New Hazel Brugger Podcast: too good to be true

It is the story of self-portraits, with the backgrounds and rituals of the fifties. In 2020, Swiss comedienne Hazel Brugger, 29, and her long-term partner, the author and comedian Thomas Spitzer, 34, said yes. In 2021 they became parents of a daughter.

The sudden appearance of Thomas Spitzer at the side of his famous wife was surprising at the time, and yet not entirely unprepared. Home videos in which the two worked on the interior design of their shared apartment in Cologne during the pandemic and philosophized about the right way to handle houseplants made Spitzer’s face known to fans of Hazel Brugger for the first time.

When the couple podcast ‘Just Married’ appeared on Spotify in the spring of 2021 – with a couple photo that visually transported you to the housewife hell of the 1950s – people were cautiously optimistic that this ironic self-portrait of a close couple relationship with a dream of a owning a house thanks to Hazel’s anarchist punchline energy could somehow still succeed.

That went well for a while. The exclusive contract with Spotify gave the two a guaranteed attention, which they managed to use for themselves. Many episodes were talked about in the press. When the two announced in December that Spotify had canceled their exclusive contract, they confidently announced a follow-up.

The first two episodes of “Hazel Thomas Hörerlebnis” have been available for free on the streaming platforms for a week now, and what can be said about this hyper-reflective couple? The two outdo each other again with statements and truthful statements from the consulting literature. People complain about the enormous stress that the workaholic couple seem to put on themselves. Thomas Spitzer ponders a root canal treatment that was needed after a botched trip to London, and advises his wife, who complains of her inflamed sinuses, not to stress out so much with her schedule in her spare time.

These are not dysfunctional marriage sketches à la Loriot. Rather, it is the mutual self-affirmation of two people who even seem to agree on the lint on their living room ceiling. Thomas Spitzer, in particular, who regularly starts sermons on the right way to live, seems old-fashioned and stuffy in his understanding of the role. For example, when he sees his role as a father as active and explains to the mothers of this world (including Hazel) that it is difficult for them to survive in the labor market because their own children are so important to them.

“We’re getting older, more and more raisin-like, but at the same time grayer,” Hazel says to her partner at one point. After all, with all the thinking about children’s birthdays and minor childhood ailments, you have not lost touch with yourself.