A lot of comics are about complications that arise when things don’t go as planned. This is the story of five such moments that occurred during the production of the TV series “Dette er humor”. “Did you understand it? So, he already had … etc.” The atrocious silence after you tell a joke, and the person you told the joke to stares blankly into the air. And you hope to save the situation by explaining what was the point of the joke. It rarely creates a fun atmosphere. But in autumn 2023, I was given the task of gathering Norwegian comedians in a TV studio to explain their jokes, and the following months were spent trying to convince Norwegian comedians that this was going to be fun. One of the reasons why this idea landed in my lap was that Danish TV has been successful in bringing together the greatest Danish humorists in the studio to talk about Danish humor in the series “Danish humors beste”. The concept was briefly summarized that two comedians sit on separate chairs and watch clips, and comment on the clips they have seen. “BEST OF DANISH HUMOR”: Danish comedians talked about things they had made, which I guess were funny. (The reason for the assumption is that I watched the series without subtitles.) Photo: DR KULTUR But I wanted to do it a little differently and thought that I would rather gather the comedians on a sofa! And then the first problem presented itself: the “Sofa” complication How to make a TV series where people sit on a sofa and watch TV, without it feeling like the TV 2 program “Sofa”? Photo: TV 2 The problem with booking guests to a new, untested concept is precisely that the concept is new and untested. And when we made the first calls, the concept was not fully developed either. The first mistake we made was to say that this was inspired by the series “Danish humours beste”. Denmark is not known for its humor. The exception is the TV series “Klovn”, but none of the “Klovn” guys were in “Danish humors beste”. So when Norwegian comedians googled “Dansk humors beste”, they saw a series where strangers watched funny clips and talked about it in an incomprehensible language. We got our first “no” after someone had watched a bit of the Danish series. But the main problem was not that another country had made something similar before. The main problem was that there already existed a TV concept in Norway where famous people sat on a sofa and watched TV programs and made humorous observations. So what should we say to the comedians we called? “We’re calling from news! We are working on a TV series about humor which is partly inspired by a Danish series about humor. The Danish series is perhaps not so funny. But don’t think about it, even if your job is to be funny and being on an unfunny series about what you do could potentially make it difficult for you to get a job. Yes, and nice if you don’t google the Danish series about humor! We’re not going to do it the way they did it. And, no, it’s not “Every time we meet”, just with comedians. (Okay, that’s a lot of it…) And, no, it’s not “Sofa” either! (Yeah, it’s quite “Sofa”…) So, does this sound like something you’d like to be a part of?” Now that wasn’t quite how the talks went. The solution was rather not to say that the Danish concept existed, since we wanted to do things differently anyway. And you also don’t need to mention the word “sofa” in conversations, whether it’s “sofa” with a capital or small “s”. Although, when the guests arrived at the studio, the s-word appeared on a few occasions. But eventually the focus shifted from the TV concept “Sofa” to precisely the furniture concept “sofa”. Specifically: the sofa the guests were supposed to sit in. The worst sofa in Norwegian TV history When you make TV, you are primarily concerned with how things look on TV. A sofa, for example, is chosen based on appearance and not comfort. And this production was no exception. In a warehouse at news, we found an old sofa that we thought would be fun to put in a TV studio. Me on the sofa. Inconvenient. Photo: news When I put the sofa to the test and waited for my colleague to take a picture, I felt the discomfort … of being photographed. I therefore forgot to feel whether the sofa itself was uncomfortable or not. We only got the answer to that when the guests were to sit on the same sofa. Fortunately for me, some of the guests soon had other concerns than a bad sofa. The footwear should look great. I think it’s important to have options when I make TV series, so I therefore want to have several camera angles to choose from. And in our case, we wanted a camera right in front of the guests, which captured them in their full figure. Such a section is not so common to use in a TV context. Therefore, in an information e-mail sent out to the guests, it was pointed out that the shoes could be included in the picture. Not everyone had received that information. In the early 2000s, the kings of TV were white men in their 30s from Eastern Norway. In addition to Jon Almaas and Fredrik Skavlan, we had more pure comedians such as Harald Eia, Bård Tufte Johansen, Thomas Giertsen and Espen Eckbo. And although they were not often guests on each other’s TV shows, one had the feeling that they knew each other privately. This was a suspicion I had to some extent confirmed during the recording of this series. Because two weeks after Jon and Fredrik had been guests, Thomas Giertsen and Espen Eckbo were to be. Then it turned out that someone had been talking. (And that someone hadn’t spoken to each other…) Old approach… that didn’t work In the development of a new TV concept, you like to test out new ideas. Or you want to use old ideas in new concepts. For several years, I made the series “The license inspector”. And one move I used there, which I got very good feedback on, was that I edited myself into old archive clips. Here are some examples: During the recording of “Dette er humor” I mostly sit behind a curtain and talk to the guests via a microphone and screen. Photo: IDA KIPPERSUND BRINGSLID / news The idea is that I should take as little attention as possible from the guests, so that they talk to each other instead of talking to me. Photo: Ida Kippersund Bringslid / news But then I had the idea that it could be fun to repeat the License Inspector’s trick of cutting myself into the video clips, and that I sort of spoke to the guests from the “archive”. It worked like that… The Gauteshow guys thought they were watching a clip of Terje Sporsem who had edited himself into an episode of “Tore på sporet” to rant about an embarrassing Tore Strømøy clip. And in the name of justice: There are some similarities between me and Terje Sporsem. Anyway, to avoid further confusion, we chose to drop these effects clips of mine in the finished series. In return, I learned something new from this experiment: that to people under 30, all white, bald men look the same. 97 percent of Norwegian comedians are liars I have already talked about the first telephone conversations we had with Norwegian comedians. The conversations where we tried to steer clear of the word “sofa”, but where the comedians nevertheless envisioned a “Sofa”-like concept. How to make a TV series where people sit on a sofa and watch TV without it feeling like the TV 2 program “Sofa”? A recurring phrase in these conversations was: “I don’t laugh when I see humor.” I interpreted it to mean that humorists have a distanced, professional relationship with what they work on. And again: “This is humour” is not “Sofa” with comedians! Meeeen, it would have been fun to be able to track a small reaction when someone looks at something that is meant to make people laugh. Because we had hired fancy technology to be able to capture facial expressions by the guests being filmed through the screen they were looking at. So when we started shooting in mid-January, we were excited to see how this would go. And one comedian who keeps what he promises is Otto Jespersen. But what about the others? Well, it turned out that there was a big difference between sitting alone in the studio versus being two. Fortunately for us who made this series, laughter is contagious. Photo: Ida Kippersund Bringslid I don’t know how it feels to sit on a sofa and be filmed while watching something funny. But I guess if the person next to you starts laughing, it feels weird to have to sit there and hold the mask. Photo: IDA KIPPERSUND BRINGSLID / news What I hope is that they laughed primarily because they had fun. At least I enjoyed myself. “This is humor” is the funniest TV recording I’ve been involved in making. So that’s why I’m looking forward to new recordings this autumn. Yes, there will be another season (in 2025). Hello! I hope you enjoyed the story. Feel free to send me an e-mail if you have any tips for humor gems in the archive that I should check out in my work with season 2 of “Dette er humor”. WATCH “THIS IS HUMOR” on news TV: How do comedians themselves experience being made fun of? There will be a reunion with a parody that is no longer allowed, and someone needs new trousers.
ttn-69
Five moments from the production of the TV series “Dette er humor” – Culture
