Is King Kong Norwegian?
I am constantly amazed at how many TV shows and movies refer to Norway. The Simpsons mentioned that a Norwegian exchange student knocked up Bart’s fiancé. In the reality crab-fishing series The Deadliest Catch, the crew were gloating over their pile of crabs ‘This is Norwegian money’. In Total Recall, the robot cabbie is whistling the Norwegian national anthem. Slartibartfast, in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, won an award for designing the Norwegian fjords. In Die Hard with a Vengeance, Olso is a place where the bomber may be calling from. The lab geek in CSI: Las Vegas has Norwegian ancestors and once got into trouble for writing ‘fontene’ instead of fountain in a report. In Earth Girls are Easy, Valerie says ‘No, this is the Valley. Finland is the capital of Norway’. The Quest for the Holy Grail’s opening credits refers to the ‘Møøse’ and an Oslo dentist. And the list goes on.
But, the one-liner I love…
We were sitting in the movies watching Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Moose was stuffing his face with popcorn and all of a sudden he sprays out the little maizy bits all over the place in a fit of laughter. It was right when the little scary village woman growls ‘Tore Kong, Tore Kong’ which means Tore King – and happens to be a friend of his.
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How Norway became a country is shrouded in mystery and folklore. The most well known tale is of Harald Hårfagre who gathered the small kingdoms of the north into a unified nation in 872AD – and of course, this story is about love.
Many Norwegians know what they are doing when they pick wild mushrooms. This knowledge is passed down the family during mushroom hunting trips. The hard-core mushroom hunters go into the mountain wilderness for days to get the best finds.
A lonely mountain on the edge of the Finnmark Plateau.
How do you like the darkness?
Today herding reindeer is synonymous with the Sami culture. It is recently thought that the Vikings were the first people to herd reindeer.
In the winter we rest.
I guess I need to start paying more attention. I have seen some of the movies you mentioned but didn’t remember those lines. However, now I will be watching for those references to Norway.
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from L-Jay:
lol… I guess it’s like when you buy a yellow car because nobody else has one and then all you see are yellow cars. I see Norway everywhere! lol.
And several of the crews on the Deadliest Catch are Norwegian-American. The folks on the Northwestern (the “Norwegian money” people) even speak Norwegian. Once they called out the number of crabs in a pod, in Norwegian.