Topic: Holiday TV traditions in Sweden

[GSyren]

What does almost everyone in Sweden watch on TV at Christmas? Well believe it or not, it's an old Disney show, From All of Us to All of You, that's an episode from The Wonderful World of Disney from 1958. Actually, it has been adapted, and some segments have been replaced, but the basic show had been aired every Christmas Eve at 3 pm since 1959!  See this Wikipedia article, and also this more personal view from a non-Swede. Mr. Stahl is incorrect in one thing, though. The black doll that cries "Mammy" (in Santa's Workshop) was censored from the Swedish version a long time ago. Since the tradition started long before we had VCRs, the tradition is that you watch it "live" at 3 pm. You do not record it! And afterwards Santa is free to come. Yes, Santa comes on Christmas Eve to us in Northern Europe. You can't expect him to cover the whole world in a single day, can you? And he comes to us first because we're the goodest!  

Another holiday tradition that's not so exclusively Scandinavian is the New Year's Eve showing of Dinner for One, known in Sweden as Grevinnan och Betjänten (The Countess and the Butler), but known to all our German friends as Der 90. Geburtstag starring May Warden and Freddie Frinton. Curiously, though, we don't get the same version as the Germans do. They get an 18 minute version recorded by the German NDR televison, while we get an 11 minute version recorded by Schweizer Fernsehen (Swiss Television). The show is so popular than pretty much everyone in Sweden is familiar with its catch phrase "Same procedure as every year". Strangely, it is virtually unknown in Warden's and Frinton's home country, UK, and has never been shown in in USA or Canada. Both versions are available on YouTube for those who haven't seen them. And for goodness sake don't watch the colorized version!!!

[DJ Doena]

3 more days until

The same procedure as last year?
The same procedure as every year!

[Kinoniki]

I wonder how long these traditions will last. Kids don't seem to care for them now like we did but when I grew up we only had two TV channels that almost never showed cartoons and of course we had no VCRs in the 1970s so watching Disney at Christmas was something special. Today it's probably watched more by parents and grand parents for nostalgic reasons.

A few corrections though: 1960 was the first year the show aired in Sweden and the black doll was certainly present during most of the 1980s-2000s. Apparently it was eventually removed again as late as 2012.

This year I didn't see any part of it but I did watch Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton, a Swedish animated Christmas short from 1975 that very much shows the spirit of giving at Christmas. :-)
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135636/reference
Youtube (in Swedish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsqO_g7pCM

[GSyren]

I have seen both 1959 and 1960 stated as the first year shown. It seemed like more sources had 1959, but that may of course be because they all got their info from the same incorrect original source.

Was the black doll really removed that late? It seemed to me that it was earlier than that, but I guess my memory played tricks with me.

I'm sure you're right about children not caring for them the way we did when we were kids. Nowadays there's plenty of cartoons on TV, most of it crap, though, but kids seem to like it anyway.

[Kinoniki]

I trust Magic Movies, they are usually correct. They have a nice summary of all the different airings here: http://www.magicmovies.se/texter.asp?id=11

Disney has shown various cuts of Santa's Workshop over the years. You might recall that the first version was in black & white long into the 1970s even though all the other cartoons were in colour. Apparently the black doll as well as a jewish looking caricature was cut and then later "uncut" again, maybe it was when they switched to colour or shortly after but they have been present most of the time that I've been watching the show, of that I'm sure because I remember that we used to comment on it in the family (the racial stereotypes were apparent even when I was a kid).

[GSyren]

I sure remember that Santa's Workshop was in b&w. I assumed that the original was in b&w, so I was real surprised the first time they showed it in color. I remember that when Snow White was re-dubbed they changed the lyrics of the dwarfs' song. I remember the original Chip & Dale cartoon with Donald waging war against them, which was later switched for the tamer cartoon with Mickey and Pluto using their tree for a xmas tree. Yep, there have been some changes thru the years.