Talk:Olsen Gang

Official English titles

Some of the Norwegian DVDs translate the title card on the English subtitle track. I don't have all the movies, but I found the the official title for Olsen-Banden og Dynamitt-Harry går amok is "The Olsen Gang and Dynamite Harry run amuck" (which is not a direct translation), while Olsen-Banden møter Kongen og Knekten has no such translation. These titles should be added to the article, can anyone help me provide them? Also, do the Danish movies have such titles? AdamantBMage (talk) 23:56, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Harry

Is the Danish or Norwegian version of Dynamite-Harry alcoholics, such as the Swedish character appears to be, (although nevertheless good-natured and kind)?

The Danish Harry (who had only two appearances) is alcoholic, especially in the second movie, while he tries to stay dry in the fifth movie. I don't know the Norvegian version but don't think that there is a difference because the Norvegian scripts are very closely related to the Danish ones. --slg 14:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the norwegian Harry is alcoholic as well. --Egil530 22:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Cencorship?

It says that the style of the movie (scantly clad women etc.) was changed due to getting a "younger" rating. It's my impression that these changes were made beacuse that style of filming were going out of fashion.--Nwinther 08:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Changes? In what direction? The wery first movie contain numerous risqué jokes about pornography, and about the gang running (or just haning out in) a brothel. The last "propper" movie, "Olsen-banden over alle bjerge" is the one where they hire a french prostitute, and the plan fails because Benny sleeps with her instead of doing his part of the plan.

83.91.128.56 20:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Qey-words that sums up the series in my opinion: Slapstick comedy and elaborate heist-plans. Very much inspiret by silent movie-classics, sutch as Buster Keaton and Chaplin. (Actualy a signature element of the Olsen Gang is the long "silent" sequences, with voice over by Egon who describes the plan as we see it unfold, or just with no or wery little dialoge)

Um there's a big difference between lewd dialogue and lewd imagery 83.91.128.56. --Luka1184 (talk) 01:29, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

83.91.128.56 20:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Olsenbanden1 l.jpg

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Danish version in the intro

Danish version is at the moment omitted in the intro, at least the dates need to be given. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.129.140.71 (talk) 13:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Olsen-banden and Jönssonligan

These are two concepts. They are definitely related but they have separate names and separate articles.

But pertinent to recent edits, "Jönssonligan" is not how you translate "Olsen-banden" into Swedish. The Swedish translation of that would be something like "Olsenligan". The reason I added the html-comment about not doing that, however, is because I can't find a single source where "Olsen-banden" have actually been translated into Swedish.

The obvious reason for that is because Sweden has their own version, Jönssonligan, and so any Swedish-language article about Olsen-banden is always about the Danish origin of Jönssonligan: anytime I can find a Swedish source about THIS subject matter, it leaves the danish original title untranslated (i.e. "Olsenbanden" or "Olsen-banden").

Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 18:20, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

So the Danish movies were never released in Sweden then?★Trekker (talk) 18:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

If you can find a reputable source, sure. I hoped for SVT or SFI, but all I found was streamingsites and blogs. CapnZapp (talk) 18:40, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not questioning your research but I find it incredibly surprising.★Trekker (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Please, question my research - that's what wikipedia is all about ;)

Hehe, ok. But I couldn't really find anything myself so I'll leave it be for now. :)★Trekker (talk) 11:01, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

East Germany

With a proper source, the cult following of the Danish films in East Germany, and their under-the-radar satirical function there, should be mentioned.--Nø (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

It really should. I'll try to put some work into this article in the future.★Trekker (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The following is now in the article:

The original, Danish films were popular in the former GDR and Eastern Europe, with their satire on the establishment and authorities.

Thanks!

Three comments on this:

1. It does not really belong in the section on international versions - but perhaps it's the section heading that should be revised ("Olsen Gang outside Denmark", or the like).
2. A source would be good - as is stands, it would be hard to argue against a removal.
3. In addition to opposition to authorities, which might implicity be seen as opposition to the authorities in GDR too, one might also in the Olsen Gang plotlines and dialogue find oppostion to Western capitalism and EU, and this might implicitly be seen as support for the allegedly communist authorities in GDR. I think this ambiguity is an important part of the story of the Olsen Gang in GDR.--Nø (talk) 15:51, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Temporarily removing this until a source can be supplied. (As you probably already know, this source does not necessarily need to be online, nor in English) CapnZapp (talk) 18:02, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

"The gang makes fun of police and state authority. That would cost several years in prison if we even insinuated anything similar. Authorities down here probably want us to see how stupid big finance and police is in Denmark. But the average East German is not too stupid to transfer it to our own system. But the movies are first and foremost funny, and humour isn't something we have too much of down here."-Peter Borgelt as quoted by John Lindskog in his book "SKIDE GODT EGON!" about the Olsen Gang series. Specifically page 89. 62.107.200.243 (talk) 23:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

News article on this subject: https://www.b.dk/globalt/olsen-banden-ramte-en-nerve-i-ddr-men-ligesom-hos-egon-benny-og-kjeld-var-der--Nø (talk) 13:42, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Split Norwegian and Danish film series

I feel like this should be done. They're separate film series. Right now the article is a little bit hard to read and I feel it would be helpful if there would be more narrow focus. The two series diverged quite a bit (not as much as the Swedish version, but still).★Trekker (talk) 11:30, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I've done some housecleaning. See what you think (if you still feel a split is needed). CapnZapp (talk) 18:30, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

My opinion: unless/until you can find new content specific to Norwegian Olsenbanden, hold off the split. Don't split merely for administrative reasons (honestly this article is not long enough to be too long). My advice: consider how different the new article would be - if it ends up mostly a copy with little original content, that is a clue it's not ready to be split off. CapnZapp (talk) 18:30, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Thank you for your work, I have done some more housecleaning stuff. Personally, I think a split can be helpful, but I agree with you that getting more content into the existing article should be the first step. --slg (talk) 00:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: @Steffen Löwe Gera: I appreciate both of your work, but I still feel like there is a lot to be added, as far as I know I think I've heard of there being books, comics, video games and plays based on the franchises, the problems are that I can't figure out which countries each of the stuff comes from whenever I come across them.★Trekker (talk) 05:39, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Gang vs Band

In Danish (and Norwegian) the group is a band; in Swedish a liga. English offers two words for "group of criminals who work together to commit crimes":

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gang (2nd definition)
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/band (5th definition)

To somewhat preserve the Nordic language distinction for this English-language article I propose we translate band into gang and liga into band: talking about the Danish gang and the Swedish band. CapnZapp (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm of the mind that the series should be at their original titles as far as the article title goes, it's original research to translate this stuff unless there are official translations, and the original names are far more well known. COMMONNAME should rule.★Trekker (talk) 08:27, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, my first language is neither English nor Danish nor Swedish, but I can't actually see a reason why to make any difference in English. Both Olsen-banden (or Olsenbanden, as it is spelled in Norway) and Jönssonligan are groups of people doing exactly the same things. To be honest, I didn't even know that a group of criminals could be referred to as a "band" in English as well (for me, that's a group of musicians, or occassionally a poetical thing such as "band of brothers"), so I thought it was nothing more than a bad translation from any Scandinavian language. When searching for what they might be "officially" called in English, I see that not only Nordisk Film clearly calls them "Olsen Gang" ([1]), but also that at least some international festivals have shown the Lilla Jönssonligan films as "Young Jönsson Gang" ([2], [3]). --slg (talk) 11:51, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Sure, but the vast majority of the source that we wil be able to find are going to be in the original languages, we should use the common name.★Trekker (talk) 11:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but the point I do not understand is: Of course their names in the original languages are different, but hy make any difference when writing in English? Olsen-banden is a gang. Jönssonligan is a gang. What's the reason to write anything else? --slg (talk) 11:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh I don't have any huge opinion on that. I guess it has to do with people wanting to cary over the language difference between the originals to English.★Trekker (talk) 12:14, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Toyota?

"Several elements recur in the film series. As the Japanese carmaker Toyota was usually the main sponsor of the film series, most cars, including the villain's cars, the security cars, the police cars, the gang's car, civilian cars parked on the sidewalks, etc., were supplied by the company. Models include the Crown as taxis, Toyota Cressida as police cars, Hiace as security vans and money transports, and so on. There have been exceptions, notably Olsenbandens aller siste kupp (The Olsen-Gang's Very Last Coup) from 1982, which was sponsored by Datsun."

1, I never noticed Toyotas being especially prominent and German Wikipedia actually documents the cars that the Olsen gang themselves are driving which are always American cars (in most later movies, it's a Chevrolet Bel Air).

2, The introductory sentence of the paragraph reads "Several elements recur in the series" ... and then there's the lame factoid (true or not) about Toyota sponsoring the films, when there are a lot of running gags and recurring references in the series that are more interesting. (Egon's omni-present cigar, Benni's walk, Egon coming out of prison with a plan, Yvonne/Kjeld wavering, a safe manufactured by Franz Jäger/Francis Hunter/Francois Chasseur has to be opened, ...). Sparklex (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)