Line #117 ComicBook/Bamse


1	[[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bamsetrion.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:256:The central PowerTrio, left to right: Lille Skutt, Skalman, and Bamse.]]
3
4	''Bamse'' (''Teddy Bear'') is a Swedish children's comic (aimed at the very youngest readers) created by Rune Andreasson, started off as a half-page weekly cartoon in 1966. Got its own comic-book in 1973. It has been translated to all the Nordic languages and had short publishing runs in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as failed attempts to launch it in Great Britain.
5
6	The series details the adventures of various FunnyAnimal characters as they go about their lives. The series is known for having a [[{{Anvilicious}} strong moral stance]], while at the same time often presenting rather dark issues or complex problems in a way suitable for very young children (A famous "Letter from the Editor"-page started with "Your parents don't want you to know about this just yet, but I think that it is important that you learn about this" and then moved on to explain UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust to children.)
7
8	The cast has gradually expanded as the series went on, the original PowerTrio of Bamse the bear (mostly the BigGuy even though he's small... almost verging on a CuteBruiser considering that most other adult characters are actually much larger) Skalman the turtle (AbsentMindedProfessor sometimes bordering on MadScientist and also TheSpock) and Lille Skutt the rabbit (FragileSpeedster and CowardlySidekick, although he has enough incidents of bravery that he approaches TheSoCalledCoward) and to some extent their friends and antagonists. The second CastHerd is made up mainly of the triplets of the titular character (artistic Brum, TomBoy Nalle-Maja and BadassBookworm Teddy) and to some extent their friends.
9
10	Bamse is made super-strong by eating ''dunderhonung'' ("thunder honey"), a dish (which, according to WordOfGod, is not just honey but includes a bunch of ingredients, including a secret plant and some pepper) that is brewed by his grandmother.
11
12	The series is somewhat (in)famous for its status as an AuthorTract (sometimes dropped into the narrative itself, sometimes in separate educational pages or on the letter column) Also, almost ''every'' villain is given a FreudianExcuse.
13
14	Now has a [[Characters/{{Bamse}} character page]], but given the vast amount of characters, it could always use more work.
15
16	The characters have grown and developed as the series went on, both Bamse and Lille Skutt are married and have children, and for a while their kids aged almost in RealTime, although they [[ComicBookTime stopped aging]] when they started school.
17	----
18	!!''Bamse'' provides examples of:
19	* AbusiveParents: Vargen's stepfathers. Burre's dad initially had some traces of this as well, but is treated more sympathetically in his latter appearances, being not so much genuinely abusive as simply temperamental and suffering from a slight [[TheGamblingAddict gambling addiction]].
20	* AllDesertsHaveCacti: In one comic, Bamse dug next to a cactus, hoping to find water. He instead found oil, which was spotted by ''bedouins'', who then came to his aid.
21	* AllMythsAreTrue: There are trolls, goblins, witches, giants, dragons and they have run into [[Literature/{{Ramayana}} Rama and Sita]] a couple of times. Ghosts and other forms of undead are the only exception, it seems, as ghosts always turn out to be something else and the main characters are very insistant that there is no such things as ghosts.
22	** Except in one story in 1992, when a ghost in a haunted hotel turned out to be an actual ghost. Skalman noticed that the invisible poltergeist seemed to like Lille Skutt and made a Lille Skutt costume for it. The ghost was happy and since it was now visible, it wasn't scary anymore.
23	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Both Krösus and Vargen. Also, "Bamse och Kalle Svartskalle", which is explicitly about this trope.
24	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Wolves were treated as this in the comic's early years, but with Vargen's HeelFaceTurn and the growing anti-racism tone of the comic, their portrayal became more nuanced and the trope was {{Subverted}} more than once. Eventually it was established that wolves on the whole are quite decent people, and that Bamse's home tracts was simply unlucky enough to have more bad ones than good ones living there. Similarly subverted for the voles, who become ruthless and greedy by working for [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Croesus]], and examples of good vole characters show up occasionally.
25	* AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle: "Bamse's school".
26	%%%%* BadassPacifist:
27	* BeenThereShapedHistory: In a year-long arc to celebrate the new millennium, Bamse, Lille Skutt and Skalman travel through history from 1000 to 2000. Naturally, a few of these events occur.
28	** Skalman influences the painting of Mona Lisa (apparently her infamous smile came from her realizing he lets an alarm clock dictate his sleeping and eating schedule) and helps invent the cinematograph and aeroplane.
29	** A special shout out to Lille Skutt, who helps break Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart out of a bout of writer's block by... nudging an ink bottle, causing ink blots to spill onto his sheet music and accidentally composing the opening bars.
30	* BerserkButton: Do not threaten Bamse's children, and do not try to bully people weaker than you when Bamse is around. He can and will knock anyone around [[note]]albeit without physical harm[[/note]] until they learn their lesson(s).
31	* BilingualBonus: Often overlaps with ParentalBonus. One of the more complicated ones involves Vargen's OldFlame Virginia Varg. Varg=Wolf in Swedish, so her name's [[Creator/VirginiaWoolf Virginia Wolf]].
32	* BoundAndGagged: A fairly common outcome for characters who run afoul of the series' bad guys unprepared. The main trio has had it happen to them at least once each, and Farmor has fallen victim to it at least twice.
33	* BunnyEarsLawyer: Skalman.
34	* BullyHunter: Many of the villains Bamse and his friends encounter think they can do whatever they want because they are stronger and bigger than the people they hurt. Bamse quickly shows them the error of their ways.
35	* CannotSpitItOut: A good chunk of Skutt's courtship of Nina Rabbit.
36	* CardCarryingVillain: Vargen even has a diploma, being the World Champion of Nastiness. He's changed a lot since those days, although he holds on to the title out of nostalgic pride.
37	* CatsAreMean: Averted with Jansson the Cat, who may occasionally be selfish and mischevious, but is genuinely kind and helpful in his role as TeamPet, and even has a mouse as a best friend. Played straight with the bigger alley cats he sometimes tries to impress, though.
38	* ChasteToons: Completely averted; both Bamse and Lille Skutt have over the course of the comic married and had children.
39	* CheatersNeverProsper: Whenever there is a contest and villains are participating, they will usually try to cheat their way to victory, which never works out for them. They are either discovered and disqualified or the good guys see this and win over them fair and square.
40	* TheCommissionerGordon: Kommissarie Pontus Kask is happy to have Bamse around, and overlooks any misdemeanors that might occur when stopping worse crime and injustice - often by making people not wanting to be criminals in the first place.
41	* CoolHorse: Bamse's horse Billy Boy, originally a bad-tempered and quarrelsome horse from a stud farm, who calmed down considerably after Skalman discovered he was wrongly shod and fixed the problem. Known as a regular speed demon; he and Bamse have entered and won several races. His mate Pållan and foal Lill-Pålle are both pretty cool too.
42	* CoolOldLady: Bamse's grandmother.
43	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Krösus Sork. He's one of the few villains of the comic that has never had any kind of HeelFaceTurn.
44	* CueOClock: Skalman has an "eat-and-sleep" alarm clock like this that he always follows to the letter; for example, he's [[HeavySleeper impossible to wake up]] if the clock says it's nap time. This obsessive schedule keeps his DeusExMachina tendencies in line.
45	* ADayInHerApron: Nowadays, Bamse and Brummelisa are both working parents, since the children have started school... but some years ago, when Brummelisa was a stay-at-home housewife with three children, she did occasionally express a wish to not ''only'' having to work at home, leading to one story where she and Bamse swapped jobs -- she substituted for him as a lumberjack while he stayed home with the kids. Of course, he made a huge mess of things (though it has to be said that he suffered from some bad luck; one of the kids got unexpectedly sick and needed extra care, which got his schedule a bit out of whack). Still, the trope wasn't played ''completely'' straight, as Bamse even after a catastrophe of a day still suggested to his wife that they occasionally switch jobs in the future as well, so that she could get out of the house more.
46	* DefeatMeansFriendship: Notably Hia-Hia the witch in Bamse i Trollskogen ("Bamse in the Goblin Forest"). After Bamse defeated her and she lost her magic powers, it turned out she was just lonely and had no friends.
47	* DiminishingVillainThreat:
48	** Eventually, every villain aside from Krösus drifted into this, prompting the new villain Reinard to appear.
49	** Perhaps strongest with Vargen. He used to be, essentially, the world's most feared criminal, and you would think he would have some cunning, willpower or skill from that career to employ being nice instead, but no.
50	* TheDitz: Stollen, one of Captain Buster's pirate crew. His name even means more or less that. Among other things, he has managed to sink their ship at least twice through seriously inexpert gunnery (once firing the cannon through the ship's side below water level and once straight into the air so that the cannonball smashed through the bottom of the ship when it came down).
51	* {{Dogfaces}}: This might be the most common type of FunnyAnimal in this universe. Examples include: Knocke and Smocke, the pirates, Burre, Miss Fiffi, etc.
52	* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: Averted, even in a recently made spin-off series about Bamse's childhood. Bamse, Mickelina Räv, Ola Grävling and Annika Anka did go to school together (though Bamse was two years above the others), but Lille Skutt, Skalman, Vargen, Brummelisa and most of the other well-known characters are absent. This is likely because there are already stories about how Bamse met them the first time – years later, so he couldn't have known them at the time of the spin-off series.
53	* EvilVersusEvil: Reinard manages to scam Kroesus. He starts by pitching a few paintings to Kroesus, claiming them to be worth a lot. Kroesus wants to buy them for a low price, and when he can't he has his minions steal them… only to find out they were under insurance of his own insurance company. By the time this happens, Reinard has already collected the money, so goodbye any hope Krösus had of getting them back.
54	* {{Expy}}: Some of the characters were taken from Rune Andreasson's earlier works and given minor changes.
55	** The newest villain, Reinard the fox, is clearly an {{Expy}} of Vargen from his early, villainous days. This is even {{Lampshaded}} by Bamse and Skalman in Reinard's intro story. He's an even bigger {{Expy}} of the villainous fox Martin Mickel, the Teddy(Bamse Prototype series) villain that Vargen AND Krösus was based on.
56	* FakeUltimateHero: [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules]]. An ongoing storyline depicts how Bamse, Lille Skutt and Skalman travel back in time to UsefulNotes/AncientGreece, where they meet Hercules and aid him with his legendary Twelve Tasks. Or perhaps not so much "aid" him as "do all the work while Hercules gets all the glory," because it turns out Hercules is far less impressive than the myths say.
57	* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:Skalman helps Reinard fake his death on the condition that Reinard leaves and never returns.]]
58	* FantasticRacism: The two most notable are the ones about ''Kalle Svartskalle'', a hedgehog with black spines on his head, and "Något luktar--men vad?", where two of the villains try to drive out a family of skunks as expies of TheKlan.
59	* {{Foil}}: Riffan, Raffan and Ruff, three wolf children, have this relationship to Bamse's triplets. There is even a story which begins with identical scenes where Brummelisa worries that her kids will become naughty if they play with the wolf cubs, while the wolf cubs' father simultaneously worries about his cubs going soft if they play with the Bamse kids. In both cases, the other parent says it's probably just good for them to play with someone else. As it turns out, daddy wolf was right to worry: Riffan, Raffan and Ruff have become a lot less naughty since they were introduced.
60	* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler:In the first panel of "Reinard's Final Haul" observant readers may note a copy of [[Creator/ArthurConanDoyle A.C. Doyle's]] [[Literature/SherlockHolmes "The Final Problem"]]. In the climax of the story, Reinard and Skalman falls down a waterfall in what can only be a tribute to the novel. Skalman's shell protects him. Reinard however...]]
61	* FreudianExcuse: Just about every villain qualifies.
62	** Vargen was an orphan who was raised by criminals. He fell in love with a girl from the right side of the railway tracks and made a sincere effort at reforming, only to be falsely accused of a crime anyway. As he realised that society would always consider him a thief, he decided that he might as well be one.
63	** Krösus, though he grew up in a rich family, was TheUnfavorite whose father would neglect him and spoil his brother instead, thus leading to his obsession with making money.
64	* FriendToAllLivingThings: Bamse and Brummelisa's youngest child, Brumma. She even is a friend to all dead things, one of her best friends being a broom.
65	* FunnyAnimal
66	* FunWithPalindromes: Lille Skutt's wife is called "Nina Kanin" (meaning "Nina Rabbit").
67	* FurryConfusion: Kinda. There are anthro animals and non-anthro animals. To further confuse the issue many of the non-anthro animals are Non-Morphic {{Talking Animal}}s, although most of them only talk among themselves -- the most notable example being Katten Jansson (Bamse's grandmother's pet cat) and his best friend Husmusen ("the House Mouse"), who on occasion play the roles as [[TeamPet Team Pets]] and often engage in friendly banter among themselves.
68	* GadgeteerGenius: Skalman has just about any convenient doohickey tucked away in his shell.
69	** A common favorite is the inflatable helicopter. Yes, an ''inflatable helicopter''.
70	** In the early TV movies, it was explicitly stated that Skalman does ''not'' have transoceanic steamships or lunar rockets tucked away in his shell (but hinted that he might have pretty much anything up to that).
71	** His own favorite is the "Food-and-Sleep clock" which always rings at inconvenient times, see HoldingBackThePhlebotinum below.
72	* GentlemanThief: Reinard Räv to a T. He is suave and elegant and a very snappy dresser. He also exhibits such traits as leaving calling cards, announcing his crimes in advance and being a MasterOfDisguise. He is also quite a charmer, especially to Mickelina [[spoiler:though she turned him down when she discovered that he had conned her into stealing]]. He considers himself a lot more sophisticated than the other criminals in the area, and occasionally shows his superiority by conning them. He also has quite sophisticated literary taste: one panel showed him reading a collection of Language poetry (which he had borrowed with Lille Skutt's stolen library card and did not intend to return). He usually avoids violence, preferring to dupe his adversaries. In the feature film "Bamse och Tjuvstaden", though, he is altogether more sinister, [[spoiler:even attempting to kill Bamse, Lille Skutt and Skalman]].
73	* GoKartingWithBowser: At activities, it happens from time to time that villains will be participating, but 99% of the time they usually cheat.
74	* GRatedDrug: Somewhat averted in ''The Wizard's Red Flower'' while the drug is never named, said red flower seems to imply that it is opium. The {{Sdrawkcab Name}}s of both the wizard and his henchmen (the wizard's name is Eragord, which backwards is a word for "drug drealer," while the henchmen are called "Nioreh" and "Nifrom" -- backwards spellings of the Swedish words for "heroin" and "morphine") doesn't help. In fact, the Norwegian translator was so concerned about the implications that she changed the names to "Malonkus," "Milus" and "Nilus," which are pure fantasy names.
75	* GRatedSex: In an early Bamse comic, Bamse is shown making babies with his wife: They lie in bed, fully clothed in pajamas and under the sheets, hugging each other. The text even says "That night, they hug for extra long". Which has actually become a euphemism in Swedish.
76	* HeelFaceTurn: Very common, Vargen is probably the most famous example. Although he occasionally relapses, though his conscience will constantly bother him.
77	* HeroicSacrifice: In the story where Bamse and Skalman enter the book of fairy tales, Skalman discovers that they only have enough of the potion for one of them to return to their own world. Instead of telling Bamse this, he tricks him into drinking it and resigns himself to staying in the fairyland forever. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the Good Fairy is impressed by his sacrifice and sends him back to his friends.]]
78	* HoldingBackThePhlebotinum:
79	** Skalman is intelligent, educated, has a lot of common sense, and access to tons of convenient gadgets, so technically he could solve any problem that comes along in a moment. To counter this, he also has an alarm clock that dictates when he'll eat and sleep, and which he'll obey obsessively; when it rings, he'll stop whatever he's doing (even stopping mid-sentence) and either eat or fall asleep, thus removing him from the situation and forcing the others to save the day (or at least have them deal with the situation until he wakes up again). He has however ignored the clock several times in dire circumstances, and one story reveals that sleeping pills or knockout drops will keep him awake against his will.
80	*** He stayed awake for [[spoiler:the birth of Bamse's kids.]]
81	*** One of the most notable cases of Skalman ignoring his watch is when Bamse's kids disappear away in an unfinished invention of his. He spends several days just working (without rest nor food) to find out where they are, and when he finally gets a few hints, he can't even put them together but has the solution pointed out to him by Brummelisa. He suddenly perks up, states: "...I did it!" and then collapses and sleeps for days without waking up.
82	*** He has fallen asleep during [[ItMakesSenseInContext the middle of a tournament in the Middle Ages]]. In full armour atop a charging horse. There is not neccessarily any great logic to when and how he will fall asleep or not.
83	** In addition, dunderhonung has an irritating tendency to being unvailable at critical times, and Bamse cannot stay always powered up (it wears off with time, faster if he does strenous stuff).
84	*** Happened literally in one storyline, when grandma had run out of the one special ingredient she needed. Bamse had to resort to non-strong solutions and ration what honey he had left when he really needed it. Several of his enemies eagerly awaited their opportunity. [[spoiler:False alarm, she discovered that the other jars held a huge cache of the stuff.]]
85	*** Bamse has an extraordinarily bad memory when it comes to bringing dunderhonung with him on his adventures. Lots of stories have him getting into a situation where he really needs some dunderhonung and then remember he forgot to bring any. In addition, [[TeamPet Team Pets]] Katten Janson and Husmusen tend to tag along on Bamse's adventures by hiding in an empty jar of dunderhonung. Guess which jar Bamse usually picks in a bind?
86	* TheKlan: The adventure ''Något luktar--men vad?'' (Something smells--but what?) has Knocke and Smocke trying to drive out a just moved-in family of skunks. They get help from other characters by dressing up as Klansmen in white sheets, nighttime meetings, and carrying torches.
87	* KnightOfCerebus:
88	** Reinard was introduced to be a daring villain who would prove more of a challenge to Bamse and Skalman. He even manages to come out as a winner in some way in most of his stories.
89	** Captain Sabelsork and his crew are pirates just like Captain Buster, but Sabelsork is actually competent and smarter than most of the other villains.
90	* LighterAndSofter: Back when Rune Andreasson (and Jan Magnusson after him) wrote the letter column, it would usually bring up serious issues like war and bullying, and handle them really well. Nowadays, the letter column is mostly about mundane things, like what kind of ice-cream the editor prefers. The stories themselves have always been very lighthearted however.
91	* LookMaNoPlane: When Skalman's balloon outperforms a passenger jetplane, the pilot and co-pilot wonder why they are having the same hallucination.
92	* NeverMessWithGranny: Bamse's grandmother. One time some of the strongest villains tried to prevent her from returning home from a trip so Bamse wouldn't have any dunderhonug before they could deal with him. Grandma responded by forcibly moving them out of the way. She also lives by herself at the very top of a very tall mesa but has no trouble walking up and down the winding path on an almost daily basis.
93	* NeverSayThatAgain: Skalman really, really hates it when people tells him to hurry or hurry up and considers hurry to be the foulest word there is.
94	* NeverSayDie: Played straight and averted. One time grandma mentions to Bamse that it's important to ''say'' die so the children will understand. The bad guys seems to be reluctant of ever saying the word 'die' though.
95	* NoOSHACompliance: Bamse's grandmother lives on an absurdly tall mesa with no fences anywhere. Skalman lives in a house on stilts that loos like they were cobbled together from leftover planks. (Though given his skills, they are likely to be far sturdier than they look.) The kindergarten is located on the edge of a tall cliff, with only a badly maintained board fence to keep kids from falling off.
96	* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: Subverted, a lot of characters claimed this when Reinard appeared. Things are still [[StatusQuoIsGod pretty much the same]], though.
97	* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: One of Bamse's favourite ways of convincing villains of his point of view is to throw them high into the air and catch them (occasionally warning them that he might no bother to catch them next time if they don't behave). In one prose story, he is specifically said to throw Vargen 400 meters into the air.
98	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Skalman tends to have these, mostly because he is ReallySevenhundredYearsOld and has had a lot of time to do interesting things before he met Bamse and Lille Skutt. In one story, he casually mentions that a wizard called Leofelis once taught him to speak fluent Lion.
99	* {{Omniglot}}: Skalman can speak lots of languages. Including Fish. And Lion.
100	* OnlyTheChosenMayWield: In the story ''Bamse i vilda västern'' ("Bamse in the Wild West), it turns out Bamse is a reincarnation of the Native American Chief Thunder Bear, and he proves it by drawing Thunder Bear's bow, which nobody has been able to do for a hundred years.
101	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Skalman almost never shows emotion, and always obeys a strict schedule. When he stops obeying that schedule for a bit, or snaps at his friends, you know it's serious.
102	** Lille Skutt usually tries to get out of following Bamse on adventures (but ends up coming along anyway, because they are friends), but if Nina or Mini-Hopp are threatened, he might even demand to come along.
103	* OlderThanTheyLook: Mickelina Räv, Annika Anka and Ola Grävling are actually just two years younger than Bamse, and well into their twenties. But due to looking rather short, espescially compared to their own parents, they don't seem quite that old. However, this height oddity goes for Bamse as well, as he is similarly sized to his grandmother as these three are to their respective parents.
104	* OutdatedOutfit: Krösus Sork and his gang, who all look like they've just stepped out of a time machine from the 1920s: Krösus wears striped trousers, a yellow waistcoat, a purple cravat, a black tailcoat and a top hat. (Yet, considering the fashion sense of everyone else, he's actually one of the best dressed in the cast, making it a case of AwesomeAnachronisticApparel as well). His EliteMooks wear suits and bowler hats, and most of the ordinary mooks wear striped pullovers and working-class caps.
105	* ParentalAbandonment and ParentalSubstitute:
106	** The titular character's parents got lost during an adventure at sea, so he was raised by his grandmother. (The origin story about this explains that this is why she lives on that ridiculously high mountain — she wants to be as far away from the sea as possible, since the sea had taken all of her family, save Bamse.) [[spoiler: Bamse's parents were later found to be alive and well, although on a DesertedIsland, where they preferred to stay, helping the local populace with various medical issues.]]
107	** Vargen. One story that deals with his childhood reveals that [[spoiler: his parents died in a forest fire but managed to save him by putting him in a basket and sending it down a river, where he was found by a trio of criminals, that reluctantly raised him, though they weren't exactly ideal parents. Aside from being abusive, they also taught him to steal.]]
108	* ParentalBonus: Rather common.
109	* ParentalFavoritism: Krösus is TheUnFavorite.
110	* PedestrianCrushesCar: In several episodes, Vargen has tried to run over Bamse with his car. One example is in the movie ''Vargen äter Dunderhonung'', after Vargen had robbed Katta Lo's candy shop. [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bamse-vargen-car-crash_9233.png It usually ends badly for the car.]]
111	* PetTheDog: Reinard has several of these towards Mickelina, his {{Love Interest\|s}}.
112	* PirateGirl: Sjörövar-Jenny seems to be this, being a young woman in piratical garb who is a skilled cutlass fencer and sailor, but she is merely the daughter of a rather eccentric scholar obsessed with pirates and pirate treasure, and takes after him.
113	* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Captain Buster and his three-man crew would very much like to be a subversion of this, but any time they try actual piracy they are stopped by Bamse. So for the most part, they unwillingly play the trope straight.
114	* PowerOfFriendship
115	* PowerTrio:
116	** Bamse is the ego, Skalman is the superego and Lille Skutt is the id.
117	** Bamse's triplets form a somewhat different PowerTrio, with Teddy as the superego, Brum as the ego, and Nalle-Maja as the id.
118	* PowerUpFood: ''Dunderhonung'', naturally. Although for most people it simply gives you a three-day stomach-ache (the only four recurring characters this isn't true for are Bamse and Surre, who get super-strength, Nalle-Maja, who gets both the stomach-ache ''and'' the super-strength, and Brumma, who gets neither).
119	* ReallySevenhundredYearsOld: Skalman's age is unknown, but he has probably been alive for much, ''much'' longer than the rest of the main cast. In one throwaway line he mentioned that he taught Literature/TheThreeMusketeers to fence. In another story, they briefly visit some of his relatives. Their reactions would suggest that a period of ten years are like a weekend to them.
120	** A 2000 story written by Rune Andréasson and published posthumously clearly showed a young Skalman in a comparatively realistic medieval setting, having a mug of milk in a tavern.
121	* SeriesContinuityError:
122	** Despite establishing previously that there is no way to go further into the future from the starting point with Skalman's time machine, there was recently a comic where they did just that.
123	** A recent story, written by Rune Andréasson and published posthumously, shows that Skalman knew Bamse's grandmother when Bamse was a toddler and that he had a hand in the creation (or perfecting) of Dunderhonung. This seems a little odd, since the official backstory is that Grandmother created Dunderhonung accidentally just before she and Bamse moved into the area. Skalman probably lived there already, but he is absent from the spin-off series about Bamse's childhood and Bamse doesn't seem to have known him then.
124	* ShoutOut:
125	** Pirate Jenny is named after a character from ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera''.
126	** One story from 2016 is about Bamse going into a hat shop and trying on all the hats in the shop before deciding he likes his old one best. The shop is full of nice hats from various franchises, and the cover shows a few more. Among them are [[ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio Spirou's]] bell boy hat and a [[Literature/TheCatInTheHat striped top hat]].
127	** A story about how Bamse's grandparents met is a WholePlotReference to Swedish singer-songwriter Evert Taube's song ''Möte i monsunen'' (Meeting in the Monsoon), although with a few significant changes.
128	* SlapSlapKiss:
129	** Burre & Nalle-Maja would fit this trope (they are a bit young, but she has kissed him...) although Nalle-Maja doesn't slap people. ''She punches them in the face.''
130	** It runs in the family. First time their parents met, Brummelisa slapped Bamse, as he accidentally insulted her with, [[spoiler:"Ah, I must've mistaken you for your great-great-great-great-great grandmother"]]. [[ItMakesSenseInContext To clarify]], Bamse had just returned from a [[spoiler:time-travel trip during which he had met Brummelisa's medieval doppelganger]].
131	* SmallRoleBigImpact: ''Two'' characters fit into this in Vargen's sad backstory. The first one is a lady, who recognizes the very young Vargen as the boy, who helped a gang of thieves with stealing her purse, so she calls the shop where Vargen works and gets him fired. And there is also the shop-keeper himself, who tells poor Vargen "once a thief, always a thief" before he fires him. None of these two characters had more than a few lines, but by refusing to give a young orphan a second chance, they were the ones who made Vargen become the most infamous criminal in the area, until Bamse was able to make him reform many years later.
132	* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Skalman plays chess, generally against himself, since other people aren't much of a challenge.
133	* SpeciesSurname: A common naming convention. The oddest case is probably ''Vargen'' ("The Wolf"), the original villain, who has retained precisely that name, even as most others have gained more "full" names (although usually including some reference to their species). His origin story tries to explain this by claiming that his [[AbusiveParents stepfathers simply never cared enough to bother giving him a proper name.]]
134	* SpeedSmartsAndStrength: Bamse is well-known for being the strongest bear in the world. Lille Skutt has speed as his greatest skill. Skalman is very smart and wise and a gifted inventor.
135	* TeamPet: Katten Jansson and Husmusen often tag along on Bamse's journeys. Strangely enough, Lille Skutt's dog Lurvas hardly ever does.
136	* TechnicalPacifist: Bamse avoids hitting people as much as he can, but it takes a ''lot'' to tick him off to that extent. He's okay with throwing them up in a pine tree, though. It helps that he doesn't need to use much force to make people dazed or scared enough to stop being physically threatening. "I just poked you with one finger. Now play nice, or I will poke you with ''two'' fingers."
137	* TheChessmaster: Reinard often plays several people in his schemes like fiddles, and usually escapes before he can be held accountable, sometimes even with the money from the crime. One time, he manages to avoid jail because Bamse stops him prior to a burglary- and thus he can't be arrested since there is no crime committed on his part yet...
138	* TimeTravel: There are many stories where Bamse, Skalman and Lille Skutt (and sometimes a fourth character) journey to the past in Skalman's time machine to meet famous historical or mythical people. The normal TemporalParadox[=/=]StableTimeLoop problems are avoided, usually because they seldom if ever get involved in the big historical events -- they'll show up some time before or after the famous events take place and have unrelated (and apparently unrecorded by history) adventures.
139	** One of the biggest aversions to this is the ongoing series where they help Hercules with his famous Twelve Tasks, though Hercules tends to get all the credit, and it's obvious that certain details about the tasks were forgotten or misinterpreted over the centuries.
140	** Also, in 2000 there was a year-long ongoing series where the central trio visited every century of the last millennium, during which they got involved with some rather famous people and helped inventing things like the printing press, the airplane and cinema.
141	* ToBeAMaster: Reinard, the smart, charismatic, daring new villain wants to be the World Champion of Nastiness, a title previously (and still) held by Vargen.
142	* TreasureMap: In many adventures.
143	* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Vargen is this.
144	* VagueAge: Bamse has always been shown as living in his own house, and going on various adventures, in a way that suggests adulthood. But in the early comics, he would also frequently play with friends (outside the main trio, e.g. Mickelina Fox and later Brumelisa) who were depicted as being Bamse's own age (and height), yet ''living together with their twice as tall parents''. Similarly, Bamse's grandmother being twice the height of him suggested that he was still a child. His age stabilised at adulthood around 1980 though, with his marriage and getting children.
145	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Krösus retains a veneer of legality, despite being head of TheSyndicate. As this ''is'' a children's comic, though, it borders on TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily.
146	* WickedWitch: Several witches have turned up as villains. Hia-Hia with the enchanting laughter is probably the best known of them (and since her HeelFaceTurn at the end of her first story, she occasionally shows up as a good character).
147	* WiseOldTurtle: It's implied that the turtle Skalman is much older than any other regular character in the franchise, and he also is very smart and wise.

Context ComicBook / Bamse