History Literature / Jennings

* FawltyTowersPlot (a lot)

* WhoWouldWantToWatchUs: Jennings at the end of the first book, combined with an implied LiteraryAgentHypothesis with Mr Carter.

* CharacterExaggeration: One of the more notable changes from the original books; the characters have had certain traits excaggerated -- in the case of the students, this usually means that their personalities confirm more to the stereotypical traits from their birthplaces. It's clearest with Bergen, Nøtterø and Sørlandet (Temple, Venables and Atkinson), who are fairly interchangeable in the original version but in the Norwegian version have very clear, distinct personalities; Bergen as a [[SmallNameBigEgo bragging]] MotorMouth, Nøtterø as a DeadpanSnarker and Sørlandet as a [[TheStoic calm and phlegmatic]] NiceGuy. A bonus point for the last one is a common southern trait: He has a knack for telling stories. The movie also introduced the character ''Orkanger'' (from Trøndelag), who turned out to be an apt flutist in RealLife - used as a plot point in the second movie.

* AgeLift: For various reasons, and perhaps particularly since Norway doesn't really have any boarding school traditions, Stompa and his classmates are aged up from 10-12 to 13-14 in the Norwegian books, making it a little more acceptable for the Norwegian public that they would have been sent away to school instead of living with their parents. A lot of the more "childish" conversations and character traits had to be cut for this, but the shift [[TropesAreNotBad actually works better than you might think.]]

* EmbarrassingFirstName: Lektor Tørrdal, whose name manages to top that of his English counterpart -- at least Mr. Wilkins's first and [[EmbarrassingMiddleName middle]] names were not '''[[CrowningMomentOfFunny Petronius Theobald]]'''!

The principal teachers were the brusque Mr Wilkins, who had great difficulty understanding Jennings, and Mr Carter, an admitted AuthorAvatar, who was more tolerant but always knew exactly what was going on.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Mr Wilkins, although it takes considerable effort to find it.

* PerfectlyCromulentWord: "Ozard" (bad), being the opposite of wizard (good), supposedly derived from ''TheWizardOfOz''.

* Catchphrase: "D'oh! You silly little boy!" (Mr Wilkins)

** Venables: "Nøtterø." (It's mentioned in one book that his real name is "Arne Didriksen," which may or may not be a ShoutOut to the guy who played him in the movies, Didrik Arnesen.)

** Often, the fun part is how the characters manage to convince themselves otherwise, Jennings in particular. He has a tendency to forget or downplay in his mind just how reasonable and understanding the teachers in reality are, and tends to violently exaggerate and blow out of proportion any problems he might run into or inadvertently cause -- going to ludicrous lengths to keep the teachers from finding out and thrashing him within an inch of his life. Though he deep down knows they'd never ''actually'' do this, he generally acts as if he's convinced they will. It's very rare, but occasionally corporal punishment is actually carried out. Not to the extent of Temple's horror stories, though.

A 25-volume series of comic [[Main/{{BoardingSchool}} Boarding School]] novels by Anthony Buckeridge, which was also adapted for radio. The first volume, ''Jennings Goes to School'', was published in 1950. Sequels were published regularly until 1977, then after a 14-year gap, two more were released in the 1990s. All bar one are set in Linbury Court, a single-sex prep school (private school, ages 8-13 or so) catering to the middle classes.


Jennings is a well-meaning but impulsive boy, who frequently gets himself into [[Main/{{HilarityEnsues}} comic scrapes]] -- an attempt to help a cow over a fence ends with him trapped in a unlit basement cupboard. His best friend, Darbishire, attempts to act as the voice of common sense, but usually just gets dragged into the mire. The other boys in the dorm eventually catch on to this and, in one plot, set Jennings up with a broken radio, confident that the ensuing hilarity would be much more entertaining than any radio programme.

The principal teachers were the brusque Mr Wilkins, who had great difficulty understanding Jennings, and Mr Carter, an admitted [[Main/{{AuthorAvatar}} Author Avatar]], who was more tolerant but always knew exactly what was going on.

* [[Main/{{AuthorAvatar}} Author Avatar]]: Mr Carter. At the end of the first book, he advises Jennings to make his first term at school into a work of fiction for the school magazine: "You might call it - er - something like "Jennings Goes to School". To which Jennings replies "Well, sir...if you think it's such a good idea, why don't you do it yourself?" And Mr Carter is really quite taken with this idea...

* BlindWithoutEm: Darbishire.
* [[Main/{{BoardingSchool}} Boarding School]]

* [[Main/{{Fictionary}} Fictionary]] - the slang. Buckeridge invented it because he realised using real contemporary slang would rapidly have become dated.

* [[Main/{{ASimplePlan}} A Simple Plan]]: Oh, how many times.

** Often, the fun part is how the characters manage to convince themselves otherwise, Jennings in particular. He has a tendency to forget or downplay in his mind just how reasonable and understanding the teachers in reality are, and tends to violently exaggerate and blow out of proportion any problems he might run into or inadvertently cause -- going to ludicrous lengths to keep the teachers from finding out and thrashing him within an inch of his life. Though he deep down knows they'd never ''actually'' do this, he generally acts as if he's convinced they will.
*** It's very rare, but occasionally corporal punishment is actually carried out. Not to the extent of Temple's horror stories, though.
* TechMarchesOn: Pay phones and an in-school darkroom the kids have access to figure in stories.
** Not to mention a crystal radio set, although that is said to be old-fashioned even at the time.

* {{Unusual Euphemism}} "Fossilized fish-hooks!" etc.
* UpdatedRerelease: Periodically to keep the references constant. The more recent ones [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks divide fans to say the least]], but this was true even of the earliest editions of the books, which had themselves been altered from the radio drama originals. For example, the radio version of ''Jennings Goes To School'', which went out in the late 1940s, included a line by Temple blaming the bad school food on "that's what [[ClementAttlee voting for Socialism]] has got us".

* CharacterExaggeration: One of the more notable changes from the original books; the characters have had certain traits excaggerated -- in the case of the students, this usually means that their personalities confirm more to the stereotypical traits from their birthplaces. It's clearest with Bergen, Nøtterø and Sørlandet (Temple, Venables and Atkinson), who are fairly interchangeable in the original version but in the Norwegian version have very clear, distinct personalities; Bergen as a [[SmallNameBigEgo bragging]] MotorMouth, Nøtterø as a DeadpanSnarker and Sørlandet as a [[TheStoic calm and phlegmatic]] NiceGuy.

* AdaptationNameChange: Since the ''Stompa'' series takes place in Norway, all the characters have been given different names. The notable exception is Mr. Hind, the music teacher, whose name apparently sounded Norwegian enough that it didn't need changing. The rest of the characters get new names, though most of the students are {{Only Known By Their Nickname}}s, usually given to them based on where in Norway they are from. [[hottip:*:The reason for this lies in the Norwegian translation of the radio plays; giving all the boys different dialects was a cheap and easy way of instant recognition and characterization. Nothing is ever said of what might happen if two pupils from the same place attend the school at the same time. Then again, this could explain why Stompa is not nicknamed "Oslo" despite hailing from Oslo; maybe there was already a boy from Oslo at school.]]

* [[Main/{{AuthorAvatar}} Author Avatar]]: Mr Carter.

--> Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out. Two policemen fell dead and the third whistled through his hat.

* AdaptationNameChange: Since the ''Stompa'' series takes place in Norway, all the characters have been given different names. The notable exception is Hind, the music teacher, whose name apparently sounded Norwegian enough that it didn't need changing. The rest of the characters get new names, though most of the students are {{Only Known By Their Nickname}}s, usually given to them based on where in Norway they are from. [[hottip:*:The reason for this lies in the Norwegian translation of the radio plays; giving all the boys different dialects was a cheap and easy way of instant recognition and characterization. Nothing is ever said of what might happen if two pupils from the same place attend the school at the same time. Then again, this could explain why Stompa is not nicknamed "Oslo" despite hailing from Oslo; maybe there was already a boy from Oslo at school.]]

* WritingLines: In the first book, when Temple is giving a comically exaggerated impression of Mr Wilkins to scare the New Meat, he says that he had to write out "The angles at the base of an isoceles triangle are jolly nearly equal" 150 million times. Darbishire takes this literally and tries to work out how long it would take, eventually arriving at a figure of just over 47 years.