“Gauteshow” hit the Norwegian public like a bomb earlier this year. In the first episode that was broadcast on news, artist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen was asked the question: “Sexual violence, what is it, did he hit you with the dick, like?”. “Gauteshow” has received a lot of attention. Guests at the premiere included Tim Kristian and Ella Marie Hetta Isaksen. Photo: news TV Seinare has the comedy program, among other things, fooling around with short people and pedophilia. The newspapers have written about bullying, discrimination and abuse. The talk show parody is still not the only thing about getting viewers to put the coffee down their throats. We have collected several Norwegian moments of humor that became a media circus. Report to the police A comedian who has caused too much trouble and rule in the Norwegian public is Otto Jespersen. Otto Jespersen. Hard-hitting comedian who has received a lot of attention. Photo: Bjørn Sigurdsøn / SCANPIX Among other things, he was blamed for Jew-hatred, his life was threatened and he was reported to the police for his humor. There was a big uproar in 2003 when Otto Jespersen set fire to the American flag. It happened in the television program “Torsdagsklubben” on TV 2. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to show clips from the program, but what happened was that Jespersen gave an ironic monologue with a USA flag in the background. Jespersen campaigned for the war in Iraq in 2003, and lit a candle for the United States. Even with the flag catching fire. Several seas are lost. Otto Jespersen and TV 2 were reported to the police, the case was later dropped. The main character himself said that he was unable to take the matter seriously. Puppet stunt Synnøve Svabø wreaked havoc as a stunt reporter for news in the 1990s. She made several headlines, not least when she got Ap-Leader Thorbjørn Jagland to touch her tits. The stunt was broadcast in the news program “Weekend Globoid” in 1998, and immediately became fodder for the newspapers. Unforgettable stunt from Synnøve Svabø. But what is this actually about? Yes. Earlier, Norway had giggled and snorted at an openly manipulated picture of the pop star Janet Jackson and an AP politician. VG in 1997. VG revealed that the electoral campaign “Folk for Jagland” had played with digital tools and manipulated a picture of Janet Jackson and AP politician Bendik Rugaas. Facsimile: VG Now Janet Jackson was in Norway to play a concert in Oslo. That was where Synnøve Svabø was on her way, when she saw Thorbjørn Jagland quite by chance. She began to think about the manipulated image, and decided to give Jagland a challenge. – He didn’t appear particularly manly, he had just talked about how he liked lavender baths and red wine. So I wanted to give Jagland the chance to be a bit macho, and help him break the barrier of 36.9 per cent of the vote, she says. Thorbjørn Jagland dances with a flower wreath on Utøya in 1996. In the same year, he defined the good life as red wine and a lavender bath after a long ski trip. Photo: Helge Hansen / NTB scanpix Svabø jumped out of the car and got Jagland along for a copy. 600,000 Norwegians took part in the stunt. VG named Synnøve Svabø and Thorbjørn Jagland as TV winners that week. At the same time, there were many press reports. Svabø was, among other things, blamed for being a bully, and Jagland was blamed for pup-grafting. – I think Jagland has undeservedly received a lot of criticism, this was something I forced him to do, says Svabø. The stunt continued to live in the newspapers several years later, not least when a member of the Labor Party reported Svabø to the police a few years later. – I was reported to the police for fornication against Jagland, says Svabø. The case was dropped. The event itself, however, lives on, not least because it became a social studies syllabus at secondary school. – My daughter thought it was very embarrassing. Peeing on TV Today, we know Bjarte Hjelmeland best as an actor, director or theater manager. In 1996, he was the host responsible for the TVNorge program “Monday Club” being taken off the air. Cause? TV trio in 1996: Bjarte Hjelmeland (bottom right), together with Thomas Giertsen and Kari Gjæver Pedersen in “Monday Club”. Photo: NTB Bjarte Hjelmeland had a strained relationship with the weekly “Se og Hør”, so he peed, or pretended to pee, on a copy of the weekly. “No place for TV gossip”, wrote Dagbladet. The program was taken off the air. The chicken stunt An example of humor that no one realized was humor until much later, was the so-called chicken stunt by Bård Tufte Johansen. Bård Tufte Johansen in a chicken suit. He used the chicken costume several times to drive satire. Photo: Morten Holm / SCANPIX We have to go back to 2002, and once again AP leader Thorbjørn Jagland was involved. TV 2 reported from Rikshospitalet, where Thorbjørn Jagland was admitted after a seizure. It was said that Jagland needed peace and quiet. In the middle of the report from the journalist, Bård Tufte Johansen appeared, cackling in a chicken costume. Shortly afterwards he left the hospital in an news car. Bård Tufte Johansen on his way away from Rikshospitalet after interrupting TV 2’s broadcast. Photo: Knut Fjeldstad / NTB The stunt led to an outcry. The media threw themselves into the case, without quite getting what the point was: media criticism. Bård Tufte Johansen wanted to make fun of the press and the media circus surrounding Jagland’s illness. Do you think the chicken stunt? You can see it here. The press didn’t like it. The stunt was judged north and down for the first few days, and branded as a total failure. The broadcasting manager was quick to apologize to both Jagland and TV 2. – I remember that I was told to ask for a reason, says Johansen to news today. Incomprehensible satire in Dagsnytt 18 A slightly different example of humor that people did not understand was humor was when Yousef Hadaoui was kicked out of the news program “Dagsnytt 18”. Hadaoui was supposed to discuss the Humor Prize, but behaved strangely in the studio and shouted at an invisible person. See how Yousef behaved in Dagsnytt 18. Nobody understood anything, and the newspapers willingly wrote away about the comedian who was thrown out of the studio. news had to go out and ask its own news department for a reason. It turned out that this was a planned stunt signed by the satire editors “Satiriks” in news. The Satiriks editorial board is fooling around with the wolf debate in Norway. The reason Yousef Hadaoui behaved strangely was that he was talking to a fictional wolf that no one could see before the sketch was sent. The wolf stunt as it was in Satiriks. The sketch made a little more sense when people understood that it was an animated wolf Yousef was talking to. – But people thought I was crazy, he says. He adds that the stunt had consequences for him. Among other things, people became more skeptical about hiring him as a presenter. The mullah lift In 2004 there was an uproar because comedian Shabana Rehman did something seemingly innocent: she lifted a man. Shabana Rehman in the early 2000s, around the time she lifted terrorist suspect Krekar. Photo: NTB It must be said that this was not just any kind of man. In the early 2000s, Mullah Krekar, or Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad as he is actually called, was a well-known person in Norway. He was suspected of terrorism, and Norway wanted to deport the former guerrilla leader to Iraq. Krekar himself distanced himself from the accusations of terrorism. In 2004, he published his autobiography “Med egne ord”. After a panel discussion about the book, comedian Shabana Rehman wanted to check whether Krekar was as liberal as he claimed. She did something that caused a stir: She put her arms around Krekar and lifted him in the air, to great protests from himself. Watch comedian Shabana Rehman lift Krekar. Rehman called it a satirical test, to see if Krekar was in on the joke. So he wasn’t. There was an outcry in the media, and the news went around the world. In an interview with Time Magazine, Rehman said: “The best thing about the Mullah’s promise was that it made it clear to Norwegians what kind of freedom they really have, what kind of values they have.” Watch Shabana Rehman talk about the Mullah’s promise in conversation with Fredrik Skavlan. Jødesvin Me has previously mentioned the wolf stunt in Dagsnytt 18. news’s satire editorial “Satiriks” has also covered several news reports, not least when they joked about anti-Semitism. In 2019, they published a satirical video in which a man does not want to put the word “Jewish pig” in Scrabble. People were furious. Complaints poured in, several calling the animated sketch anti-Semitic. news Satiriks’ “Jew Pig” sketch received massive publicity in 2019. news was also complained to PFU (Press Professional Committee) for breach of good press etiquette. Even with news pulling the online video. The PFU nevertheless concluded that the sketch was not a breach of good press etiquette. Uproar after KLM skit with war heroes In the 1970s, the comedy trio Trond Kirkvaag, Knut Lystad and Lars Mjøen (KLM) skit with Norwegian war heroes. It didn’t go well. The TV audience did not like to see caricatures of the war heroes wandering around in the forest and blowing themselves up instead of Germans. Many people are angry that KLM is fooling around with heroes from the war. – Then there were many sour faces in the Norwegian press, says Lars Mjøen today. It didn’t help that the sketch was on TV on May 8, which is liberation day. People raged and the broadcasting manager had to come out and ask for a reason. Blackface in humor reality Comedian Espen Eckbo has had great success with humor reality before Christmas. The parodies “Nissene på læven” and “Nissene over skog og hei” were both successes when they were broadcast. TVNorge has broadcast the series in repeats several times. Nine years after “Nissene over skog og hei” was broadcast for the first time, there was an uproar. It was particularly about the character Ernst Øyvind. Comedian Espen Eckbo as the character Ernst Øyvind in “Nissene over skog og hei”. Photo: Trond Solberg / VG Critics thought this was an example of blackface. Accusations of racism rang out, and the debate raged in the Norwegian press. After several days of debate, TVNorge and Discovery finally took the program off the air, only to be blamed for being cowards. The debate went on for a few more days, before the reality parody was again published. Published 21.06.2024, at 20.26
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Controversial humor that made headlines – news Culture and entertainment
