Otto Gerhard Waalkes

Otto Waalkes (born 22 July 1948), or mononymously Otto, born Otto Gerhard Waalkes, is a German comedian, actor, musician, writer, and comic book artist. He became famous in the 1970s and 1980s in Germany with his shows, books and films. His best known trademark are the 'Ottifanten' ('Ottiphants'), elephant-like comic characters of his own design, which featured on the cover of his first album release. Waalkes also works as a voice actor, providing the German voices of Mushu in Disney's Mulan, Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age franchise, and the Grinch in The Grinch, among others.

Waalkes was born in Emden, East Frisia, the second son of Karl Waalkes, a painter and decorator, and his wife Adele. He made his first public performance at the age of eleven in a shopping mall in Emden, and at twelve he received his first guitar. In 1964, he performed for the first time in the area of Emden with his band The Rustlers, mainly covering songs by the Beatles, touring East Frisia for five years. In 1968, he passed his Abitur at a boys' grammar school in Emden, and in 1970 he began to study art education at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, though he never pursued a teaching profession.

His first stage performance took place in Danny's Pan, a folklore club in Hamburg. As he performed smaller gigs with his guitar to finance his studies, his apologies for dropping the microphone became more popular than his music, and his comedic stage show began to evolve. In 1972, he founded the label Russl Rackords with his manager Hans Otto Mertens, and his album LP Otto was published the same year, selling over 500,000 copies. His humor consists of puns and word plays, silly language, noises and body language, and his Otto-Bucher and Otto-Langspielplatten became bestsellers. In 2023, an edit of his 1993 song 'Friesenjung' by Ski Aggu and Joost Klein reached the first position of the German Singles Chart.