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Here in Denmark, it's new years tradition to watch this on NYE, it's about as important as the Queens new years address.

Also, it _NEVER_ stops being fun*

[*] Legally required to hold this opinion.

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Don’t forget that while this is broadcast on NYE in Denmark and Sweden, in Norway it’s broadcast on Christmas which is something you should definitely bring up on a mixed Scandinavian family dinner.

It’s also quite fun since there’s a joke relationship between Swedes and Norwegians calling each other stupid, so it’s quite fun to insinuate that Norwegians simply do not understand that the movie is set on NYE.

Here in Norway every year on Christmas eve we also show Karl-Bertil Jonssons jul, a Swedish cartoon from 1975, where a underage postage worker steals packages from the rich and gives it to the poor.

It's hard to imagine it would be well received in most other countries, especially as a tradition.

Don't forget Tre nøtter til Askepott, an old communist Czech movie that's somehow so critical to Norwegian heritage they had to send a Norwegian team to another country to make sure it was preserved and restored.

Yup, and a remake was released last year, featuring one of our main pop stars. It is apparently an annual Christmas movie in 14 other countries too though, unlike Karl-Bertils, which likely due to the political subject matter is only tradition in the Nordic countries.

To be pedantic, it was an East German / Czechoslovakian coproduction (called "Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel" here), and it's still huge in Germany too (browse German TV channels at any time between Christmas and New Year, and it's very likely that the movie is running on at least one of them).

The 'movie castle' is Schloss Moritzburg btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritzburg_Castle

Thanks for pointing out. I was confused by parent calling it „communist Czech movie“. It’s a fairy tale FFS, what does it have to do with communism? I never understood that obsession some people have with communism to see everything in the world through their iron curtain glasses.

They simply meant from that era, relax McCarthy.

It's important to understand that everything, even fairytales went through censorship / ideology conformity reviews, especially in those years ("normalisation", after the events of 1968/9). Many movies were either not produced at all or banned after production, others were heavily cut. Yes, even fairytales had to adhere to the communist ideology - for example the poor were usually shown as being morally superior, while the rich were decadent and mostly stupid, etc.

It's also important not to forget that West Germany wasn't immune to the censorship either, and bans, beside what realistically was a Soviet propaganda, also included some really good documentaries and artwork even by today's standards.

https://film-history.org/approaches/not-approved-screening

Not sure why are you singling out West Germany here since the same applies to many other countries and tbh there is no particular issue with filtering content coming from totalitarian enemies interested in destroying you.

The very important distinction here is that were the same policies as in Czechoslovakia applied in West Germany, people like Rainer Werner Fassbinder would not be able to create their movies. Not distribute, create.

> tbh there is no particular issue with filtering content coming from totalitarian enemies interested in destroying you.

Both sides were very much interested in destroying each other (and worked actively on that), but problem is that whenever you have bureaucrats doing censorship in the name of the national or social interests, it ends up affecting far-wider circle of (innocent) people than officially intended, and often can be misused for other (political) purposes. The main reason I even commented on this is that few days ago I've seen an East-Germany documentary on German nazis working as mercenaries in South Africa, which was banned in West Germany, even though it had nothing "communistic" or anti-western - but it touches some not-so-popular subjects on nazis and nazi supporters in West and particularly W. Germany that (although true and well documented) they didn't want people to hear about. So they censored it as "communist propaganda", no questions asked...

Eastern block certainly had a lot more censorship and oppression than West, but it's important to be aware that lots of dirty s** happened in the West too, things were never as black and white as some people like to simplify it now.

My favorite part is how it's all dubbed into Norwegian by one guy doing all the voices, but he sorta starts giving up distinguishing the characters about half way through.

Spending Christmas with my friend's Norwegian family was just getting one "tradition" after another explained to me for a week while I continuously got more and more confused.

The guy doing the voices were improvising as he went along, as he was under the impression that it was a test. That this ended up being the track they used is, in itself, really odd. It's a funny track, though, so I guess that could be the reason?

Robin Hood is pretty well recieved in the broader west, and Ned Kelly is an Australian icon. I think the theme is pretty universal. For Christmas tradition the west has Scrooge which reveals the inherent disconnect between Christmas and wealth.

It's not shown on Christmas in Norway, rather on "little Christmas" (lille julaften), on the 23rd

"the movie is set on NYE"

Is it? I don't recall anything to suggest that. The title in German in "The 90th birthday".

It's a frequent misconception that it is set on NYE, since one of the guests (Mr. Pomeroy) says "Happy New Year Miss Sophie" in one of his toasts. But this is intended to be a joke, that the butler James is drunk enough to believe for a moment that it is NYE.

I thought he was just wishing Miss Sophie a happy new year, because it is the beginning of a new year for _her_ since this is her birthday.

Some yeas back a DR2 made a satirical parody of it called the 80 years birthday (in Danish it is called "the 90 years birthday") where all the characters was played by a series of Danish comedians https://youtu.be/H07O6j6-6vQ

Thanks for sharing! I didn't know Dinner for One is a thing elsewhere in Europe, and even had parodies.

There are also some German adaptations, like the one with Anette Frier and Ralf Schmitz (two well-known comedians). It's in _kölsch_, the dialect spoken in the Cologne area - which is quite fun to listen to, at least for Germans:

https://youtu.be/yGUo9VfbxnE

I prefer the "Dinner für Brot" adaption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smgbPO0KaZw

A lot of famous comedians have played one version of it (often live ans Theater plays, which I believe is also true for the original). Here is a version with Otto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4iCGdURpd4

There are also several platt versions (a dialekt spoken in the north which is actually more like a separate language)

And lest we forget: The hackneyed Disney Christmas Show at 1600 hours sharp on the 24th of December. In this household, Christmas officially starts when the mouse from Cinderilla squints and runs the thread through the giant needle's eye. These are generally the only two times of the year I have anything to do with live TV. Godt nytår!

Whereas in Sweden it starts at 15 and, for some reason[0], is titled “Donald Duck and his friends wish you Merry Christmas”, despite Jiminy Cricket being the presenter.

[0] The reason is obviously his popularity in Sweden

I was surprised to discover that Mickey Mouse was more popular and well-known in the US than Donald Duck. Come on, Donald Duck is a much more fun and interesting character!

Is it due to the US being prudes and Donald Duck doesn't wear any trousers/underwear?

No, most Americans don’t perceive him as naked, any more than they do Bugs Bunny or other anthro mascots.

I think it’s the accent. His voice actors are pretty hard to understand sometimes.

Interestingly, having only ever introduced to those characters through comics, I never pictured any particular accent and instead imagined them speaking normally.

I'll contribute another anecdotal data point; I've never known anyone even to consider that point of view. It's more that Donald Duck comic books just didn't catch on here the way they did in other countries. But people do recognize Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

I grew up thinking the Warner Bros. characters were the superior cartoon stars (and that Daffy is better than Bugs; my wife and I still argue about that). Disney is more like Apple...the people who like them really love them and get sucked into the rabbit-hole, but everyone else sees them as a cult.

In Scandinavia, the older generations mostly know these characters from comic magazines rather than the animated cartoons, as those was rarely shown on TV. The Disney magazines was called Donald Duck but also had stories with other Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Goofy etc. If you ask a Scandinavian about Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse, they will most likely think of the comic magazine rather than the animation.

Disney artists like Carl Barks created new stories in a genre quite distinct from the animated cartoons. While the cartoons are mostly slapstick humor, the Barks stories were longer narratives where the characters went on various adventures. A lot of the stories were produced in Europe for the European market, since the magazines were never as popular in the US (where I believe superhero magazines were more popular, for whatever reason).

WB and Hanna-Barbera and other studios also tried to publish comic magazines, but didn't manage to adapt to the medium as successfully, so they are less well known.

I love the Kalle Anka tradition.

https://slate.com/culture/2009/12/sweden-s-bizarre-tradition...

And Christmas 2021 Disney mistakenly put on the wrong voices and we almost killed the guy from DR planning it

This was a favorite of mine growing up. But I made the mistake of trying to watch it with my kids once, and behold, it had turned from showing the best of the Disney classic cartoons into running trailers for upcoming Disney movies.

Thanks for destroying that tradition, Disney Inc.

In Switzerland too and it's also shown on national television! And on christmas morning it's tradition that the movie "Drei Nüsse für Aschenbrödel" (Cinderella) is broadcast on national television.

It’s going to be getting a prequel

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/30/european-new-y...

The same procedure as last year?

Same procedure as every year, James

I have watched it in Denmark too for many years. Until I read this article I had no idea that it is watched in other countries as well :)

First time I (Brit) saw it was Christmas at my mother-in-laws in Denmark in about 1998. They couldn’t believe I didn’t know it.

Do people drink along with it? Is it on TV or is a vaguely good copy available.

I‘m sure some people are drinking along with James the Butler (quite a feat) but that is not widespread. It is on TV each year but I would be surprised if many people aren‘t watching via YouTube.

Several years ago, some friends at my then uni started organizing a special sittning [1] on the New Year's Eve, where the idea is simply to watch Dinner for One when it's broadcast and to drink the four served drinks in sync with Miss Sophie. For added challenge one can decide to go either "half" or "full James". It's something of a hilarious deconstruction of the entire concept of sittning, normally a three-course dinner party lasting several hours and featuring plenty of drinking songs and often other entertainment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sittning#Student_sittning

Can confirm; couldn’t have said it better myself!

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