The Americans Ate Everything

Nora Tschirner’s birthday was coming up, which gave Sonja and me all the justification we needed to spend a full evening on YouTube watching everything we could find. There’s something almost devotional about it—two people hunched over a screen, laughing at someone who has no idea they’re being worshipped.

We found some genuinely excellent things. The Halloween special. The piece she made with Christian Ulmen in a youth hostel, which involves—among other things—American tourists methodically destroying the breakfast buffet, a detail so perfectly observed it became the unofficial title of the entire evening. A lonely Christmas special that plays better than it has any right to. A Christina Aguilera parody that shouldn’t work and absolutely does.

If you need an introduction: Nora Tschirner is a German actress and presenter who is—and I say this with complete sincerity—funny and gorgeous in exactly the same breath, which is an infuriating combination when you’re trying to think clearly about the work. The Tatort appearances, the Keinohrhasen film, the early YouTube videos made back when people made videos because they wanted to: she commits to all of it with the same unguarded energy. You either get it or you don’t, and I have clearly gotten it harder than is strictly advisable.

Watch the youth hostel one first. Trust me on this.