via Der Spiegel…from their Germany Survivor Bible series.  From the people who brought us Twlight of the Gods…

Bernd das Brot [Bernd The Breadloaf] is a star on the German children’s TV network KIKA. He can best be described as a German Muppet in the form of a loaf of bread, and he hosts the show with his two comrades, Chili das Schaf (Chili the Sheep) and Briegel der Busch (Briegel the Bush). It’s a "variety" show with skits and music and lots of additional (human) actors, musicians and dancers. Bernd and his friends were, I believe, intended to appeal to children; but soon their popularity grew with teens and young adults and became a cult classic that still airs on KIKA — at a time of night when most of the Kinder should be sound asleep.

I first "met" Bernd in the summer of 2005. Each year, I bring a group of American college students to Germany for a study abroad program based in Düsseldorf. I was resting in my apartment one evening, channel surfing, and I stumbled onto Bernd’s show. I was instantly hypnotized. What on earth was this madness, and how could it be happening in Germany? But as it slowly dawned on me that Bernd was the German Everyman (or Everybread?).

Unlike his friends Chili and Briegel — who are unremittingly upbeat and happy and excited about life and their adventures — Bernd is a manic depressive. Here is a bread whose main tag line, used repeatedly in the skits is "Mein Leben ist die Hölle" ("My life is hell"). He admonishes his audience that he’s had enough, he’s going home, and you, the viewer, should as well! "Geh nach Hause!" says Bernd in his resonant, gloomy baritone. He hates us all and isn’t ashamed to admit it. He is the dark night of the German soul anthropomorphized as a bakery item…

And I thought I had My moments of Freudlosigkeit…