Olsen-Banden/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Breaking into a theater during a play by smashing, drilling and demolishing walls in tune with the music in Olsen Banden ser rødt .
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The jazzy theme (written by Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, the man behind the "Alley Cat") remains one of the most beloved tunes in Denmark today.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: The gang was reunited in 1998, 17 years after the last film. The new film did not entirely capture the magic of old, in part due to the lack of Yvonne (the actress had died) and the death of Poul Bundgaard, the actor who played Kjeld, half way through filming (he was replaced by a double who is only filmed from behind).
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: For unknown reasons, very popular in eastern Germany. Allegedly the people of the DDR liked it because they saw it as a tale of "the little man vs. the system".
    • When Egon Krenz replaced Erich Honecker as East Germany's leader shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the slogan "Do you have a plan, Egon?" became very popular among the opposition.
    • Benny's brother Harry is a minor character in the original Danish series, but both in the Norwegian and Swedish versions he was so popular he got much larger roles, even becoming a permanent member of the gang in the Swedish version.
  • Growing the Beard: The first two movies in the Danish version mainly rely on sight gags and love stories. The third, Olsen Banden in Jutland, is widely considered the first real Olsen-Banden movie.
  • The Woobie: Kjeld. So much.
    • Harry as well, especially in the Norwegian version.