He was a German comic artist, TV comedian , actor and director. After fighting in WWII he started off as an advert graphical designer, doing caricatures and comic strips for newspapers as a side job. His first stint at a magazine ended in disaster because he drew up a world where dogs kept humans as pets ("he'll pass his water just everywhere!") and the German Herrenmenschen sharply disapproved. That didn't keep him from finding success, notably with a sketch TV series in the 70s. He gave us back the belief that we could actually have humour, which wasn't a trivial task at all. Loriot died in 2011, aged 87.
Here is one of his best TV moments (the announcer is played by his congenial long-time TV sidekick, Evelin Hamann). Richard_A has assured me the sketch will work even without subtitles. The story is that the TV announcer, before the broadcast of the eigth episode of the 16-part English crime drama "The Two Cousins" gives - tries to give - "an overview of the plot of the seven episodes broadcast until today". The video showing the complete collapse of composure in the announcer has been pulled, so it's audio only. Still works:
Watch on youtube.com
