Wulffmorgenthaler

A confusing discovery in the Klondyke.
Miner: "Silence is golden....... Isn't it?"

Wulffmorgenthaler is a cartoon that appears everyday in the Danish national newspaper, Politiken. It's written by two danish guys, Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler (hence the name), and it sort of represents what I'm coming to think of as classic danish comedy.

You wouldn't really think of the danes as comic geniuses. It's certaintly not something that comes screaming across at you to start with. But that's mainly because their comedy is sooooo understated and subtle, and after a while you figure out that they actually have a great sense of humour underneath. So what's it like? Well, of course its hard to generalise, (and its even harder seeing that I don't understand very much of it!) but I would have to say that it is exceedingly satirical: a strange mix of the surreal and the completely unexpected, coupled with really inventive situations. This cartoon is obviously inspired by Gary Larson and "The Far Side", but at the same time it also delves into the classic, almost offensive, humour of South Park as well.

Another good example of Danish humour was a recent documentary that they had here called "Danes for Bush" (link to their website - well worth the look), in which these two guys dress up in some sort of pseudo-danish sterotyped uniform, hire a campervan, and drive across the states rallying support for George W, imploring people to "Save us from Old Europe". The aim of it is not so much to directly make fun of americans and republicans, but rather to let them make fools of themselves, which, it has to be said, they did very well. Very understated, very much just sitting back and just letting silly stuff happen, rather than trying to be overtly funny.

The same seems to be true of their TV comedies. The current favourite is "Drengene fra Angora" (the boys from Angora), resplendent with their fake cycling team ("Team Easy-on"), who followed the Tour de France around this year, pretending to be in it. They attempted to ride some of the stages (including L'alpe d'Huez) before the cyclists, and even managed a dawn victory lap of the Champs Elysee on the final day of the tour. Apparently Team Easy-on's cycling jersey's is the most popular in all of Denmark, selling six times as many as the national team's jersey!. It strikes me as quite british humour, very visual, and very, very silly. Brilliant stuff. I just wish I could understand it a bit more!

Anyway, getting back on track, it has become a daily ritual for Dorthe and I to sit down and for me to try and translate the Wulffmorgenthaler cartoons - I maybe understand one per week without her help, but that's ok. I'm trying to find copies of my favourite ones online, so that I can publish them here, but am not having any luck: there are about 1000 of their cartoon published which I need to look through, so it might take a while. Still, here are two good ones from this week to give you the idea (with translations of course!) They got a little squashed putting them on the website, but if you click on the the graphic, you'll get full sized version (it took me two minutes there to figure out that graphic was spelt with a ph, rather than the f that the danes use: grafik. Arggggh! I'm becoming dansk-ified!!).

An automatic passport-photo-machine tries its hand as a paparazzi.
Pasfoto-automat: "I wish I had a telephoto lens...... How do I get down again... How did I get up?"