''Team Antonsen'' is a Norwegian

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

television program, which originally aired in spring 2004 on the Norwegian public channel

NRK The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

. The show consisted of four well-known comedians:

Atle Antonsen Atle Antonsen (born 11 August 1969, in Lillehammer) is a Norwegian comedian and actor. Antonsen has participated in and contributed to several television and radio shows, including ''XL'' and ''XLTV'' (1998–99), '' Nissene på låven'' (20 ...

Harald Eia Harald Meldal Eia (born 9 February 1966) is a Norwegian comedian, and sociologist. In recent years, Eia has also made TV-documentaries and written books. Eia became a household name in Norway in the mid-90s and has since then been one of cou ...

Bård Tufte Johansen Bård Tufte Johansen (born 19 June 1969 in Skien) is a Norway, Norwegian comedian. Together with Harald Eia, he has authored and participated in several successful Norsk Rikskringkasting, NRK TV series, such as ''U:Natt'' (1994), starring with Mo ...

and

Kristopher Schau Kristopher Hugh Martin Schau (born 12 August 1970) is a Norwegian musician, TV host, comedian, author, and songwriter. He was born in Oslo. Radio and television shows Schau is known from several radio shows (most of them also with his brother ...

performing various sketches. The program also gave rise to a live performance in

Oslo Spektrum Oslo Spektrum is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in east central Oslo, Norway, that opened in December 1990. It is currently owned and operated by Nova Spektrum, formerly Norges Varemesse. Oslo Spektrum is primarily known for hosting major e ...

in May 2004, called ''Team Antonsen Live: One Night Only''. Originally only one performance was planned, but because the tickets were sold out, an additional performance was staged, ''Team Antonsen Live: One More Night Only''. The show typically made fun of spoken

Nynorsk Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...

and

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ne ...

, as well as regional

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s from all over Norway—most commonly from

Northern Norway Northern Norway (, , ; ) is a geographical region of Norway, consisting of the three northernmost counties Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, in total about 35% of the Norwegian mainland. Some of the largest towns in Northern Norway (from south to no ...

and the cities of

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

and

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

. Celebrities often appeared on the show—among others famous writer

Anne Holt Anne Holt (born 16 November 1958) is a Norwegian author, lawyer and former Minister of Justice and the Police (Norway), Minister of Justice. Early life She was born in Larvik, grew up in Lillestrøm and Tromsø, and moved to Oslo in 1978. Holt g ...

and accomplished singer

Bertine Zetlitz Bertine Axeliane Robberstad Zetlitz (born 9 April 1975) is a Norwegian pop singer. Career Bertine Zetlitz began her musical journey at a young age, penning her first numbers aged just 12. After gaining a background in classical music, Zetlitz be ...

. Team Antonsen had an average viewer-rating of over 700 000 viewers, a high figure for a late-night TV show in a country with 4.6 million people. The show also spawned a stage comedy show called ''Team Antonsen Live: One Night Only'', which was performed in

in May 2004. The comedians originally only planned one showing, but when tickets sold out they decided on performing one more, called ''Team Antonsen Live: One More Night Only''. The series won several Norwegian comedy awards, most notably the 2004 ''Gullruten'' for best humor show, ''Komiprisen'' for best show, as well as ''Komiprisen'' viewer's award for their sketch ''Hjemme hos Haakon Børde'' (''At Home with Haakon Børde''). Team Eckbo was a continuation of Team Antonsen which replaced Schau with fellow Norwegian comedian

Espen Eckbo Espen Andersen Eckbo (born 22 April 1973) is a Norwegian actor, writer and comedian. He was born in Oslo, and grew up in Bestum. He now lives in Ullevål Hageby. Eckbo has no formal training as an actor, but has a background as a law student f ...

. Eckbo took over Antonsen's role as the "leader" of the team. Antonsen, Schau, Tufte Johansen and Eia have performed together and with others in various configurations both before and after Team Antonsen, including the TV shows ''Midt i smørøyet'', ''Lille lørdag'', ''

Åpen post ''Åpen Post'' was a Norwegian sketch comedy television program that ran on the Norwegian state channel NRK from 1998 till 2002. It was created and hosted by Harald Eia and Bård Tufte Johansen. The show started in a talk show format with inter ...

'', ''Storbynatt'',

Hjernevask ''Hjernevask'' ("Brainwash") is a Norway, Norwegian Documentary film, documentary miniseries about science that aired on NRK1 in 2010. The series, consisting of seven episodes, was created for NRK and presented by the comedian and sociologist Hara ...

, ''

Tre brødre som ikke er brødre ''Tre brødre som ikke er brødre'' (meaning ''Three brothers who aren't brothers'') is a Norwegian comedy television show which ran for six episodes during the autumn of 2005 on the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. It featured noted comedians Ha ...

'', '' Uti vår hage 1'' and '' 2'' and

radio shows A radio program, radio programme, or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a one-time production, or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode. Radio netw ...

Verdensherredømme and ''Kommisjonen'' (on Kanal 24) / ''Misjonen'' (on P4).

References

External links

* Television sketch shows Norwegian comedy television series NRK original programming {{norway-tv-prog-stub