Favorite Minimalist Finland Humor
I was trying to figure out a very odd Finnish mock-documentary about Finland that I saw on Minnesota Public Television in 1990 or 1991. I remember the odd, dry, but very funny Finnish humor. I wasn’t successful in finding the show but I did find the following:
From http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/prepo.htm
Reponen considered Viljo’s friend Heikki as the prototype of a Finnish man–he is dressed in an undershirt and sweat pants, where he has a bottle of Koskenkorva liquor in the hip pocket. He has also old black shoes without socks, a peaked cap, and he smokes a cigar and is constantly searching his mystical friend Viljo, who never appears. The minimalist dialogue and the humor in the character opens perhaps only to Finish television audiences.
HEIKKI: Have you seen Viljo? LEO: No. HEIKKI: Aha. What are you doing? LEO: Thinking. HEIKKI: Aha. What are you thinking? LEO: This and that. HEIKKI: Aha. LEO: That kind of things. HEIKKI: Well... good luck.