochenshow is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 weekly comedy sketch

Sketch comedy

A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

 show that is aired on Sat.1

Sat.1

Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....

 and is produced by Brainpool TV. It started on April 20, 1996 and was cancelled early in 2002. Almost a decade later, new episodes are broadcast since May 20, 2011.
The show is a very popular news

News broadcasting

News broadcasting is the broadcasting of various news events and other information via television, radio or internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or television studio newsroom, or by a broadcast network...

 parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 with sketches and recurring characters.

The original cast consisted of Ingolf Lück

Ingolf Lück

Ingolf Lück is a German actor, comedian and television host.He hosted several sketch comedy shows from which the most known is Die Wochenshow, aired on Sat.1 between 1996 and 2002.Lück had a little role in Das Boot....

, Anke Engelke

Anke Engelke

Anke Christina Fischer is a German comedian, actress and voice-over actress born in Montréal, Quebec, Canada.Engelke moved to Cologne in 1971 with her parents...

, Marco Rima and Bastian Pastewka

Bastian Pastewka

Bastian Pastewka is a German actor and comedian.He first became known to a wider audience in Germany around 1996 as a regular cast member of the comedy show Die Wochenshow , essentially a mock news program...

. In 1999 Rima was replaced by Markus Maria Profitlich

Markus Maria Profitlich

Markus Maria Profitlich is a German comedian and actor who was a cast member of Die Wochenshow between 1999 and 2001. He now hosts and performs his own show, Mensch Markus....

 and in 2000 Annette Frier

Annette Frier

Annette Wünsche is a German actress and comedian.-Biography:After the Abitur she studied classical acting at the school of the German theater "Der Keller" for three years and worked as a theater actress in Cologne.-Actress career:In 1997 Frier was member of the cast of the RTL series Hinter...

 replaced Anke Engelke, who left the show to pursue her own projects.
The revival cast includes Ingolf Lück

Ingolf Lück

Ingolf Lück is a German actor, comedian and television host.He hosted several sketch comedy shows from which the most known is Die Wochenshow, aired on Sat.1 between 1996 and 2002.Lück had a little role in Das Boot....

, Dave Davis

Dave Davis

Dave Davis is a former wide receiver in the National Football League. Davis was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the seventh round of the 1971 NFL Draft and played two seasons with the team. He later played with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints.-References:...

, Friederike Kempter, Axel Stein, Matthias Matschke, Carolin Kebekus and Matze Knop.

The title of the show is a play on those of Die Deutsche Wochenschau

Die Deutsche Wochenschau

Die Deutsche Wochenschau is a series of German newsreels from 1940 until the end of World War II.After the invasion of Poland , the Nazis consolidated four separate newsreel production efforts into one...

(a wartime cinema newsreel

Newsreel

A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...

) and Germany's most prestigious TV news program, Tagesschau. Ingolf Lück has occasionally described the show as a modern version of Rudis Tagesshow, a news parody show broadcast from ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

 and hosted by Rudi Carrell

Rudi Carrell

Rudi Carrell , born Rudolf Wijbrand Kesselaar, was a Dutch entertainer. Along with famous entertainers such as Johannes Heesters, Linda de Mol and Sylvie van der Vaart, Carrell was one of the most successful Dutch personalities active in Germany.He worked as a television entertainer and hosted his...

in the 80s.