'''Wie bitte?!''' war eine deutsche Fernsehshow, die von 1992 bis 1999 auf dem Fernsehsender RTL Television zu sehen war. Durch die Verbrauchershow führte Geert Müller-Gerbes.

== Show ==
Vom 8. Februar 1992 bis zum 13. März 1999 liefen über 200 Folgen der einstündigen Fernsehsendung jeweils am Samstagabend im Spätprogramm auf RTL.

=== Format ===
Ein Schauspielerteam nahm fragwürdige Praktiken von Behörden und Unternehmen aufs Korn. Dabei wurden wahre Fälle, die von Zuschauern eingeschickt wurden, in Sketchen übertrieben wiedergegeben. Oft ging es um unfähigen oder ungerechten Service oder um nicht eingehaltene Versprechen von Herstellern. Dabei wurde kein Blatt vor dem Mund genommen und die Namen der Unternehmen oder Behörden genannt. Während der Recherchen seitens RTL oder spätestens nach der Ausstrahlung der Sendung kamen die meisten Geschädigten zu ihren Rechten.

Unter dem Titel ''That's Life'' lief das Format von 1973 bis 1994 bei der BBC. 

=== Besetzung ===
Zur Stammbesetzung gehörten Hans Meiser kam für einige Folgen als Ersatz-Moderator für den erkrankten Geert Müller-Gerbes zum Einsatz.

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| show_name =That's Life!
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| presenter            = Esther Rantzen
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| network              = BBC 1
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| first_aired          = 1973
| last_aired           = 1994
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'''''That's Life!''''' was a magazine-style presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters. The show was generally recorded about an hour prior to transmission slot, which was for many years originally on Saturday and then on Sunday nights (In latter days, to try to win back falling ratings, it was moved back to Saturday nights). 

==Format==
The original purpose of the programme was consumer protection, particularly safety issues. The importance of wearing seat belts, for example, was illustrated before attitudes supporting their use became widespread. Britain's telephone helpline for children, ChildLine, was developed by Rantzen following items on the programme. Awareness for the need for child organ transplants was increased through the 1985 death of Ben Hardwick, a toddler whose liver disease was followed by the show. In tribute, Marti Webb released a version of Michael Jackson's 'Ben'.

The programme also featured less serious items, which over time grew in number. These included the 'Jobsworth,' exposing companies and authorities who had implemented obscure regulations and policies causing more grievances than they aimed to correct. In another feature, 'Heap of the Week', viewers would write in regarding annoying unreliable domestic appliances and other failed items, which would then be disposed of in destructive ways to the delight of their owners. A regular feature as the final feature of each show was various members of the team disguised as various people or things in locations such as supermarkets and garden centres, suddenly breaking into song and grabbing passers by and getting them to join in. Some of the more light-hearted features tapped into the British seaside postcard-style humour, being cheeky and suggestive but never out and out rude. 

The co-presenters added extra personality to the show. They were all men and were popularly nicknamed "Esther's nancies" (as they were mostly young and effeminate — A "nancy" or "nancy boy" being British slang for an effeminate man or homosexual). They would dramatise cases by each reading the dialogue of a 'character.' This resulted in 'hilarity' during less-serious cases when they attempted to imitate foreign accents; Adrian Mills was famously unable to perform in a Spanish accent in an undercover item looking at a crooked money-making scam.

The show was also infamous for showcasing unusually-shaped vegetables, "odd odes" (humorous poems), comical newspaper and advertisement typographical errors, performing pets (memorably, a dog able to "say" "sausages" and "Esther"!), and street interviews with members of the public,  including an eager old lady called Annie Mizzen who became a regular on the show after she was discovered at a street market. 
 
There were also musical interludes from performers such as smoking, much to his considerable chagrin; on his final show, he got his own back by doing the same to Esther.

Presenters often left the confines of the studio for various stunts; Esther was arrested during one vox pop for apparently obstructing the pavement. The incident was broadcast in its entirety, along with Esther being driven away in a police van and the crowd's humorously cheering her arrest.

In 1993 Taxi driver Tom Morton who knew over 16,000 telephone numbers in Lancashire beat the British Olympia Telephone Exchange computer with his recall. The interviewer, Adrian Mills, said he had never seen anything like it.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/63006.stm]

A cartoon strip, drawn by Rod Jordon, featuring items from that edition accompanied the closing credits. 

The award winning documentary film maker Adam Curtis, who went  on to make The Power of Nightmares and The Century of the Self started his career on the show. According to The Observer he "found dogs that could sing and researched investigative segments. Along the way he learned a lot about comic timing and the ways an audience might be engaged by issues. "The best lesson that Esther taught me was that people who think they are funny rarely are'"  he is quoted as saying. <ref></ref>

The show was a staple of the post-watershed Sunday night BBC 1 schedules for many years (having originally been broadcast on Saturday nights), and despite its criticisms (see below section), pulled in very high viewing figures, becoming somewhat of a minor national institution in its heyday. However, by the 1990s, times had changed. There were by now other, more hard-hitting consumer investigation programmes on air, and the always slightly uneasy mix of hard-hitting and comical articles of the show was by now seen as very awkward and somewhat dated. In 1992, to try and win back straying viewers, the show was moved from its traditional haunt of Sunday nights, back to Saturdays. There was also a radical revamp of the set (bringing the co-presenters out from behind their desk, and several other tweaks), but the move did not fully rejuvenate the programme as was hoped. The show was generally felt to have run its course, belonging to an era which had now passed. It was finally dropped in 1994, but was given a decent send-off. 

The very last edition was named ''That's Life All Over'', and was predominantly a highlight show. Esther had been deliberately given a false finish time, and when she expected the programme to close, she was surprised that a whole extra section of the programme was introduced looking at the work she had done over the years.