This program is a one-off show, produced by the entertainment dept. of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) to compete in the Montreux Festival Rose D'Or in 1979. My parents are credited with the idea, and both my father Knut (1943 - 2016) and I can be seen in various "roles" throughout the show (he is the viking chieftain thrown off a horse (the pain is still there); I "play" the author Henrik Ibsen as a child, complete with snowsled and whiskers). John Cleese was riding high at the time on the back of "Fawlty Towers", and I believe the agreement to use him for this was made prior to his second round of global fame; hence a viable expense.
I thought this was hilarious, great comedy. It's quite sad that many of the Norwegians commenting here are offended by it. The only non Norwegian in it is John Cleese. Modern Norwegians have lost their sense of humour.
I don't think those whiners represent modern Norwegians. My friends from Norway are incredibly funny, their humor leans towards the absurd, and they'd love this. I honestly think the few complainers are just weird, humorless outliers who like to bitch online. Hope I'm right about this, anyway...
+Iceandale I think it's funny. of course, when someone says something bad about something or someone you care about, it's not FUN, but i believe that it was all in good sport/all for fun. :)
Non-Norwegian but still Norwegian by descent, as the character portrayed in the documentary (and, who knows, perhaps in reality as well)! All the best! 🙂
@@victorrock1997 At 2:09 he says "in a boat like this, my ancestor left the shores of Norway". I doubt he's joking about that. I think he's part Norwegian.
As a Norwegian I can confirm that Norway is a fictional country, allthough fictional our national sport is skullbumping, preferably after some drinking.
+Dag Ut It's all too far fetched; I don't believe it exists. Ireland, now that I could believe, although I won't make a final judgement. But Norway? Made up in the '70s by a group of students as a project.
+The Monty Python Museum there is a lot of true facts, but usually the overexcadurating comes after. For excsample there is a lot of skiing, even directly from the homes, but not that many, nor do we ride the tram with skiis on, use stairway shaped skiis or repair pur skins like that. Its great to watch when you understand it though.
Briliant production, as always, by John Cleese! Very 'pythonesque', shall we say. All the best to everyone reading this! Skål and may Odin be with you!
What a shame it was a 'one off' project. What a pleasure to stumble across it 41 years later having never heard of it. Loved the daily ski activities - emergency forces ha ha.
CakeIsSo Good Wrong. Sweden and Norway existed as we know them, pretty much. Similar borders and the same people - until recently, when multiculture was introduced by politicians.
This was really funny. Thanks for uploading and sharing. I laughed all the way through. And Yes, this is all true. It's how Norway really is - every person, every day.
6:47 - I hate it when that happens! Three times this week I've ended up going home with someone else's staff! I've been cursing Odin all evening, I'm so upset!
That's correct, it was Norway's (NRK)'s) contibution that year, and it won 2 of the prices at "Festival Rose d'Or". I think it was the Press Price, and the City of Montreux Price.
I must strongly protest for the gross inaccuracies of this nonetheless compelling documentary - the spray can shall not to be accredited to Raghebell in 1928 but to the more appropriate Eric Rotheim in 1926.
that is just very funny. im not norwegian but living in there and that is just so true:D. in the beginning was also laughing about many of those things, now doing it myself:):). for example the backbag is the most comfortable bag to have:):). locals should probably also enjoy that clip, though some of them do not have a sense of selfirony:D
There should be a reality TV show that goes to each country and essentially roasts them - not necessarily the same way in each country but just enough to let the people of that country know that they are being mocked but not to get the cast/crew in trouble.
I remember just the section on food airing on a Nickelodeon program called Turkey TV. To this day, there's a certain item at the local Chinese buffet that I refer to as "Terrrrrfisk".
As the uploader, I must say that I am surprised to discover this video is so popular, or at least, so hotly debated! Was it mentioned on some other website perhaps? (Yet the analytics don't show it to be widely embedded.)
I think it's popularity comes from that many Norwegians like Cleese, and people who is talking about Norway. So I think most of the views comes from Norway.
I think what you are seeing is a new generation of Norwegians sharing the link on social media with each other. =) I'm a long time Cleese fan, but for some reason I had never seen this skit before. As we are used to being somewhat invisible to the world, *everyone* wants to see what little international attention we get.
I wanted to share this video with a Norwegian friend, but couldn't find it. I thought it was a Monty Python skit. "Skit?" sounds like a Norwegian word to me and I should know, I've never been there. Trolls, etc.
He forgot the famous Holmenkollen Contest, rolling a boat-like thing down a track, to be able to ring the bell, placed on a pole in the lake!!! The lake sadly disappeared with the new - Danish Constructed Skijump, being built!! Combining flatlander Danes with skies, is a bad thing!
At the 4:20 mark, it's hard not to be confronted with a serious Jawa vibe, given the high pitched speeded up gibberish voiceover admixed with the brown robed and hooded figures.
I've heard it said, Norway has the highest absenteeism from work than any other European country. . .when it's a nice day, many people go to their log cabins in the woods and mountains. If this is true. . . .I'm coming!. . . .
The Monty Python Museum Finland is "famous" for having one the highest suicide rates in the world. Don't think Norways has a particularly high suicide rate. And Finland is not one of the scandinavian countries;)
A Bettum Depends which website you check, and for which year, but all of Scandinavia scores pretty high. Which often includes Finland and Iceland or even sometimes Greenland.
Hindsight being what it is I very much hope this was made with love. Nora's departure(s) in the Ibsen Doll's House sequence made me laugh out loud. But lest I laugh too loudly the sequence at 17:23 very nearly happened to me...in Pittsburgh.
:D ..in keeping with the theme of the program -- I've seen parts of this before(bits of this has been recycled), and genuinely believed up until now that it was actually made by a Norwegian comedy trio in the 80's, in isolation from everything else around the world up here in the cold north. I'm sorry. I truly am. Also, angry. A little bit. Not too much.
