Hyvät herrat (Good Gentlemen) is a Finnish political satire series produced between 1990 and 1996. The series was shown in 1990–1992 on Kolmoskanava and in 1993–1996 on MTV3. Aarno Laitinen was the screenwriter of the series, with his assistant mainly Lasse Lehtinen under the pseudonyms Saara Lenso, Serita Numintio and Sole Sarana.[1] For a few years, together with Laitinen and Lehtinen, Yleisradio's political editor Jarkko Juselius wrote the series.[2] The director of the series was Pertti Melasniemi and the producer was Jarmo Porola. A total of 207 episodes were made in the series. In 1999, the 15-part continuation series Herrat nauraa was completed, which was a continuation of the original series.
The main characters of the series are business advisor Johannes Paukku (Matti Tuominen), a sausage manufacturer who got rich with "Paukku's Run" and his son-in-law Raimo "Tollo" Koskivuo (Eero Melasniemi), a social democratic politician, whom Yleni promoted from MP to party secretary and minister during the series. In each episode, Paukku and Tollo organised a sauna evening and invited a political guest or other well-known public figure, with whom they tried to talk into favouring their own political projects, along with saunas, sowing and drinking. Sales advisor Paukku's role model was reportedly business leader and business organisation influencer Heikki Tavela.[3]
In order to get up-to-date political remarks, the week's episode was filmed in 1990 on Mondays and the program came out on TV the evening of the same day, which was why they read the same day's afternoon newspapers. From the spring of 1991, the day of recording was moved to Tuesday, until the end of the series. This gave the staff one day more time to make the series. The filming location for the series was the Park Hotel Käpylä in Käpylä, Helsinki, which has been operating under the name Finlandia Park Hotel Helsinki since February 2017.[4][5][6]
The screenwriter Lasse Lehtinen has recalled that several well-known male actors were considered for the role of sales advisor Paukku, starting with Lasse Pöysti and Pentti Siimes. The requirement was that the actor to be chosen was absolutely sober. For this reason, according to Lehtinen, the task turned out to be difficult, because almost all the male actors who were free at the time had an alcohol problem. Director Pertti Melasniemi demanded and got Matti Tuominen as sales advisor Paukku.[2] Lasse Lehtinen has considered Tuominen's choice to be successful, as he skillfully embraced the role of Paukku. When Tuominen was chosen, he was still relatively unknown to the general public, although he already had a long career as a theatre actor behind him. Tuominen's son, actor Sakari Tuominen, has said that in his private life, his father was more or less the complete opposite of Paukku, shy and modest in nature and rather a sidekick than the center of the group.[7]
The characters of Hyvät herrat were well-characterised and its humour was often snarky. Sales advisor Paukku was a chauvinistic and whiny industrialist, Tollo, on the other hand, a sleazy political gambler. With the help of the characters, the "good brother network" of politics was caricatured, where decisions are plotted in cabinets and sauna evenings "behind the people's backs". In addition, Paukku and Tollo indulged in high life, drinking, and occasional side-jumping (the business advisor lived in Barcelona, and Mrs. Koskivuoka never appeared in the series either). In the episodes of the first year, the sauna guests' backs were washed by the sower Armi (Eila Pehkonen). The actor Pehkonen died in September 1991, and until the end of the program's life, she was replaced by Tyyne Hurskainen (Anja Pohjola), who commented on politics from her own perspective of a "revolutionary front-line". During the series, the sauna group was served "turpentine" by several waiters, first Pia (Sarina Röhr), then Timo (Mikko Roiha), whom Paukku called Håkan, and finally Dr. Samuel Livingstone Matabele (Billy Carson). Paukku treated the waiter characters with open disdain, which was meant to reflect prejudices against women, sexual minorities, immigrants and animal activists. However, according to the director Melasniemi, Paukku was always the one who misbehaved, got picked on and was laughed at in the end.[8]
In each episode of the series, a Finnish politician or other public figure appeared as himself. Although Paukku and Tollo could put their guests behind their backs and in front of them cheaply, there were always enough guests for the show, because they got media publicity and the opportunity to present their own thoughts on a popular television show. This is how real politics and the satire of the screenwriters were mixed in Hyvät herrat. Paukku's sauna was visited by the highest leadership of the kingdom, including ministers. According to Lasse Lehtinen, who wrote the program, the politicians actually competed to be included in the program, and only a few, such as Paavo Väyrynen, refused the invitation.[7]
The Prime Minister Esko Aho participated in the making of the series and appeared in the filming, but at the last drop he refused to air the episode. The Russian diplomat Viktor Vladimirov, on the other hand, had promised to join Hyvät herrat, but cancelled his arrival a day before filming. Vladimirov was replaced at short notice by writer and politician Jörn Donner.[2]
President of Finland Mauno Koivisto was supposed to join an episode of Hyvät herrat to play volleyball with Tollo for the Sikariporras team. The day before the shooting, there were government negotiations, and in order to mix fact and fiction, Pertti Melasniemi sent Tollo with the film crew to the location to comment on the government negotiations. When the afternoon papers reported the next day that Tollo participated in the formation of the government, the Office of the President of Finland was informed that the president wanted to transfer his participation to Hyvät herrat. Melasniemi interpreted that Koivisto would never be seen in the series.[2]
According to Tapani Ruokanen, the author of President Martti Ahtisaari's biography, in 1992 and 1993 Hyvät herrat helped pave the way for Ahtisaari to become the President of the Republic. Ahtisaari's name as a possible future presidential candidate came up in an episode of Hyvät herrat that was shown at the beginning of September 1992. A couple of weeks later, Aarno Laitinen wrote a column in Iltalehti with the title "Could it be Martti Ahtisaari?" Lasse Lehtinen was on bad terms with SDP's long-term chairman and four-time prime minister, Kalevi Sorsa, and wanted to prevent Sorsa from becoming a presidential candidate. The later chairman of the SDP, Eero Heinäluoma, said in Ahtisaari's biography: "The essential thing was that Lasse Lehtinen, a propagandist who was even more skilled than Göbbels, set out to push Ahtisaari for the presidency, systematically and using the entire media. He influenced through his fellow journalists in all media”.[9]
Hyvät herrat was a popular show throughout its lifetime: for example, the episode broadcast on 6 April 1993 drew 1.4 million viewers.[13] The series made its main star, the sales advisor Paukku, a cult figure, and this echoed in almost every episode from the cry "Personnel, turpentine!" (Henkilökunta, tärpättiä!) came the flying phrase. At the same time, the visit of high-ranking politicians in the program, which often cultivates dark humor, also aroused indignation. In the mid-1990s, the current affairs program Mediapeli, shown on MTV3, organized a studio discussion and a viewer survey on the topic "Is it appropriate for ministers to visit the Hyvät herrat show?". The illustration used was the post-May Day episode of Hyvät herrat, where Paukku and Tollo wake up from a drinking hole wearing May Day masks.
In 1999, a short sequel was made to the series called Herrat nauraa.
In the winter of 2006–2007, MTV3 aired a new series, Donna Paukku, in which Johannes Paukku's illegitimate daughter arrives in Finland and begins to sauna guests with the help of Tollo and Tyyne. Of the actors of the old series, only Anja Pohjola, who played Tyyne Hurskainen, was involved.[14] Aarno Laitinen opted out of the Donna Paukku series, but he could not prevent it from being done under the copyright law.
The episodes of the series in the first years were repeated on the Sunday morning after the premiere. Episodes of the series were rerun in the summer of 1998.[[15] During the 2006 presidential elections, three episodes of the fifth season were repeated, which were visited by presidential candidates Matti Vanhanen, Tarja Halonen and Sauli Niinistö.[10] In addition, in the summer of 2006, MTV3 aired eight selected episodes from 1990 to 1992 as a wish list.[12]
The theme music of the series and other synthesizer music in the program was made by Jussi Halme.[16] In 2022, Halme and a Finnish hip-hop and R&B singer-artist collaborated on an updated version of Hyvät herrat's signature theme, as the original series soundtracks had been destroyed in MTV's archives.[17]
In 1993, the episodes used an intro in which the Table Frame appears on a cloudy background, where the most central people of the series appear alternately: sales advisor Paukku, Tollo Koskivuo, Tyyne Hurskainen and bartender Timo, in later episodes Samuel Livingstone Matabele.
At the beginning of the episodes from 1994 to 1996, a computer-generated animation by Seppo Välimäki was used as its intro.[2] The animation in question later became an internet meme, earning the nickname "Bowling Alley screens when you get a Strike".[18][19]
At the beginning of the animation, the parliament building is depicted. The "lump" rumbles along the ground to the steps of the parliament building. The "pillars" of the House of Parliament look on and the "lump" moves from the stairs to the central pillar. At the same time, the other columns start running out of the picture. The middle column begins to bulge, and the face of Sales Advisor Paukku begins to appear, smiling widely. Suddenly, Paukku's face freezes, and remains under the banknote. After a while, the picture shows a 100-mark bill with the face of the sales advisor. Raimo T. Koskivuo takes the bill into his pocket and after a moment Koskivuo disappears inside the coffee cup shown in the picture. Then Tyyne Hurskainen takes the cup and drinks coffee, when suddenly the picture becomes strange and the bartender Samuel Livingstone Matabele appears in the picture. After that, he crumbles into little pink balls. The bartender sweeps up the shattered balls, and at the end, the roof of the parliament building collapses.
In the main roles
Sales advisor Paukku made a cameo role in Ere Kokkonen's movie Vääpeli Körmy - taisteluni. In the film, when negotiations are underway to end the war between Finland and Sweden, the commander of the Swedish army is softened up by taking him to Paukku's sauna.[20]
The sauna facilities at Park Hotel Käpylä are named after the series characters Paukku, Tollo and Tyyne.[4]
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