Pink Hitler; Green Tom

A Soviet TV show.

June 15, 2015 at 5:18PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Not to be presumptuous, but I'll bet this means nothing.

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Meant nothing to me a few minutes ago. In just a few minutes you'll understand completely. First, let's see what Kernel has to amuse us this afternoon. You there! Website! Amuse me!

It was all a hoax. Does that matter? Well, Maxim Maximovich Isaev, aka Stierlitz, didn't exist either, but lots of people think he did. Or should have, anyway. Regarded by some as "The Soviet James Bond," he was a popular character from the grey Brezhnev era. Here's the start of one adventure, and in the brooding style of the day, it opens with a full minute's worth of impassive geese observation. Then he lowers his head to indicate the fatalistic essence of the world only a Russian soul can apprehend.

The story of Stierlitz can be heard here on the BBC. After which these you may want to watch the entire "17 Moments" series.

On second thought, you may want to save it for November, when everything else is dreary and hopeless.

Anyway, Wikipedia notes this:

The picture at the top of the post is from a parody of the colorized version. It culminated with Pink Hitler:

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Explains a few things.

Anyway, whether it's the greatest Wikipedia hoax is impossible to say. There may be superior hoaxes that haven't been discovered. Perhaps we should be wary of the source, since Kernel, in another story, insists that "Tom Green is the overlooked forefather to today's prank culture on YouTube." I'm sure he is, but Tom Green being overlooked is not the tragedy the article seems to imply.

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