"Kottan ermittelt" (which translates as "Kottan investigates") is one of the defining moments of Austrian television. Masquerading as a police/crime series, it is actually a fierce anarchic satire on the Austrian police and Austrian society in general. There are no heroes, only anti-heroes, and the police officers, who are all incompetent caricatures to varying degrees, often solve their cases more by chance than through actual investigation. Major Kottan (the name is a spoof of hardboiled German dime-store novel hero Jerry Cotton) was played by no less than three actors over the course of the series, each giving the character a fairly distinct personality: grumpy, prejudiced misanthrope; sarcastic cynic ; and anarchic nihilist -- the common factor being that each is too caught up in his own preconceptions to actually solve the case.