The Julekalender
The Julekalender (The Christmas Calendar) is a julekalender that originally aired in 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 subsequently DVD. It consisted of 24 episodes (one for each day of December until Christmas Eve), as has been typical for most other TV "Christmas calendars" before and since The Julekalender. Plot The premise of the show is fairly simple: long, long ago, the race of Nisser lived happily in Denmark getting up to mischief with the humans, drinking, and making merry. Then the "Nå-såere" came - evil, vampire-esque creatures with an unhealthy obsession for money and counting - and almost eradicated the Nisser. A few Nisser survived and escaped to America, among them good old Gammelnok (literally, "old enough", the one character not to be played by a member of De Nattergale), who is now on the brink of death, as the music box that plays his life tune needs to be wound up. Gammelnok gathers three of the remaining Nisser (Hansi, Günther, and Fritz (all distinctly German names)) and sends them off to Denmark, to find the old Nisse cave where the key to wind up the music box is. He gives them The Big Book to take with them, an ancient tome that contains the answer to any and all questions, warning them to take great care that it does not fall into the hands of a Nå-såer. If this were to happen, all would be lost. They are also warned to take care, as the Nå-såere nowadays have taken the appearance of normal humans, but when they consume alcohol, they regain their original appearance, with fangs, and thick-rimmed glasses. The three merrily set off, and this is where the first episode begins. One of the quirks of the series, and one which made up a good share of its appeal, is the strange language that the Nisser speak. They themselves call it English, but it is an odd mixture of both Danish and English vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure, leading to some very humorous phrases and structures (at least, to anyone who speaks both English and Danish). This was likely a good-natured jest at the heavy Danish accent that many Danes speak with, and the (back then) fairly low level of English proficiency of Danes, especially outside of large cities. Examples of particularly interesting, odd, or funny phrases are listed here (without an understanding of Danish, the humour will likely be lost): "He who first gets to the mill is he who first gets painted" "Think you da lige a little about" "Let us straks try to smake it!" "That is der simpelthen overhead not