It’s more than a month early for this, but there was a power outage on Monday and I thought I’d see if the PAL DVD player was still working. The nearest PAL DVD at hand was Dinner For One (aka Der 90. Geburtstag).
According to Wiki (link contains spoilers – video linked below), Dinner For One became ‘the most frequently repeated TV programme ever (according to the Guinness Book of Records, 1988-1995 eds.’
I was introduced to this production last New Year’s Eve by Shayna and Spiny Norman. It was explained to me that it has become a New Year’s Eve tradition – although it has nothing to do with the holiday – in Scandinavia and Germany. It is an English play and the dialog is English, but is normally shown undubbed without subtitles. From Wiki:
AFAIK I don’t have any Scandinavian blood. My mother’s paternal lineage is Dutch and her husband was from Finland. Eh, close enough for government work. I think I’ll make Dinner For One part of my New Year’s traditions.
Written in 1920, Dinner For One is
… a long lead-up to a punchline.
It has a certain charm about it. And I can imagine it being absolutely hilarious if much alcohol is a part of the viewing experience. I like it just fine sober.
Questions for Dopers:
[ul][li]Have you seen Dinner For One?[/li][li]If so, are you Scandinavian or Germanic-speaking; or Australian?[/li][li]If you are not in the traditional broadcast area, how did you come to see it?[/ul][/li] Dinner For One video, 11 minutes.
As often mentioned, I lived in Berlin for 14 years and New Year’s Eve wasn’t New Year’s Eve without watching Dinner For One!
Just like in the USA, before video, it was a tradition to watch Wizard Of Oz around Thanksgiving or Christmas - Dinner For One is a NYE tradition - people just laugh and laugh (and yes, alcohol plays a part) and you can even get a whole house full of Germans to stop talking and watch it at a party.
Thanks for the clip - will download it and watch it this NYE!
Good grief! Just when I thought I would never have to watch *that *particular abomination again… Oh dear.
Yeah. Scandinavian here. I haven’t actually seen the ghastly thing since I was a kid, but I remember it was a *huge *thing for my parent on New Years Eve. I swear it was the highlight of the year for them, and the funniest thing they knew. My dad would spend the rest of the year mimicking that damned butler, and laughing his head off just thinking about it. I haven’t actually celebrated that particular holiday with them for the past couple of decades (thank Og), so I don’t know if it still holds the same attraction, or even if it’s still on TV at all. I could never see the slightest trace of humor in it, though, and neither does anyone I know under the age of about 40. YMMV on that, though.
It’s certainly strange to see the damned thing again. I never realized it was so short. I remember it more like a two hour feature film, with that butler kicking the poor tiger about 500 times - that’s because it was such a big deal, I suppose.
That’s the Swiss version. I’ll see if I can find the proper 18 minute NDR version that God intended us to watch. The joke is the same but with rituals like this details are important.
Hang on… hang on! :smack: Sudden realization here! Of course I didn’t think it was funny when I was a kid. The humor is about alcohol consumption and the punchline is sexual in nature. Why did my parents even* let me watch it*?
Well, watching it again now… no. Still not funny. In fact, if possible, even less funny.
You are too focused on the actual sketch.
Of course it’s an ancient joke of questionable quality stretched to a quarter hour but that’s besides the point. The beauty is in the ritual and the shared experience. Every year on New Year’s Eve whole countries gather and watch a sketch about a yearly drunken ritual of dubious sanity. Just think of the whole thing as a decades long piece of performance art.
I searched and searched and searched for that version to buy, and finally had to settle for the shorter one. Do you have any idea where I might be able to buy a copy of the one you linked to?
I’d originally gotten it as a surprise for my Danish husband so he could still watch it the year we didn’t make it home to Denmark for the holidays, and not have to miss out on the tradition. We’ve shared it with quite a few people, all of whom beg for copies, including my parents who we just played it for over Thanksgiving weekend. I could send them a copy of the one we have, but the longer one is so much nicer, I’d really like to be able to send them that one. Any help you could provide would be much appreciated!
OK, so this thread is a year old. But Shayna and Spiny Norman and their neighbour just called and reminded me that kellner had posted a link to the German version. (As pointed out, I have the Swiss version. Anyway, I’d have to fire up the PAL machine to watch it.)
So I’m resurrecting this thread rather than starting a new one, so people can follow the links and join in the New Year’s tradition introduced to me by my fellow Dopers.
Oh dear.