Marcel Winatschek

Popetown on MTV Germany

MTV Germany announced they’d air Popetown, this old BBC cartoon about a pope who just screws around with greedy cardinals, and the entire country had a moment. The show had been made years ago and never aired—just sat on a shelf somewhere. But the announcement alone was enough. The CDU filed a police report. The church demanded it be pulled. Every major network ran stories about it like it was an actual political emergency.

The show itself is harmless—nothing in it that actually threatens anyone’s faith. A silly pope, corrupt officials, cartoon irreverence. But the church wanted it gone, so MTV compromised. They’d air just one episode during a live discussion in Berlin, with church spokespeople and critics and everyone else who needed to weigh in on a cartoon.

What actually happened was the opposite of what the church wanted. The people fighting the show handed MTV Germany free advertising. Suddenly everyone was paying attention. The controversy became the entire point. Whether Popetown was funny stopped mattering—the thing that made it unmissable was someone trying to stop it.