'Kottan ermittelt' ('Kottan investigates') is one of the defining moments of Austrian television. Masquerading as a police/crime series, it is actually a fierce anarchic satire on the Austrian police and Austrian society in general. There are no heroes, only anti-heroes, and the police officers, all incompetent caricatures to varying degrees, often solve their cases more by chance than through actual investigation. Major Kottan (the name is a spoof of hardboiled German dime-novel hero Jerry Cotton) was played by no less than three actors over the course of the series, each giving the character a fairly distinct personality: grumpy, prejudiced misanthrope; sarcastic cynic; and anarchic nihilist--the common factor being that each is too caught up in his own preconceptions to actually solve the case. Then there's Inspector Schrammel, who is an incompetent clown; and Police Commissioner Pilch, who is obsessed with catching flies in the early episodes and getting coffee from a mischievous coffee machine in the later episodes, so it is up to one-legged invalid Inspector Schremser to solve most of the murders. The early episodes contain some of the best moments of fierce social satire ever shown on Austrian television, exposing the 'golden heart' of the Viennese as brutal backstabbing and showing the rotten core hiding behind the pretty facades--the postman who rings twice and the decapitated garden gnomes being just two truly great moments. Over time, running gags and moments of truly Pythonesque humor were introduced and continued, until the series turned into an absurd, sometimes even surreal slapstick comedy.
August 3, 1922 in Vienna, Austria
30 August 1939, Salzburg, Austria
1956 in Vienna, Austria
25 January 1927, Groß-Weikersdorf, Lower Austria, Austria
March 12, 1922 in Vienna, Austria
June 12, 1944 in Schertendorf, Lower Silesia, Germany [now Przylep, Lubuskie, Poland]
December 7, 1939 in Vienna, Austria
April 11, 1912 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
3 August 1948, Vienna, Austria
1945 in Vienna, Austria
2 July 1949, Vienna, Austria
January 31, 1942 in Vienna, Austria
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November 10, 1931 in Vienna, Austria
December 21, 1948 in Stinatz, Burgenland, Austria
October 12, 1945 in Graz, Styria, Austria
10 July 1952, Vienna, Austria
25 February 1928, Vienna, Austria
October 7, 1927 in Vienna, Austria
26 October 1940, Augsburg, Germany
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February 11, 1935 in Vienna, Austria
January 28, 1938 in Vienna, Austria
