''Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter'' (''Five ants are more than four elephants'') is a 1973–75 Swedish TV-series for children, hosted by

Magnus Härenstam Johan Herbert Magnus Härenstam (19 June 1941 – 13 June 2015) was a Swedish television host, actor and comedian. Härenstam hosted the Swedish version of the game-show ''Jeopardy!'' for 14 years before being replaced by Adam Alsing. Här ...

, Brasse Brännström and Eva Remaeus. The TV-series included songs and sketches with

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

about

letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech or none in the case of a silent letter; any of the symbols of an alphabet * Letterform, the g ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

s, positions (right, left, under, above, etc.), etc. Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter was broadcast first on 19 November 1973 on TV2 by

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television aktiebolag, Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksd ...

and it was also broadcast as ''

Sveriges Television's Christmas calendar ''Swedish Television's Christmas calendar'' () previously ''Swedish Television's Advent calendar'' () is a Christmas calendar TV series mainly for children, broadcast by Sveriges Television (Sweden's national public television broadcaster) sin ...

'' . Fem myror is available for purchase on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

and there are also

PC game A personal computer game, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...

s. The animated number segments by Owe Gustafson were later exported to the American television series ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

''.

About the TV-series

Besides

entertaining Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands ...

children, Magnus ("''a pedant''"), Brasse ("''a slob''") and Eva ("''a proper person''") wanted to make children interested in letters and numbers and every program (running time, ca 30 min) had 1 letter and 1 number as a

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical appearance for certain software. * Theme (linguistics), topic * Theme ( ...

. The animations later in the TV-series,

Monica Zetterlund Monica Zetterlund (born Eva Monica Nilsson; 20 September 1937 – 12 May 2005) was a Swedish jazz singer and actress. She represented Sweden in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest with the jazz ballad " En gång i Stockholm" ("Once Upon a T ...

and Tomas Löfdahl were

voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique used in radio, television, filmmaking, theatre, and other media in which a descriptive or expository voice that is not part of the narrative (i.e., non- ...

s. Fem myror was produced by Bengt Linné & Lasse Haglund, the music was written by Bengt Ernryd and the

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

were written by Magnus & Brasse. The animations were made by Owe Gustafson. Fem myror also includes sketches, such as Brasse's fun box ("lattjo-lajban-låda"), where Brasse presents 4 animals of which 1 doesn't belong with the others and should be removed. Magnus and Eva have to guess but Brasse always thinks they're wrong; the purpose of this sketch is to teach children that one thing may have more than one property. 1977 Fem myror was broadcast as SVT's ''

''. Normally ''julkalendern'' is broadcast December 1–24, but because Fem myror had one program for every letter in the

Swedish alphabet The Swedish alphabet () is a basic element of the Latin writing system used for the Swedish language. The 29 letters of this alphabet are the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet ( to ) plus , , and , in that order. It contains 20 consonants a ...

, it was broadcast from 27 November and then as such, it was able to have shows for all the (then) 28 letters until December 24. (W was not considered as a separate letter until 2006, but rather as a variation of V.) 2006 Fem myror was voted 'Best children's TV-series' at Folktoppen with more than 50% of the votes.

Cast

as Magnus * Brasse Brännström as Brasse * Eva Remaeus as Eva *

Tomas Löfdahl Tomas may refer to: People * Tomás (given name), a Spanish, Portuguese, and Gaelic given name * Tomas (given name), a Swedish, Dutch, and Lithuanian given name * Tomáš, a Czech and Slovak given name * Tomàs, a Catalan given name and surname * ...

as narrator *

as narrator

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fem myror ar fler an fyra elefanter Swedish children's television series Swedish-language television shows 1977 in Swedish television 1970s Swedish television series 1973 Swedish television series debuts 1975 Swedish television series endings 1977 Swedish television series debuts Sesame Street