I belong to what Norwegians know as "the Pompel and Pilt Generation". We grew up in the 60's and 70's, when the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK ruled Norwegian TV screens without competition. Every day at 6.00 P.M., there would be 30 minutes of children's TV. And what did they unleash on their unsuspecting under-age audience?
Why, Pompel and Pilt!
Pictures cannot fully express the diabolical psychedelia of this sinister black-and-white puppet show. Apart from the eerie theme music, which foreshadowed the stranger works of Tom Waits, there was the absurd dialogue. In general, the show appeared to have been written by some Samuel Beckett fan on acid. Even the titles of the five episodes seemed to suggest the futility of human existence:
- The Repair Men Are Coming
- The Repair Men Are Coming Back
- The Repair Men Are Coming And Coming
- The Repair Men Are Coming Again
- The Repair Men Are Coming Back Again
The plot in every episode was simple and consistent: The two repair men Pompel and Pilt arrive at a mysterious house in the woods, and knock on the door to find out if the occupants need any repair work done.
And this is where the horrors would start. The doors in this house would swing open and slam shut by their own volition, completely unpredictably and with obvious hazards to anyone who got caught in their way. As Pompel would remark on one occasion: "I think that door is home alone!"
To this day I still approach revolving doors with a feeling of trepidation, remembering how poor Pompel got his head stuck. Only quick handywork with a screw-driver by Pilt, which made the door come crashing down, saved his life. Incidentally, the fact that their attempts to fix things always led to destruction was a recurring feature of this series. And Pompel would then explain the central moral of the show: "Now Pilt can see that it is better with two repair men than with no repair men!"
Once inside the house, things got even worse. The interior was vast and pitch dark. There were no walls and little furniture. Strange tassels would dangle from the ceiling. Mysterious creatures called "migrants", who seemed to be wandering bicycle pumps with mop top hair, would scurry past the screen. A furry beast called "the moffedille" would appear and proceed to eat every key it could lay its paws on - with resulting stomach pain which made Pompel consider a medical procedure with his saw. On one memorable occasion, the two repair men began pulling on a loose string. As Pilt observed that the string was very long, Pompel replied: "That's right. Loose strings are long." Norwegians have pondered this dictum for four decades.
Lurking in the darkness was Gorgon, the caretaker of this frightful building. He would seem quite nice at first, greeting our two heroes with enthusiasm. But once they asked him if he had any repair work for them, his unstable mental state would be revealed. The question always sent him into an insane psychotic rant, were he would list any word he could think of that rhymes with "repair". Quite naturally, this frightened Pompel and Pilt, who would spend the rest of the episode trying to hide from this maniac.
During the course of the series, we would learn that the caretaker's family was just as bad. His wife turned out to be a disturbingly manic creature who was busy sorting cardboard boxes into stacks. When Pompel and Pilt accidently toppled the pile, she would scream about "My precious boxes!" like some deranged female Gollum. Her baby was rather unpleasant too, lying in his cot screaming for food. No matter how much Pompel and Pilt managed to supply, he would never be satisfied. It was enough to make anyone mad, and we breathed a deep sigh of relief when the unfortunate repair men finally found the exit and made their way home.
What possessed Arne and Bjørg Mykle to make them write such a thing? What kind of mindbending drugs where they on, in that glorious year of 1969, when the series was created? I guess we shall never really know. The Norwegian TV guide Programbladet described the show with the headline: "Pre-ironic children's program launched tonight". Let no one say that state-run broadcasters are afraid of experimentation. If anything, I suspect that no commercial network would ever have come up with anything like Pompel and Pilt.
Suffice it to say that they have left their mark on hundreds of thousands of impressionable minds. While NRK concluded, after four reruns between 1973 and 1985, that the show was not suitable for children, it had by then achieved cult status. Student societies would arrange special showings, attracting enthusiastic audiences who would marvel at the scenes that scared them so much when they were children. When it was finally released on video in the 90's, thousands of old fans/victims rushed out to get their copy. Today, you can buy it on DVD. There's even a Norwegian rock band called Pompel and the Pilts. The memories have stuck.
By the time the 80's came around, Norwegian children were hardened veterans. After the psychedelic terrors of Pompel and Pilt, nothing could shock them. When doctor-turned-comedian Trond Viggo Torgersen brought us the children's series The Body, equipped with full frontal nudity and a thorough explanation of the moment of conception, we yawned. What was his reenactment of the journey of sperm, compared to the madness of Gorgon the Caretaker?
We would never be the same again.
Take a look, if you dare:
Mike's Best Guess
David Cox
Sean Murphy
David Brin
Paul Levinson
Padraig Colman
Salon.com
Comments
And since I don't speak Norwegian, I have to ask about the video on conception. In Norway, does it somehow involved short pieces of rope? If so, how? Please, for the love of all that's holy, answer those questions.
God help us all. (But rated, nonetheless!)
I must have a t-shirt!
How interesting that a society that coddles it's citizens with generous social policies, has to create artificial danger and fear. On the other hand, our scary society, has to create artificial well being and artificial happy endings.
Rated
The knotted ropes represented the sperm. You will notice that the last one gets to mix with the egg cell (ball of plasticine).
Stellaa:
It is definitely not like Sesame Street...
deering: "Is there a subtitled version of this? I'd give a million to know what Gorgon is saying..."
I don't think it's ever been translated. But your not missing much. After Gorgon hears the words "repair", he simply lists words that rhyme with that. Possibly some variation of schizophrenia?
I believe those statistics have been supressed in the interest of national security.
this show sounds awful!!
These remind me of the creepy fantasy land of Mr. Rogers...
Most rated.