Overgames

Streaming video - 2015

While channel surfing in 2004, Lutz Dammbeck saw West German TV game show host Joachim Fuchsberger explain that he had based his successful early-1960s game show, *Nur nicht nervös werden* (*Just Don’t Get Nervous*), on an American show called *Beat the Clock*, which made use of games developed for use in psychiatric therapy. When asked how many patients had watched his show, Fuchsberger answered: “A nation! A crazy… mentally disturbed nation.” In questioning how (West) Germans could have been considered mentally disturbed, Dammbeck discovered the mid-20th century psychiatric theories that, in combination with the work of other US scholars, underpinned the American post-Nazi “re-education” program. In this painstakingly researc...hed film essay, he attempts to determine if Fuchsberger’s claims are true—and thereby explores the concept of a permanent revolution. more