''Sirkuspelle Hermanni'' (translates to ''Hermanni the Circus Clown'') is a Finnish children's

TV show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platfo ...

from 1978–1988 shown on Yle TV2 in the

Pikku Kakkonen ''Pikku Kakkonen'' (Finnish language, Finnish for "the little number two") is an ongoing Finland, Finnish magazine-type children's TV show shown on Yle TV2. The first episode aired on January 11, 1977 in television, 1977. It finished with a bedtime ...

children's program. The show's main character is Pelle Hermanni (translates to Hermanni the Clown), a

clown A clown is a person who performs physical comedy and arts in an Improvisational theatre#Comedy, open-ended fashion, typically while wearing distinct cosmetics, makeup or costume, costuming and reversing social norm, folkway-norms. The art of ...

who lives in his own trailer at a

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

trailer park. He was played by

Veijo Pasanen Veijo Antero Pasanen (14 October 1930 – 17 February 1988) was a Finnish actor. He was related to director and inventor Pertti "Spede" Pasanen. Pasanen is perhaps best remembered for his role as Pelle Hermanni (Herman the Clown) in the childr ...

. There is no major continuing plot, instead the episodes consist of Hermanni talking about his life and daily events in a funny, clownish, somewhat childish way. His comedic antics are further increased by the comically misproportioned props and his way of fumbling over difficult words. Hermanni would often ask questions from his children audience, and then pretend to actually hear what they answered, saying such things like "Right, Annika there knew the answer!" In most of the episodes, Hermanni is the only human

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

shown. Other characters include Vekkari, Hermanni's large

alarm clock An alarm clock or alarm is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of people at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they can sometimes be used for o ...

which starts ringing when Hermanni least wants, and Kepakko, a wooden teacher's staff who feels intellectually superior to Hermanni and often insults him by laughing at him. Hermanni is especially fond of his dear old mother and the

pancake A pancake, also known as a hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack, is a flat type of batter bread like cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based Batter (cooking), batter that may contain eggs, milk, and butter, and then cooked on a ...

s with

strawberries The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus ''Fragaria'', the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit is appreciated f ...

she makes, and he often

phones A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

her to see how she's doing. Hermanni's telephone is a large, complex contraption with its own

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

communications screen. Because the show predates actually feasible real-world video communication by more than a decade, this only adds to the comedy. Hermanni is in love with Sylvia, the circus's

fortune teller Fortune telling is the spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115–116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle ...

, but she has a rival suitor in Max, the circus magician. For most of the show, both Sylvia and Max remained

unseen character An unseen character in theatre, comics, film or television, or a silent character in radio or literature, is a character who is mentioned but not directly known to the audience, but who advances the action of the plot in a significant way, and w ...

s, with Hermanni only visiting their trailers where they were not present. In later episodes, both Sylvia and Max were briefly seen. In September 2022, it was reported that Pelle Hermanni will make his first

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

debut, with

Timo Koivusalo Timo Johannes Koivusalo (born 31 October 1963) is a Finnish actor, director, writer, composer and musician. His most successful film to date was '' Rentun Ruusu'', released in 2001. Life and career Koivusalo was born in Pori, and trained as a ...

directing the film and

Vesa Vierikko Vesa Tapio Vierikko (born 24 May 1956 in Lappeenranta, Finland) is a Finnish actor. Vierikko began acting in 1978 on television working consistently throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He starred in the 2003 film ''Sibelius'' working with Finnish d ...

acting as the title character.IS: Pelle Hermannin tarina päättyi traagisesti, kun Veijo Pasanen menehtyi kesken kuvausten – näyttelijän sanat viimeisessä jaksossa saivat pysäyttävän merkityksen
(in Finnish)

References

External links

*
Yle Elävä arkisto: Sirkuspelle Hermanni
(in Finnish) Finnish children's television series Television shows about clowns 1978 Finnish television series debuts 1988 television series endings 1980s Finnish television series endings {{tv-char-stub