The Story of Short Bart De Graaf, Who Changed Modern Television

It’s difficult to surprise a modern TV viewer with anything. Many show creators try to shock the audience in order to get the coveted rating. But there were times when everything on the silver screen was prim and proper. At least that's how you can describe European TV before the advent of Bart de Graaff. This freaky little guy had the talent to turn any show into a farce.

Bart Fredericus de Graaf was born in North Holland in 1967. Until the age of 9, the boy’s life was cloudless, but an accident changed everything. In 1976, Bart was hit by a car. He was seriously injured and few believed that he would survive. But young De Graaf recovered, although he remained disabled. Due to his injuries, he developed severe kidney failure and his physical development completely stopped.

So Bart De Graaf was forever stuck in the body of a child. Anyone else would have despaired in his place, but this guy decided to turn his disadvantage into an advantage. Bart went on television and, after going through countless auditions, became the host of a children's show.

He fell in love with his job and decided that sooner or later he would become the owner of his own television company. De Graaf's dream came true in 1997. He opened a small company BNN (Bart's News Network) and completely immersed himself in creativity. He started with a remake of the children's TV show Teletubbies called Teringtubbies. It seems that there cannot be a more stubborn spectacle than the original, but De Graaf did an honorable job of making an even stranger remake.

After experimenting a little, De Graaf realized that success lies not in flat jokes and antics in front of the camera, but in real game and provocations. You don't even need a script for this - everything is based on improvisation. This is exactly what Bart’s first successful project “WKIJSVWM” became, which stands for “What are you willing to jump up for in the middle of the night?”

De Graaf asked this question to various celebrities on air. And then he and the film crew showed up at their house at night and staged a crazy improvisation. Another show, called Try Before You Die, was even more crazy. Its participants ran naked around the stage, performed humiliating quests and even fought. And in one of the episodes, a girl was forced to experience the shock of a stun gun.

Even uglier was the action, which Bart called “Spuiten en Slikken” (“Squirt and Swallow”). This completely immoral show delighted television viewers. Bart De Graaf was full of ideas, but, alas, he died in 2002 at the age of 35. The showman decided to undergo a kidney transplant, but his body rejected the organ and the man died.

De Graaf died, but his work continued to live. In 2007, the “Great Donor Show” project was launched on the BNN TV channel. In this reality show, the main prize was... a human kidney. The terminally ill woman promised to give it to the winner. 25 candidates competed for the prize, for each of whom victory was vital.

TV viewers helped choose the winner. They voted for the show's participants using SMS. The public reacted ambiguously to the program. Some demanded that it be banned, calling it disgusting and inhumane. Others, on the contrary, believed that this was a new word in the world of reality television. There were those who saw the Great Donor Show as a tribute to De Graaf, who also received a kidney donation.

And in the finale of the show, its creator Paul Roemer unexpectedly announced that it was a dramatization. The purpose of the program was to draw attention to the problem of the shortage of donor organs. By the way, she played her role. In just one month, 7,300 new donors were registered in donor databases in the Netherlands!