Ricky Gervais became world famous thanks to The Office. The comedy about the problems of the world of work, something so universal and easily adaptable to the local context, which he created with Stephen Merchant, has had up to 16 versions in countries as diverse as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Finland. The duo’s next hit, Extras, applied its sarcasm to the problems of the audiovisual industry and featured self-parody cameos from major stars such as Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller. It’s been almost 20 years since its premiere, but last season this series also had an adaptation, The German German Genius (available in the HBO Max catalog).
The premise of this fiction is completely real. Kida Khodr Ramadan is an established actor in Germany after his acclaimed role as Toni Hamady in the series 4 Blocks, a drama about the Arab mafias operating in the multicultural Neukölln district of Berlin. The success is so great that your challenge is to find a new, suitable project. One day in 2018, Ricky Gervais shares a message on Twitter (now X) praising this series, and its protagonist takes the opportunity to meet the Brit and propose a German version of Extras.
I just finished the German series #4Blocks. It’s a fucking masterpiece.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) October 3, 2018
German Genius is actually an original series. He only uses this anecdote to develop, four years later, a metareferential plot that has as much in common with the British comedy as with another unrelated to Gervais, the French Call My Agent: the only thing that unites them, is that they are satires about what the world of entertainment hides from the eyes of viewers.
The challenge for Kida, the fictional character, in becoming a producer and starting a German Extras program is that his country is not particularly known for its sense of humor. There are also not enough international stars to play with them for a whole season. But there are countless historical figures known to viewers around the world. With a small twist, adaptation can progress. And so he suggests it to Gervais, which becomes the first cameo in this series. Although only film-loving viewers will recognize the actors and directors who play themselves in German Genius (the most famous are the filmmaker Wim Wenders and the actor Tom Schilling), the series knows how to act globally through its themes.
The protagonist is not just a famous actor who agrees to take photos with his followers in the most absurd situations. He is also a husband, friend and father. And an Arab who lives in a major European city. All this social context favors a clever narrative game with Chinese boxes. Inside the house, Kida is the head of the family with conflicts not unlike those in The Simpsons. In his new career field as a producer, he makes mistakes and mistakes. By donning the costume of one of comedy’s classic archetypes, that of the bumbling charmer, he manages to escape the immense shadow of his original reference. Without being as great as his ironic title promises, he knows how to find his own worth.
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