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Re:Breaking Free by skrebbel on Friday February 27, 2026 @10:40AM (#47181796)
Seriously the production value on that video is way too good
Re:Breaking Free by d-us-vb on Friday February 27, 2026 @11:07AM (#47182153)
The deadpan irony is on point. Something it seems the Norwegians have perfected.

Another one of my favorite examples of this (an ad for Oslo tourism): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vhD59ac7nw

Re:Breaking Free by colinprince on Friday February 27, 2026 @04:33PM (#47185943)
I think a city should feel a little hard to get
Re:Breaking Free by Sammi on Friday February 27, 2026 @04:39PM (#47186017)
I mean that's fine I guess. But the best deadpan Norwegian sketch is kammelåså: https://youtu.be/s-mOy8VUEBk
Re:Breaking Free by skrebbel on Saturday February 28, 2026 @04:10AM (#47192639)
The Javazone videos were legendary too, very similarly Norwegian and very similarly overproduced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnqAXuLZlaE
Re:Breaking Free by schappim on Friday February 27, 2026 @11:28AM (#47182417)
100%! I thought it was going to be way shittier. Suspect a budget > $1M was spent.
Re:Breaking Free by renhanxue on Friday February 27, 2026 @03:19PM (#47185021)
The Norwegian Consumer Council's entire yearly budget is about 100M NOK, or about $9.5M USD at the current exchange rate. They most assuredly did not spend >$1M USD on a short video clip.
Re:Breaking Free by ruralfam on Friday February 27, 2026 @02:47PM (#47184714)
Wow gotta agree. It was satire I think, but... not sure. Also the below link to the Oslo ad was also great. Thx for this, RF
Re:Breaking Free by nkurz on Friday February 27, 2026 @08:47PM (#47188956)
I was bothered that it seemed to be an extremely direct copy of this 2008 German commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTLO2F_ERY

It took the same scenes, but in keeping with the theme, made them slightly worse.

If they didn't acknowledge this somewhere, they should be called out on it.

Re:Breaking Free by nyoronic on Friday February 27, 2026 @10:41PM (#47190009)
I'm not sure I see it to be honest? Yes, they are both guys that bother others, but their motives are different.

"Mr. W" is a personification of the wind that can't help his existence flinging things, but finds a new purpose.

The "Enshittificator" is a person modifying consumer products more directly, and it ends badly, but he's happy about it.

Going in I was expecting scene-for-scene similarities, but it wasn't that close.

Re:Breaking Free by nkurz on Saturday February 28, 2026 @07:36AM (#47194581)
Perhaps not, but that was my feeling on watching the Norwegian version, although to be fair, I was bothered enough that I only watched the first half.

Defending my opinion, though, I felt that both had tall somewhat socially awkward men dressed in oddly formal manners giving monologues to the camera. Scenewise, I thought slamming the drawer was a direct echo of slamming the shutters. And kicking the rock in the street echoed throwing the bottles in the street. And so forth.

Interesting that you don't think it's a knockoff. Given the theme, I found it ironic that it was itself an inferior copy. It ruined it for me.

Re:Breaking Free by fastasucan on Saturday February 28, 2026 @02:52PM (#47199460)
> I felt that both had tall somewhat socially awkward men

Northern europeans cast northern europeans in commercials you say?