Oslo on the Hudson

Last night I (briefly) played host to a wandering party of Norwegian media types, brought to me by Charles Coxe, an old college buddy-turned-Maxim-editor (the classic coming-of-stage story in Manhattan), and cousin of one of them. All worked for various branches of the Youth Dep't of Norwegian Public Television (http://nrk.no/) - "youth" being defined as 15-30. Some worked in radio, some in TV - mostly producing music and comedy variety shows, from the sound of it, one on the Web. They had evidently seen our show, though couldn't recall which European outlet that had been on.

Unfortunately, although the taping time had been announced as 7:00, it actually got underway a bit earlier, so by the time they arrived, they'd missed the first act, the most "written" part of the show. So I offered them a backup plan: In my office (took some chairwork - there were 5 of them plus Charles), I'd let them watch a tape of last night's show.

After some "24"-like frantic inter-office paging to locate a researcher who supposedly last had the tape, I came upon it. It was all for the better, as last night (5/2)'s episode, was, I thought, a better demonstration for foreign eyes of what the show is capable of. A nice, balanced breakdown of the President's speech, and a memorable take on Laura's off-color horse joke.

Over pre-dinner cocktails and a massive, Americans-are-pigs-stereotype-confirming, Super Size-me-esque mound of fried finger-foods (the "small" plate, no less!) at nearby Bar Nine, the Norwegians confessed that our Laura bit -- in which our production coordinator Gina Brown, doing a breathtaking impression, has the First Lady extend the president-accidentally-"milked"-a-male-horse joke into double-equine-fellation-semen-ablution territory -- struck even them as going too far, and their culture is relatively less Puritanical. They expressed shock when, while relating what I'd been working on that day, I mentioned the new Clearplay filter, just approved by Congress, a device that parents attach to their DVDs, to automatically skip past the objectionable parts.

I tried to defend this as at least being an individual-choice-driven solution, but they couldn't get past the "censorship" part. You'd think that, living next to Sweden, they'd be in favor of anything that occasionally lets you fast-forward through a periodically unwatchable film.

What shocked them about our piece, though, was not the sexual content, but the ad hominem attack on a political figure. They told me that a recent Prime Minister, also a priest, had had a breakdown and been lampooned as such in the media. But he specifically called for them to stop such depicitions, claiming it went too far. But Norwegian outlets continued on doing it, they told me.

On our way to the bar, we'd run into Ben Karlin, our Executive Producer. He looked appropriately befuddled when I explained who the group was. He recounted a time when he and Jon had done a press junket in Norway, but gotten no laughs. I assured him that they laughed plenty at the taped episode I'd shown them - later on, Sindra, Charles' cousin, told me that the voice of the show seemed amenable to Europeans, that he appreciated its "bite." Naturally, the joke that I'd contributed - how, unlike Sinatra, Cheney ate scrambled *eggbeaters* off a hooker's chest - had no bite and was veiled in a reference they didn't get it. Even 2.5 years in here, I still ultimately brought a Dennis Miller Live picture jibe (Cheney heart joke).

One of the fellows, Nico, a curly-locked, earring-studded, usually smoking director-producer of variety/music shows, told me how he ended up where he is now. After college, he said, Norwegians are required to join the military or - as he put it it with a smirk - "ask not to." However to opt out, you have to state a profession, then take an entry-level position in it. So he chose television. TV or the Army - talk about your Hobson's Choice.