Series / Uhu

Standing, left to right: Geir Gatsby, Albert, Berit Smerit Perit, Blitzabeth, Napoleon and Ridder Reddik.
Sitting, left to right: Ivers, Polter and Avers.

Uhu (sometimes also written as Uhu! with an exclamation mark) was a Norwegian children's TV series that ran for three seasons on the national broadcast station NRK, from 2001-2003.

The series mainly centers around a group of kooky and eccentric ghosts who live in a Haunted House. These ghosts are essentially "retired" — after having haunted various places all over the world, they've run out of "spectral energy" and have almost no ghostly powers left.

Before they can pass on to the afterlife, though, they each have a "mission" to solve. Upon arriving to the house, each ghost is taken to the Oracle (a mysterious, but goofy Flying Face who speaks in a Trondheim dialect and bad rhymes) to receive their unique mission or task. Some of the missions are very easy, some are near-impossible, and some are just plain bizarre, such as standing on one leg for two minutes with an envelope on your head. If a ghost completes their mission, they're allowed to pass on to "Hermetika," the best of the afterlives, where everyone has fun and food is plentiful — but if they don't complete their mission, or if they tell any of the other ghosts what exactly their mission is, they end up on the "Slampamper Islands" where everything is boring and the food selection is pitiful.

The one ghost who knows everyone's mission, and whom they can freely discuss their missions with, is Polter, who acts as a sort of leader to the ghosts of the house and is essentially the series' "host." He's the one who greets new arrivals to the house, and who takes them to the Oracle to receive their missions. He's also the only character who's aware of the audience and will often Break the Fourth Wall to explain things about ghosts and ghostly lives.

The show also had many inserts with segments that were mostly unrelated to the Haunted House (but often reflected the theme of the current episode). Some of these were recurring, like the "Superhero Boy and Superhero Man" segments (a generally non-violent superhero parody), the "Trainee Scarecrow" segments (about a scarecrow learning how to scare birds and other pests away from the farmer's crops) and the "Historical Person" segments (simplified recaps of the lives of important historical people, with kids playing all the roles). There was also at least one musical number in every episode.

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Uhu contains examples of:

• An Aesop: Several, but not all, the episodes revolved around some kind of lesson that one of the ghosts had to learn, about things like cheating or honesty. Most of them cheerfully refused any actual Character Development, though.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Explained. Ghosts are normally invisible to humans, but bedsheets aren't — so if the ghosts want humans to see them (usually so they can scare them away) they have to wear bedsheets. They don't like wearing bedsheets, which they find uncomfortable, clammy and unfashionable, but for the ghosts of the Haunted House, who barely have any ghostly powers left, it's the only tactic they have to frighten away humans who come snooping around.
• Calvinball: Klatzy, a game the ghosts like to play. It's vaguely similar to Yahtzee, except instead of dice you play it with fake bugs, and you get points depending on how the bugs land on the table. The problem is that it's extremely vague just what gives you the most points. The only one who always knows is the self-proclaimed "Klatzy expert" Geir Gatsby, and curiously enough whenever he plays he always gets the most points.
  Geir Gatsby: Oh! I win again!
  Napoleon: ...you do?
  Geir Gatsby: Yes, of course! Can't you see that three of the beetles landed legs-up? That means. um, fifty points! And that means I win!
  Napoleon: Buh-but... it didn't mean that last time?
  Geir Gatsby: No, but it does now!
  Napoleon: Oh. Darn it, then I lose again.
• Failure Is the Only Option: For a lot of characters, the missions. If a ghost succeeds in their mission it means they are sent off to Hermetika and as such leave the series — so the main characters tend to fail. One-shot guest characters have a much higher chance of succeeding within one episode.
  • It's not played completely straight, however. While most of the main characters don't manage their missions before the final episode, there are a few who do and as such get Put on a Bus: Cumulus late in the second season; Geir Gatsby, Ivers and Avers early in the third season.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A number of the main ghosts. Geir Gatsby is an Innocently Insensitive Prankster, Blitzabeth is a Perpetual Frowner who hates the thought of being "friendly," Berit Smerit Perit is totally self-centered Diva, and Delfia is a Bratty Half-Pint. None of them are bad people, however; ultimately they are helpful and sympathetic, and will do the right thing in the end. Likewise, the Oracle is often haughty and can occasionally act like a Bad Boss, but when the chips are down is a fairly Reasonable Authority Figure who is more bluster than bite.
• Friendly Ghost: Part of the point of the series is to presents ghosts as friendly and unthreatening — Polter explains to the audience in the first episode that ghosts as a whole aren't scary at all. If they do set out to scare humans, it's not out of malice, it's just because the humans are intruding on the ghost's personal space and the ghost wants them to back off.
  • The friendliest of the ghosts is Cumulus, whose mission is to talk to and help out as many human children as she can. She's not even slightly interested in scaring anyone, though will on occasion play a gentle prank on the odd unreasonable adult.
• Gainax Ending: Well... more like a Gainax Epilogue. The ghosts all get a happy, non-trippy ending; in the very last episode everyone who's still left in the Haunted House manages to complete their missions, and they all travel to Hermetika with a final happy song. The final couple of minutes is when things get surreal: After the ghosts have gone, the Oracle comes out of its room, cheerfully announces it's time for some peace and quiet, and leaves the house. It flies around until it comes to a grocery store, where it hides in a can of tomato soup. A human girl and her parents buy the can, heat the soup up and have it for dinner, somehow managing not to notice that the soup is giggling as they eat it. Then, all three of them starts talking in the Oracle's voice, complete with Trondheim dialect and bad rhymes. They take it surprisingly well, their reaction being essentially "We all sound like we're from Trondheim, that's hilarious!" And then they start singing a song by the famous Trondheim band DDE as the camera focuses on the bowl of soup and the credits roll for the final time.
• Ghostly Wail: Parodied with "Uhu," which is an approximation of a Ghostly Wail, is a common ghost greeting. Played somewhat more straight in one episode where Napoleon sings a song about how terrible it can sound when a ghost cries.
• Haunted House: The main setting of the show; an abandoned Louis Seize style manor that function as the ghosts' home and "final stop before Hermetika."
• Mundane Ghost Story: Frequent. Often the show will feature a segment with children telling ghost stories or "scary stories," but they always end in a punchline where the scary supernatural thing is revealed as something mundane and/or silly.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts in this series have a few unique traits.
  • Ghosts are usually the spirits of once-alive humans — the ghosts sometimes talk about "when I was human" when discussing their past lives — though this isn't always the case, as the third season sees the birth of Blitzabeth and Napoleon's daughter Delfia, who is born as a ghost and has never been human. It's not terribly clear if all humans who die become ghosts, or if it's just some of them — or what exactly causes someone to become a ghost.
  • As a rule, living beings can neither see nor hear a ghost. A ghost might spend some of their "spectral energy" to manifest (though the spectral energy is limited and will eventially run out) or put on a bedsheet in order to become visible to humans. There are exceptions to this rule, as Cumulus is always visible to the living — and in the second season is capable of making Ivers and Avers visible to the living as well.
  • Scaring humans and "haunting" is really something most ghosts can take or leave. They generally find humans comical or annoying (once again, Cumulus seems to be an exception, as she likes humans and especially children), though they might sometimes think wistfully back on their own days as humans.
  • Though they obviously they won't die from hunger and can go indefinitely without eating if they choose to, ghosts can get hungry and enjoy eating — after a fashion. They only eat canned food, and they eat by stuffing the unopened cans straight into their stomachs. They can still somehow taste the food by doing this. They're also capable of eating with their mouths, if the food isn't in a can, but find the idea of eating "human style" pretty disgusting.
  • They also sleep standing up, leaning against a wall. The exception is Ivers and Avers, who sleep in a hammock.
• Limited Wardrobe: Seems to be part of being a ghost. The ghosts are always wearing the same outfits, even when sleeping — Delfia was even born already wearing hers. They can take their clothes off, as Polter demonstrates in one episode when he falls in a washing tub and has to dry his clothes out, but for the most part they never remove or change their clothes. Again, Ivers and Avers are the exception; they wear different outfits when they're out with Cumulus (Cumulus used her ghost powers to give them those outfits, which enables them to turn visible to humans) and in some song segments they're seen wearing entirely different dresses.
• The Musical: Every episode had at least one musical number — often two, with one number being an original song sung by one or more of the characters, and the other being a Music Video segment of a song by well-known Norwegian kids' entertainers such as Knutsen & Ludvigsen. The third season had fewer original songs and often reprised songs from the previous two seasons; sometimes new recordings of the same songs, sung by different characters, and sometimes outright recycled from the earlier episode.
• Silly Spook: Most of the ghosts in the series qualify to some degree. Since they don't have their powers, they can't get up to the supernatural antics that other examples of the trope do, but they often behave clownishly or in comedically exaggerated ways. The silliest spook by far is Geir Gatsby, who's always joking around and playing pranks.
• Stylistic Suck: Employed on a few occasions. The Oracle is a hilariously bad-looking paper mache puppet on an obvious Green Screen, the Mute Dragon is very obviously a person in a shoddy dragon costume, and the Slampamper Bus is a cardboard box with a poorly drawn-on bus exterior.
• Teleportation with Drawbacks: The only ghostly power the ghosts in the Haunted House have left, and it only works within the house itself: They can teleport from any room in the house to any other room, which they'll go if they're in a hurry or don't feel like walking. Each ghost has his or her unique method of Flashy Teleportation; Polter does a disco dance while fading away accompanied by a snippet of a disco song, Geir Gatsby stands on one leg and strikes a pose as his body irises out, Ridder Reddik raises her hand and sings a heroic fanfare before vanishing, Obus pulls her trenchcoat collar up and steps behind an invisible wall, Blitzabeth just swipes downwards with both her arms, vanishing from the top down, and Delfia goes a high kick in the air as she vanishes, the kicking foot being the last thing to vanish.
• Wedding Episode: The second season ends with Napoleon and Blitzabeth getting married.