BERLIN -- Forget SpongeBob SquarePants, Sesame Street and the sourdough starter craze: a depressed German loaf of bread named Bernd das Brot is celebrating his 25th anniversary as the reluctant star of a children's television program that accidentally became equally popular with adults. A cult classic in Germany , Bernd das Brot (Bernd the Bread) is a puppet renowned for his deep, gloomy voice, his perpetual pessimism and his signature expression, "Mist!" (Think “crap!” in English.) Played and voiced by puppeteer Jörg Teichgraeber, Bernd is a television presenter who wants nothing to do with TV and can’t wait to go home to stare at the wallpaper.
This year, his friends — a sheep and a flower bush — are urging him to become a bread influencer. Born as a sketch on the back of a napkin in a pizzeria, creator Tommy Krappweis drew Bernd's infamous grimace after co-creator Norman Cöster's face when they were asked to come up with mascots for KiKA, a German children’s public television channel. Comic artist Georg Graf von Westphalen designed Bernd as a pullman loaf — white bread typically sliced for sandwiches — with short arms and a permanent scowl.
Bernd channels German stereotypes with his grumpy disposition, penchant for complaining and dry sense of humor and irony. Bernd's first episode aired on KiKA in 2000 alongside his more-optimistic pals, Chili the Sheep and Briegel the Bush. Because KiKA is a children's channel, there was typically dead air from 9 p.
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