In recent days, the internet has become enthralled with a 20-second of video a man attempting to cut a pretzel perfectly in half. The short clip purported to come from a German TV show dedicated entirely to the art of cutting things in half. But as disappointed users soon found out, no such German TV show exists.
The clip appears to have gone viral on X, formerly known as Twitter, where it was shared by streaming news site Dexerto with the caption: “There is a german TV show where contestants try to split things perfectly in half.” The clip delighted many X users, including yours truly, and had been viewed more than 67.6 million times by Wednesday afternoon.
Some people said that watching contestants try to cut things into perfect halves was riveting. The X power user @kirawontmiss, who has 1.5 million followers, proclaimed that the show “is the type of shit i wanna watch at 2am when i’m bored.” Their post received 425,000 likes.
German speakers soon appeared to reveal the truth of the purported “german TV show” though, explaining that while the clip is real, it’s just one mini-challenge on a game show.
In fact, the clip is from a 2017 TV show called Schlag den Henssler, which roughly translates to “Beat Henssler” in English. Schlag den Henssler was a live game show where contestants fought for the chance to compete against Steffen Henssler, a German TV chef and host, and win €250.000 (or $270,000). It was a spinoff of Schlag den Raab, or “Beat Rabb,” a show with the same premise featuring TV host Stefan Raab.
Schlag den Henssler saw Henssler and a contestant go head-to-head in more than a dozen different mini-games ranging from quizzes and sports to skill tests, among others, and try to get the most points. Each episode lasted between four to five hours. Schlag den Henssler ran from 2017 to 2018.
While Henssler’s show has hit the dust, you can watch another spinoff called Schlag den Star, or “Beat the Star,”—which features the same mini-game format with celebrity contestants—on YouTube, though it would probably help if you speak German since the videos don’t have English subtitles.
All this goes to show that the next time you get excited about videos of people painstakingly cutting potatoes into perfect halves, be suspicious. To our knowledge, there is no TV show dedicated entirely to cutting food in half—yet. The appetite sure is there, though.
