Hejsan!
I have a small child who loves Greta Gris and we watch a lot of it together. This might sounds funny but I learn a lot of vocabulary from it. I find many episodes funny for adults who watch along. My favorite one so far is this one: https://www.svtplay.se/video/eaELwme/greta-gris/masker

I find the part where the teacher opens military-like vault to get the glitter out hilarious.

I have shown it to my Swedish teacher who’s a young dude and he did not find it funny. This was one of many times that happened. I showed it to non-Swedish ppl and majority said it’s funny.

I work remotely for an American company and I don’t know anyone in Sweden to ask about it so here I am on Reddit.

Do you find this funny? What are the things that are universally funny for Swedes? Could you post some examples?

Thanks!

24 comments

  1. I have two young kids but they don’t watch Peppa a lot, but from what I remember there were a few chuckles here and there. I like Bluey better though.

    If the joke is that glitter should be kept in a vault since it is the herpes of the craft world then yes, that does sound funny.

    I would not take one person’s sense of humour as indicative of anything. Did he explain why it wasn’t funny?

  2. I know the episode in question and I think it’s very funny, but that’s maybe because I know how kids’ glitter gets _everywhere_. It’s funny for parents but the joke may be lost on others.

    As for things that are universally funny for Swedes, that’s a difficult one but maybe humor that pokes fun with stuck up people from Stockholm.

  3. Awkward social situations is both horror and comedy, i think the show “solsidan” is generaly spot on

  4. I’ve found that a lot of swedes like to play on stereotypes of swedes from other regions. And making fun of norwegians, finns and especially the danes. Mostly lighthearted.

  5. I think you’re always bound to have some haters, and humor is a divider and it’s so easy to assume that what you find funny yourself is the norm (which isn’t necessarily true). If I had to make a generalization,it seems like ensemble skit revue type comedy is what Swedes respond the best to, across generations. You have Hasse and Tage and their crew, Galenskaparna och After Shave, Lorry, then there was Killing-gänget, then Varanteatern, then Kvarteret Skatan and Grotesco, Rally, Klungan. And you’ll have super successful “hick”-variants of this as well (Stefan och Krister etc).

  6. You should check out some classic swedish comedy. Nile city, Yrrol, Torsk på Tallinn, Tomten är far till alla barnen and Skenbart.

    It’s peak swedish comedy and you will wonder what is wrong with us.

  7. Me and my wife decided that our kids would not watch Greta Gris if we could help it. We tried it like a lot of other shows and also got two of the books but we quickly found that the main character is a horrendously entitled and annoying child, not something we want our kid to model. Also the messages of the episodes where either meh or downright bad.

    Not everything our kid watches has to be great but Greta Gris just rubbed us the wrong way, she’s so whiny.

    Either way, I think that would impact the level of fun I can derive from an episode as the default state for me is annoyed when I see it.

    I know my wife would have laughed out loud at the glitter thing though, she also works with kids.

  8. isn’t peppa the pig british? I can only speak from personal experience, but swedish humour is dry and sarcastic, with a bit of neighbour denigration sprinkled on top.

  10. I have no experience with glitter and found it incomprehensible.

    Swedish humor – at least during my upbringing – revolves a lot around awkwardness. I never liked it, but then again I am not a shy person.

    “Funny” is often scenes like someone making a fool of themselves, driving into the ditch or something, where the camera focuses less on that person and more on the gaping faces of onlookers. My guess is we are supposed to empathize with their emotional reaction and their intense battle to contain it. The embarrasment of the onlookers, not the agent of folly.

    You should watch swedish movies like “Sällskapsresan” or “Göta Kanal”, they sort of encapsulate this cultural humor thing quite well. There are more.

  12. Look for “hipp hipp hos skolkuratorn – ökenråtta” on youtube. That is a true classic and suuuuuperfunny.

    With peppa I only get annoyed with her, it feels so old and outdated. Fatjokes, stupid father, noisy… Bluey is much more in tune with my sense of humor and many others around me.

  16. It’s down to taste, I didn’t find it very funny either. We aren’t all the same you know, so I doubt you’ll find something that we find “universally funny”.

  18. I have kids too and have watched Greta Gris and I personally don’t find it that funny. There are other kids shows on SVTPlay that I do find funny (a more recent show I’ve seen with my kids that can make me laugh is Den Ostoppbara Gula Yetin).

    ​

    But I can tolerate Greta Gris, at least it doesn’t make me want to commit genocide unlike for example Daniel Tigers Kvarter (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood).

  19. I’m not Swedish – did not find the clip funny. Or peppa pig in general. Swedish husband didn’t find it funny either. I don’t think it has anything to do with nationality.

  20. I feel like swedish humor on movies and overall comedians love to make it uncomfortable, i always felt that this is the swedish humor like awkward and uncomfortable. Can be fun sometimes but sometimes when i watch swedish comedy i just cringe or feel like ashamed, not in a bad way or nothing its just the way the humor works. At least that how i feel:)

  23. Yeah that’s not what I would call funny.

    I prefer Nile City, Percy Tårar, Spermaharen, Varan-TV, Kvarteret Skatan and some of Solsidan.

    A bit of the darker and absurd side of comedy.

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