BERLIN — Heidi, the cross-eyed opossum and unlikely media star, will make her acting debut on a German veterinary drama. Heidi will have a walk-on role in the upcoming season of Veterinarian Dr. Mertens, which airs on German public broadcaster ARD.
German tabloid Das Bild, the paper that started the Heidi craze when it first published pictures of the furry, sight-challenged critter last year, speculated that Heidi’s storyline would involve Heidi getting corrective eye surgery. The show’s producers, however, said the opossum would play herself in the show and her scenes would be shot in her home cage at the Leipzig Zoo.
Heidi’s sudden world-wide fame — the opossum has hundreds of thousands of Facebook “friends” and has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Livewhere she correctly picked three out of four Oscar winners, only missing out on best picture honoree The King’s Speech.
Heidi’s 15 minutes of fame follows similar short-lived media crazes for German critters including Knut the Berlin polar bear and Paul the psychic octopus, who became a world-wide celebrity for predicting a string of winners during last year’s soccer World Cup.
