| Swedish Chef | |
|---|---|
| The Muppet Show character | |
The Swedish Chef, as seen in Pöpcorn. |
|
| First appearance | The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence (1975) |
| Created by | Jim Henson |
| Portrayed by | Jim Henson (1976 - 1990) Bill Barretta (1996 - present) |
| Information | |
| Species | Muppet (Human) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Chef |
| Nationality | Swedish |
The Swedish Chef is a Muppet that appeared on The Muppet Show. He was operated by Jim Henson and Frank Oz simultaneously and is now puppeteered by Bill Barretta.
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A parody of television chefs, the Swedish Chef wears a toque blanche and has bushy eyebrows that completely obscure his eyes. He was one of the few Muppets to employ an actual puppeteer's hands, originally Oz's, in the designs – that is, they were visible to the audience through his sleeves and facilitated handling food and utensils.
Nearly all Swedish Chef sketches begin with him in a kitchen, waving some utensils while singing his signature song in his typical mock Swedish – a semi-comprehensible gibberish mimicking Swedish phonology and prosody. The song's lyrics vary slightly from one episode to the next, but always end with "Börk, börk, börk!" as the Chef throws the utensils aside with a clatter that seems to startle him.
After this introduction, the Chef begins to prepare a recipe while giving a gibberish explanation of what he is doing. His commentary is spiced with the occasional English word to clue in the viewer to what he is attempting; for example, "Aweenda shmure da froog's legs." These hints are necessary as he frequently uses unorthodox culinary equipment (firearms, sports equipment, hand tools, etc.) to prepare his dishes. In the pilot episode of The Muppet Show, the Chef's commentary was supplemented by Chinese subtitles, but this was abandoned for all other episodes of the series. The sketch typically degenerates into a slapstick finale where the ingredients or equipment get the better of him.
In one sketch, a misaimed explosive charge slightly damaged the face of the puppet. The Chef's face remained scarred through the rest of the season.
The Chef is referred to by name in one episode, in which Danny Kaye plays his uncle. Kaye reels off a very long name but adds, "But we call him Tom" – much to the Chef's amusement.[1] In 2010, the Chef was seen wearing a wedding ring, implying that the character is married.[2]
The Chef's gibberish gained a life of its own with the creation of a Unix lex filter capable of converting standard English to "chefspeak" in 1992. The filter quickly became a staple of hacker culture and eventually spread to the mainstream with "Swedish Chef" translators on several websites, most notably the Dialectizer ; there is a popular Mozilla Firefox add-on called "Börk Börk Börk!", which allows the selective "translation" of text from web pages of the user's choice. In 2003, Opera Software – a Norwegian company – published a special "Börk" version of its internet browser, which turned the MSN website into "Swedish."[3] Google offers "Bork, bork, bork!" as one among its choices for user interface language[4] and Meebo and Guild Wars both offer "Börk!" as one of their language preferences. There also appeared a plethora of USENET newsgroups named after the chef's speech, the first being "alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork", after which the repeated ending was incorporated into groups such as "alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg" and other groups following this pattern. This "börk filter" was used in the Darkwind MUD as a curse, of sorts, when characters could be transformed into "little vikings" (to stay somewhat in theme) for a short duration.
The Norwegian company Trolltech, who develop the Qt Development Frameworks, used this "encheferization" for a more serious purpose – although the friendly rivalry between Norwegians and Swedes perhaps was its inspiration. They encouraged software development testing departments to use an "encheferizer" as a plug-in for the part of their product that provided internationalization and localization. Whereas it could not be expected that a test team would know every language to which a product might be aimed, by translating the parts that were supposed to be internationalized through the encheferizer to produce a localized version for Swedish Chef speakers, testers could immediately spot mistakes in the internationalization – parts that had been missed – as anything that had not been localized (encheferized) would show up in the language of the original author of the text. All the same, a tester would be able to test the product functionally, as it takes little language skill, and no software, to be able to decheferize the text: its meaning is clear even when encheferized.
The generally longer encheferized text could also help with graphics testing because it could show up errors where, for example, not enough space had been left for languages that morphologically tend to use more characters than most, such as German. While not perfect, and not intended to be, it stands as a good first stage to check an internationalization effort.[5]
Some claim that the Swedish Chef was inspired by a real life chef. One example is Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German American television chef known as "Chef Tell".[6][7] Another example is Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman, a real life Swedish chef. Bäckman claims that his rather unsuccessful appearance on an early edition of Good Morning America caught the attention of Jim Henson, who later bought the rights to the recording and created Bäckman's Muppet alter ego. Bäckman's Dalecarlian accent would explain the chef's strange pronunciation. Muppet writer Jerry Juhl denied Bäckman's story and insisted the character had no real-world counterpart: "I wrote, rehearsed, rewrote, brainstormed, and giggled uncontrollably a thousand times with Jim Henson as we dealt with the Swedish Chef, and I never once heard him mention an actual Swedish chef..."[8]
According to Brian Henson in one of his introductions for The Muppet Show, "Jim Henson had this tape that he used to play which was "How to Speak Mock Swedish". And he used to drive to work and I used to ride with him a lot. And he would drive to work trying to make a chicken sandwich in Mock Swedish or make a turkey casserole in Mock Swedish. It was the most ridiculous thing you had ever seen. And people at traffic lights used to stop and sort of look at him a little crazy. But that was the roots of the character that would eventually become the Swedish Chef."
The first Swedish Chef merchandise item was a ceramic coffee mug produced by Kilncraft in the UK in 1978. It was part of a series of 12 featuring various Muppet Show characters, and featured coloured line drawings on either a white or beige ceramic cup.
In 1980, Jones New York offered a small collection of blue and yellow Swedish Chef kitchen linens including an apron, pot holders, and toaster cover. Miss Piggy linens in pink were also available.
From 1988 to 1989, the Swedish Chef had his own short-lived breakfast cereal for sale in grocery stores, called "Cröonchy Stars." Cröonchy Stars brought with it a small variety of Swedish Chef items, most notably a stuffed Chef doll complete with non-removable wooden rolling pin and spoon. There was also a coffee mug bearing a picture of the Chef and the logos of Post Cereal and Cröonchy Stars.
In 2000, German company Igel released a large (35 cm) plush Swedish Chef as part of the second wave of its stuffed Muppets line. In addition, there was a life-sized version available measuring nearly five feet tall. Though expensive, the huge Chef proved popular enough with collectors that the line was expanded the following year with five-foot plush versions of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo the Great, Animal, Statler and Waldorf.
Also in 2000, UK food chain Little Chef released a small toy car called Swedish Chef's Sporty Sponge (the Chef riding a cake on wheels) as part of line of promotional Muppet Corgi cars.
2002 was celebrated as the 25th anniversary of The Muppet Show, which brought a flurry of new Muppet toys and collectibles. Included in this was a line of action figures from Palisades Toys, which would run through 2005 and grow to include many dozens of figures. Palisades' Swedish Chef items include:
In 2003, Sideshow Collectibles offered a Swedish Chef bust statue as part of the third wave of its line of Muppet busts. Other modern Swedish Chef items include yet another plush doll (this time a smaller 18" one), a Disney metal lapel pin, and a small tin of mints.
The United States Postal Service released a souvenir sheet featuring Jim Henson and ten Muppets including the Swedish Chef in 2005.[9]
A Muppets game for Nintendo Game Boy Advance was released and one of the levels featured the Swedish Chef. The goal of the level was for the Swedish Chef to hit Rizzo and his rat friends with a frying pan because they were trying to steal food. An obstacle to avoid was chickens throwing eggs at the Swedish Chef.
Besides appearances in the The Muppets, the chef also appears in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Muppet*Vision 3D (1991) an attraction found at several Disney Parks, The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Muppets From Space (1999), It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), Studio DC: Almost Live (2008), a sketch for the cast of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and an episode with Hannah Montana star Jason Earles and Cory in the House's Jason Dolley, the Popcorn (song) (2010), and The Muppets (2011).