Vilse i pannkakan

I grew up watching this.

The table flipping over to become a landscape in a giant pancake always amazed me.

There is a strong element of surrealism and a lot of socio-political commentary (which was normal in Swedish television at the time), a lot of which went way over my young head.

Some parts were scary for a child (like the Grand Potato and The Parents) but that just added to the thrill.

The puppets and dolls were very well made too.

It is definitely not for everyone but it nonetheless has to be considered a Swedish TV-classic.

Staffan Westerberg enjoyed a massive following for his original puppet show theater where anything could become everything. Perhaps culminating in the excellent and sensitive "Vilse i Pannkakan" (Lost in the Pankake). The main character and storyteller is the boy at the supper-table loosing himself in thoughts about the pancake he does not want to eat. To him the pancake seems huge and he populates it with characters chosen from the dinner room, his schoolbook knowledge of the world, TV-news etc. . Up from the pancake climbs the little character "Vilse" (Lost) and the pancake spins to become a world of wonder. To the boy his evening by the table drags on for years, lost in his pancake fantasy. Underground the flat pancake world nanny Gallileo Gallilei cares for the young ones of the mouse family.

This kids show was made over a decade before I was born so I didn't grow up with it, although I heard much about it in connection with the DVD release years ago - many people protested, saying creator and main actor Staffan Westerberg ruined a whole generation by making this show. But that makes no sense, if you ask me. If it really was that bad, then why did you keep watching it? Why didn't you for example play with toys or see friends instead? It's not like anyone made you watch it.

Sure there was a few terrible shows when I was a kid (I can't remember the title but I remember there was an awfully boring show where a glove were supposed to resemble an elephant) but you don't see me sitting whining about that 20 years later. If a creepy TV show was the worst thing you could encounter back in the 70s, then life must have been awfully easy in those days.

According to me, Vilse i pannkakan is a masterpiece! I love the surrealism and the far out imagination of Staffan Westerberg. I would have loved this show when I was a kid. I actually have a DVD with this show autographed by Staffan Westerberg and I'm proud of that.

Vilse i pannkakan may have been loved by some, and these days the show has something of a cult following. However, bring it up in conversation (apropos the 2007 DVD release, for example) and chances are you'll be met with frightened grimaces and squeaks of unease.

To many 70s kids, including this one, Westerberg's low-low-budget puppet show, was pervaded with a sense of unease and almost dread. The "Big potato" was a domineering and frightening figure with a monstrous wooden head who might appear at any time (sometimes in a painting behind the main protagonist). Feared by all, loved by none, Storpotäten is the stuff that childhood nightmares are made of.

The pancake world itself is rather depressing, with a raggedy figure desperately trying to fix a boat by a dried out pond, mouse kids watched by a skeleton and rats with names like Lucifer.

On top of that, the two-dimensional parents might pop up at any time, scorning the kid who was supposed to eat the magical - and increasingly dusty - pancake.

Finally, it was pretty boring. Westerberg had two modes: unease and dullness. Songs went on forever, "funny" phrases were repeated ad nauseam and you never really had the feeling that the show was going anywhere.

Do check it out for reasons of nostalgia and / or curiosity but think twice before exposing your own kids to the pancake world.