The Julekalender

The Julekalender (The Christmas Calendar) was a Danish TV series that ran at Christmas 1991 (a Norwegian version was made in 1994, and a Finnish version appeared in 1997). It was written and performed almost entirely by a trio of Danish comedy musicians called De Nattergale with financial and technical assistance from TV2, a Danish television company. It was hugely successful at the time, causing many invented phrases from the series to enter popular culture and was later released on VHS, and recently, DVD.

It had 24 episodes (one for each day of December until Christmas Eve), as has been typical of other TV "calendars" before and since The Julekalender.

Cast

Viggo Sommer, Uffe Rørbæk Madsen and Carsten Knudsen each had two roles. One role was as a Nisse, a type of gnome or elf associated with Christmas in Danish tradition but not to be confused with Norse mythology. The other role is as a normal, if overly stereotyped, Dane, while Poul Bundgaard played the old Nisse.

Plot

The Julekalender (Norwegian TV series)

The Julekalender (Christmas calendar) is a Norwegian Christmas season television series produced by and starring Travellin' Strawberrys (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, 2003, 2008 and 2012. 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. The series consisted of 24 episodes (for each day until Christmas), and its production crew came from Trondheim, Norway.

Characters