Douglas Adams Continuum (DAC)

There are many bands, comedy groups and other performers who may be very popular in their own country, but completely unknown outside it. And often for a good reason.

We know pretty well many performers from USA or Britain, but only a few from many other countries. And USA and Britain have also a lot of local talent that is not known outside their own territory.

DAC is an international place, so it might be fun to share some of these rare/old/strange/funny/stupid/embarrassing acts with others.

I'll open the game with a piece of Finnish comedy. This is probably from 1985 or so. The series Soitinmenot was music-oriented show that carried on for a couple of years. Mostly not very inspired stuff, I have to say, never liked it myself. But I chose this sketch, because: a) somebody subtitled it, and b) The customer is the same actor who played the Book in Finnish radio version of H2G2.

The song he is trying to sing was a local hit in the 80's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bd_IPwC0nc

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQjUETS36Es[/youtube]


These are four classically trained actors. Two of them are knighted. Every few years, they tour as Ørkenens Sønner, Sons of the Desert, when not performing in The Royal Danish Theater. Their songs, parodies of older songs, are laced with sexual references and other bodily functions and in their sketches, they take pride in the worst puns they can come up with. Here they are playing their ode to Mikala Petri, a flutist, followed by a variation on Hello Operator, using lines from danish childrens songs, making the whole thing somewhat obscene.

And yes, that is the queen in the audience. This is them performing at her 70th birthday party, earlier this year.


I did find a sketch with subtitles, but, as I said, they are loaded with terrible puns that are impossible to translate without, as this guy did, explaining them, and he even missed a few.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knGwCQfmyKY[/youtube]

_________________
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

-H.L. Mencken


[url]http://www.madmanoz.blogspot.com[/url]

Sons of the Desert!

That is where they got the name, look and themesong.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3KnHLtfD0[/youtube]

_________________
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

-H.L. Mencken


[url]http://www.madmanoz.blogspot.com[/url]

I'll keep this going with more Finnish Hitchhiker's Guide actors. This is a song from Finnish 1966 film Käpy selän alla, loosely translated "Pine cone under my back", the actual international titles seems to have been "Skin, skin" or "Under Your Skin". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060613/

The song "Laulu rakastamisen vaikeudesta" would translate something like "The song about difficulties of loving".

The film was controversial at it's time, but a big success in Finland.

The young man with white hat later played Arthur Dent in the Finnish radio version of H2G2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI7lS8vBRDI

Casper og Mandrilaftalen, Casper and the Mandrill Deal, was a 1999 comedy series in 67 episodes. Its comedy was off the wall and, at times, downright surreal. The show was written in the morning, filmed in the afternoon and aired in the evening, with little editing being done, giving it a sort of quality of being filmed in someones shed, an effect they worked hard on. Their mikes are not hidden and the make-up looks terrible. It takes the guise of sort of a variety/talkshow

Because of you, here is the a sketch where Casper interviews Gentleman Finn, a character who always gets himself mixed into something horrific and is quite surprised to learn that his new occupation or hobby hurt others.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wjq_bdz5A[/youtube]
In this one, he has gotten into pedophilia, something he insists is funded by the municipality. In the end, he understands that he has been misinformed and swears to go down to the pedophile-club and fuck all the pedophiles, and his status as a gentleman has been reinstated.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM9oGceVjhg&feature=related[/youtube]
In this one he is a homosexual, but quite disgusted with it and expects to be admonished for it, and is quite surprised that Casper is okay with it.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiN7mv6hFKQ&feature=related[/youtube]
And because it is a personal favourite, Casper interviews international moviestar, "The always dark" Wesley Snipes. They try to talk about his new movie "The negro vampire", but it keeps turning to Rene Diff from the pop-group Aqua.

_________________
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

-H.L. Mencken


[url]http://www.madmanoz.blogspot.com[/url]

I know that Finnish sounds strange to everybody. Danish, on the other hand, sounds strange to me, but in a different way. I know some Swedish, poorly, but anyway. So listening to Danish feels like I could almost understand it, but still really can't.

"Gentleman Finn"... hm... maybe I should change my nick.

This might not fit the "not known outside your own country" exactly, as the Olsenbanden movies were remade in Norway, inspired the swedish Jönssonligan and the dubbed versions were huge succeses in one of the germanies, but outside those countries, I doubt that many has heard about the Olsengang, a series of comedies about a gang of thieves whose crimes usually failed due to a combination of bad luck and general incompetence, with 13 movies made between 1969 and 1981, with a 14th in 1998. And a theaterplay a few years ago and an animated feature just released this month. The norwegians tried to remake the series as exact as they could, but, like they did with The Julekalender, which the finns should also be familiar with, they did everything a little bit worse.

Anyway, here is one of the most famous sequences, where the gang is stealing a suitcase full of money and a valuable vase, during a concert.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUNEX8Ncnc4[/youtube]

_________________
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

-H.L. Mencken


[url]http://www.madmanoz.blogspot.com[/url]

Oh, and how the heck could I not post this earlier, as I just saw a show with these guys tonight. Anders and Peter Lund Madsen, two brothers, Anders a journalist, columnist, radio- and TV-host famous for his unorthodox style, especially his interviewing that makes the interviewee show their ignorance without them ever catching on and made Madonna throw him out of an interview after two minutes, and Peter, internationally recognised neurologist and currently studying to become a psychologist. Together they make shows equal parts humorous monologues and informative lectures.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQsLEv0_ni4&feature=related[/youtube]

_________________
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

-H.L. Mencken


[url]http://www.madmanoz.blogspot.com[/url]

I have heard of the Jönssonligan films, but I had no knowledge of their origins. The clip was funny. The idea has been used in many films I guess. Even Alfred Hitchock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" has a famous scene where somebody is shot during a concert. But this actually takes the idea further that I have ever seen before.

And yes, the Danish Julekalender was also remade in Finland (The Joulukalenteri), and has some kind of cult status here.

And a little piece of old music again. This time no connections to H2G2 in any imaginable way. The band Hurriganes was probably the most popular Finnish band in 1970's. And the first "real" band I saw live in 1977 or so. This clip is from 1974, and the song Get On was their biggest hit, I guess. And notice the lyrics: the drummer/singer Remu Aaltonen didn't speak English hardly at all and made the lyrics in the studio, when the album was one track too short. It's complete nonsense, pieces from other songs and so on. It didn't matter a bit in the 70's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1pPwnah_eM