The Julekalender (Norwegian TV series)

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Note that this is an article about the 1994 Norwegian remake of the original . See The Julekalender for information about the original Danish series.

The Julekalender (Christmas calendar) is a Norwegian Christmas season television series produced by and starring The Travelling Strawberries (Ivar Gafseth, Tore Johansen, Erling Mylius) in collaboration with Saks Film and Entertainment and TV 2 (Norway), 1994. Around 400,000 viewers followed the series in December 1994, and it has since been broadcast anew in 1996 and 2004. It was based on the Danish series The Julekalender from 1991, which also inspired a Finnish version in 1997. The original concept and script of the series, as well as its numerous songs came from the Danish trio of De Nattergale (Carsten Knudsen, Uffe Rødbæk Madsen and Viggo Sommer).

The characters spoke Norwenglish, a pidgin of English and Norwegian, that many found hilarious.

The series consisted of 24 episodes (for each day until Christmas), and its production crew came from Trondheim, Norway. Critics claimed the series lashed capitalism and subtly promoted communist propaganda.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Characters

• Nisses - mischievous Christmas gnomes/elves.
  • Good old gammel nokh (Arve Opsahl) - literally good old old enough, the oldest and wisest nisse, who will die unless someone finds the winding key to the play dose, a music box.
  • Hansi, Fritz and Gunther (Travellin' Strawberries) - the three bravest nisses, who undertake this quest.
• Nåzå - greedy vampires wearing business suits and obsessed with money and wealth, they look human until they drink alcohol and reveal their real form, huge glasses and sharp teeth.
  • Benny Jensen - a travelling salesman (or so he claims) from who turns out to be a Nåssår. Olaf and Gjertrud speak with a broad country dialect, often leading to Benny misunderstanding what they say. There is also a large clash between the two different ways of life (as Benny comes to move in with Olaf and Gjertrud in an early episode, as his car runs out of petrol, punctures, breaks down completely, and then gets stolen, supposedly by "Polish mafia").
• Olaf and Gjertrud Sand - a couple of highly stereotypical Trøndere (People from Trøndelag) that the same three actors also play: Olaf and Gjertrud Sand, a country bumpkin couple that live and work on a potato farm with their dog Kvik. Olaf and Gjertrud speak with a broad country (Trønder) dialect, often leading to Benny misunderstanding what they say.

[edit] Plot

A long time ago, in ancient Trøndelag, the nisses lived merrily in their caves, unknown to the human populace of Trondheim.

One day, the wicked nåzås arrived. The nåzås killed many nisses and drove them out of their caves. The only cave the nåzås missed hid the Den Store Kloke Boken (the big wise book). If nåzås ever possess the Boken, they will discover the secret to increasing tax by 100% and infiltrate all positions of bureaucracy and rule the world.

The good old gammel nokh, the surviving leader of the nisse, sent the three bravest nisses, Hansi, Fritz and Gunther, on a quest to find the winding key of the play dose, a musical box playing his life-tune. Good old gammel nokh warned our heroes of the dangers of the nåzås and gave them the 'Den Store Kloke Boken' to consult for wisdom.

Norwenglish is a pidgin language formed by mixing Norwegian with English. Obviously, Norwenglish is not a well-defined language, but many of the words that arise from it are also common errors Norwegians sometimes make when speaking or writing English, or when desperately lacking an English word when speaking. Other than being the result of incorrect translation or the actual use of a Norwegian word in an English sentence, Norwenglish can also be linguistic constructs that are blindly and incorrectly based on Norwegian syntax.

[edit] Popular culture

Norwenglish was a central component in the highly popular Christmas TV series The Julekalender, the title itself being a Norwenglish construct.

[edit] Examples

• "Let's kikke in Wikipedia." Here, the sentence is completely English, apart from the Norwegian verb "å kikke" replacing the English "to look".
• "I laid it on the table." The Norwegian verb "å legge" has similarities to the English "to lay", but the meaning of the Norwegian word is "to put".

[edit] References