Imaginary time capsule

Og kongen var så veldig glad og alle var så glade
Og kokken bakte sukkerbrød og laget sjokolade
Så danset de den hele dag til kongens store velbehag
De danset både swing og hot, for det gjør en ekte hottentott

I can't believe I found this song again. When I a little girl I had this exact recording and I loved it. These days it is mostly omitted from all the collections of the songwriter, Torbjørn Egner, because of it's racial overtones: It's about a little black boy with a grass skirt in an African tribe and... yeah, you know the deal. I didn't give it much thought as a child, I just liked the melody and the drums.

I get so frustrated with every children's campaign at the book store: We always split the campaign in half with pirates for the boys and princesses for the girls. Growing up, I wasn't all keen on being a princess - how do you play princesses with your friends, anyway? - but I sure as hell wanted to grow up to be a pirate.

This might have had a little something to do with the Kaptein Sabeltann franchise, though, which was just starting up in my early years. I recall reading that they tried to sell the concept to English-speaking countries as Captain Sabertooth, but it wasn't a hit.

How odd to realize other children didn't grow up with this. So anyway, Captain Sabeltann is this fearsome pirate, and actually the antagonist of all the plays and movies (when I was sixish we visited the theme park and I met him in character. I nearly pissed myself with fear). When I grew up Red Ruben, a former seaman, was the hero who always sent Sabeltann and his crew on the run with some fairly atrocious fencing.

Those characters weren't important to me and my sister, though, we usually pretended to be the pirate crew. First there was Pinky, the young pirate who runs away and falls in love with Ruben's daughter (so in turn every girl my age had a crush on him). After a lot of bickering I had to leave the role of Pinky to my sister, though, and I became Langemann instead (on reflection I think Langemann's bitchin' coat might have had something to do with it).

And when I wasn't planning on becoming a pirate I wanted to be like Ronja the robber's daughter (of the book and movie Ronja Rövardotter, which you should absolutely see, because it's a masterpiece with lovely music), and grow my hair long and go live in the forest where I would tame wild horses to ride. If there hadn't been lots of evil mystical creatures in the forests, of course.

It was written by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, which I've heard most non-Scandinavians know from Mio in the land of Faraway (or Mio, my Mio as I know it), which she also wrote. I only watched the movie once when I was a young 'un, because I got nightmares from the bit where everything turns to stone (though now I see Christopher Lee is the big bad, I might have to rewatch it).

She also wrote the grim The brothers Lionheart (Bröderna Lejonhjärta), which also got turned into a movie. And it freaked me out. Okay, so when you die you go to Nangijala, sort of like Heaven only you - uh-oh - might die again. Or be shot through the heart with arrows. Or branded. Oh, and there's an absolutely terrifying dragon (okay, I admit the dragon looks rubbish now that I'm older, but that scream! It's exactly as blood-curdling as I recall).

See the sort of cultural baggage you miss when you are foolish enough not to be born in Scandinavia?

There's a shameful amount of Swedish stuff here though. I should probably mention Aukrust's Pinchcliff Grand Prix (Flåklypa Grand Prix, and whoa, it's weird with English dubbing), the Christmas musical about the elf Plutti Putti Pott, equally traditional Christmas movie The journey to the Christmas star (Reisen til julestjernen) and the nightmare fuel that is Karius and Baktus (they're two trolls that lives in a boy's teeth, and so every child who goes to the dentist is greeted with "So, have you been visited by Karius and Baktus, hm?").

Oh four five six, come on and get your kicks
Now you don't need that money
When you look like that, do ya honey

Every friday I'm met with the same dilemma: I've got a few precious hours between school and work, what to do with them? Every friday morning at eight AM I promise myself they'll be spent sleeping, but the sleepiness wears off. So instead I'm trying to do something about the blocked shower drain. And blog a bit as the chemicals work their magic.

Cotard/Bush slash. Now I've seen it all. "Tilly," I have to tell myself. "Accept it. Rule thirty-four. Everybody's who's ever been in Hornblower have been paired off." Damn, that reminds me, I still got several episodes I haven't seen.

I've got a new favourite bit of Stephen Fry funny:
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Completely without any visual humour, but I'm a sucker for puns. I thought A bit of Fry and Laurie benefited from that so well, that Fry based his humour on text, while Laurie was much more fitting for physical comedy. With a few honourable exceptions of course, like the Dancersizing sketch.

I treated myself to another Hellblazer graphic novel, Hard times and PHEUW! That's the worst art I have ever witnessed in a graphic novel. The perspective is always off, everybody looks like they're five years old, two feet tall and it's just Uh-gly. I feel ripped off, I knew I should have gotten another Lucifer instead.

Now to check up on that shower drain.

En sky av røyk så er han der, han gir dem aldri ro
Hva skjuler seg bak masken hans, hva er hans navn mon tro?
De gale godter seg
Helt til de får en trøkk

I'm stealing this idea from calapine, who listed her ten favourite 80s cartoon intros. Now, I'm younger than her, so my list will also include early nineties stuff.

Generally cartoons that were dubbed to Norwegian that I watched in my youth. I'll try to list them after how cool the intros are, and not how awesome the actual cartoon was.

10. The Pirates of Dark Water

GOD TINY, DO YOU REMEMBER THIS? How I wanted to have a monkey/bird/thing like Niddler as a pet... (Wow, in the original version Hector Elizondo was a voice artist! Cool!)

09. SuperTed (Bonus Norwegian version)

SuperTed rips off his skin everytime he goes into superhero mode. Am I the only one bothered by this?

08. The Biker Mice from Mars

Ninja Turtles ripoff? I've no idea what you're talking about. Now, this was actually my favourite show. While my sister rooted for the suave, cool Throttle (or Potta, as Norwegian kids know him), I was all about the muscular gentleman Modo. We were also, incidentally, the only girls in our classes who liked this show.

07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Yes, this is Ninja Turtles like they're supposed to be! None of this creepy Cartoon Network rubbish they have now. I rooted for Donatello (I went for the smart one), while my sister liked Raphael, the bad boy. Although secretly my favourite was always Splinter.

06. James Bond, Jr.

You know, until today I always assumed James Jr. was the result of one of Bond's movie conquests (I was a kid but I wasn't that naïve), but whaddyaknow, the intro goes "He knows the game from his uncle James". So that's that. Also, "He's got a job to do WHILE HE RESCUES THE GIRL".

05. M.A.S.K.

I never got around to watching any actual episodes of this, but thanks to my brother's old VHS tapes I've come to love the intro.

04. Beetlejuice

Can you imagine anything this cool being allowed on children's TV today?

03. Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (Bonus Norwegian version: Snipp og Snapp: Redningspatruljen)

I was surprised to learn that the Norwegian version actually sounds much better on this one. And it's much harder to sing "Snipp-snipp-snipp-snipp" than "Chip-chip-chip-chip", so there.

02. Gummi Bears (Bonus Norwegian version: Bompibjørnene)

Possibly the most catchy tune in the world. And the Norwegian one got some good lyrics, actually. "Trylling og trolldom har fridd dem fra trelldom" - hah, I never managed to say that straight as a kid!

01. Darkwing Duck (No Norwegian version for you!)

Let's get dangerous. My sister and I were so obsessed with this show. We used to play games, but we were much more interested in the assorted villains of Darkwing, so we played some sort of younger counterparts of MegaVolt (that was me, called Volt - though why I wanted to be an evil naked molerat electrician is beyond me*) and The Liquidator (that was my sister, called Vann - or "Water" as the Liquidator's Norwegian name was Vannskrekken). Though I seem to recall we battled GizmoDuck far more often than Darkwing. And we couldn't touch eachother, because that would make some sort of horribly sticky slime. I don't know what we were on.


*Especially when I see now that NegaDuck was so much cooler.

People try to put us down
Just because we get around
Things they do look awful cold
I hope I die before I get old

*Jerry Seinfeld voice* What's up with glossy magazines?

( I've no idea where this came from )

I watched Yellow submarine with Snooky. It's been such a long time since I saw it, and I'm not able to understand if I like it or not. Something about the horribly Liverpudlian accents and the flat jokes. But the music sequences I like (no wonder).

My favourite being Eleanor Rigby. There's masterful animation in that. I always lose it when I see this:

(Click for video)