Anyone who has sat in front of the television with children in recent years knows the crucial question that arises as soon as they click on the media library: What do we want to see? The show with the mouse? Or Checker Tobi? Both formats have long been classics of German educational television and are so good that even adult viewers won’t get bored.
That’s why it’s in the best sense that Checker Tobi is taking part in the “Global Classroom”, with which Fridays for Future icon Luisa Neubauer wants to make the next generation aware of ocean and climate protection from Wednesday. Want for three days die Mission Antarctica broadcast live from the continent at the South Pole to German schools. It always starts at 12 p.m. Over 1,000 classes are said to have already registered. Checker Tobi wants to be there on the first day. And the success of this initiative will largely depend on him.
Because Neubauer has long since matured into the grande dame of climate activists. And the omnipresent TV doctor Eckart von Hirschhausenwho will be there on Thursday, will certainly also say clever things. But young people are unlikely to be inspired by these pensioners of revolt. That takes someone like Checker Tobi.
In real life his name is Tobias Krell, he is about to turn 40 and is therefore 10 years older than Neubauer. He studied sociology, political science and media studies. But there is no trace of the theory-dry desk analyst in him. As Checker Tobi, he jumps so energetically across the TV screens with a mischievous grin that even preschoolers easily pass him off as a smart buddy next door. And it’s been that way for 13 years.
Learning effect through repetition
The first Checker Tobi program was broadcast on Kika in 2013. The basic scheme has remained the same to this day. Regardless of whether it’s about New Year’s Eve, blood or intelligence – at the beginning of each of the approximately 24-minute programs, Tobias Krell asks himself and his audience three “checker questions”, which he then solves with the help of experts. At the end he briefly summarizes the questions and answers. Learning effect through repetition. A very simple principle.
Over 175 episodes were broadcast. Some are called “Checker Marina” or “Checker Julian” because Tobi can’t do everything alone. But for the children in the audience, Krell is and remains the brand-forming namesake. Because he can explain the world in simple, fact-based language and look wonderfully surprised.
His staged wonder can now be seen in three films. The first two can currently be found in the ARD media library. The third one was just released in the cinema. On the first weekend alone, 300,000 viewers saw it. In “Checker Tobi 3 – The Secret Ruler of the World” he travels with his team to the Maya-Pyramid of Calakmul to Mexico and to Spitsbergen, where he in a coal mine beneath the Arctic ice investigates the question of who leaves the most powerful traces in the earth.
That doesn’t make him a climate expert, and certainly not an Antarctic expert. But there is no question that Tobias Krell has the potential to influence today’s elementary school students in such a way that they will soon take to the streets as Generation Tobi against climate change – because they have checked how serious their future is.