History Film / OlsenBanden

* FunWithAcronyms: Movie 13 features security company KBG, which extends to something roughly translatable as Kopenhagen BodyGuards. The company features a red star in their logo, in case of somebody missing the reference.

* Yvonne Jensen: Kjeld's wife. Often inadvertedly screws up their schemes. Fans often consider her Egon's true nemesis. Indeed, the death of her actress back in 1988 was the reason why the series was originally cancelled. (She was named "Valborg" in Norway and "Eivor" in Sweden.)

* ActionPrologue: Most of Danish movies begin with a small heist which caused Egon to get sacked. While early entries used these to provide an EstablishingCharacterMoment for Egon with his friends escaping and him pretending to be part of scenery while police arrives, later ones started to make heists funny. Interestingly, in movie 7, Boffen pulls a heist on Egon.

* BadToTheLastDrop: Movie 13 features Egon replacing beers of some security guards with raspberry lemonade (which is the same drink lemonade is, only with raspberries replacing lemons). Guys find it so awful that //they quit their job// over it.

*** The Swedish versions have similar ones, except Kjel who only lasted two movies.

** At the end of the third movie the gang discovers that [[spoiler: the money they retreieved from an old Nazi bunker is forged]]. In the fourth movie, as Egon is counting the money from their heist, Yvonne suddenly exclaims: "Oh, my God! [[spoiler: They are not forged, are they??]] Because I'll never forget that other time, when ..."

* DistractedByTheSexy: While in Paris, Egon decides to hire a prostitute as an additional helping hand. However a combination of interlanguage communication problems leads Benny to stop helping Egon with a conccurrent heist, thus forcing the team to make another one.

* FunWithAcronyms: Movie 13 features security company KBG, which extends to something roughly translatable as Kopenhagen's Bank of Guards. The company features a red star in their logo, in case of somebody missing the reference.

** When it is suggested to Jensen that he could be transferred to vice, he mutters that all he has ever experienced in that field is defeat, humilliation and heat flushes.

** In movie 3, Boffen and Harry actors play very different characters then they usually do.

* MakesSenseInContext: Probably most outstanding line in that department that series provided goes like this: "We got to get there unnoticed. Therefore, we're gonna get a tank."

* TheOtherDarrin: Nearly the whole cast of the norwegian and swedish series obvious. But also internal in the danish serie where Bang-Johansen's interlocutor in the later movies, Hallandsen, were played by a new actor each time.

** Egon occasionally gets BoundAndGagged by the villains. In each gase, he's gagged with his cigar stub still in his mouth, and when the gag is removed the cigar swups out of his mouth.

* StrictlyFormula: Vast majority of sequels run on a simple plot: Egon gets hired to make a small heist, then employer decides to dispose of him by somehow calling cops attention of him or attacking instead of paying, then Egon decides to take revenge by stealing the MacGuffin back. Apparently this was used because it allowed the screenplayers to put multiple heists in one movie.

* WeNeedADistraction: Kjeld will often do the task of distracting people. To example by telling a guard that he have an appointment at twelve o clock - just before midnight. And when the guard tell to come again tomorrow he do so - a few minutes after midnight!

** Rocky (the Swedish Kjeld) vanished from the Swedish movies after the second one when the actor died from cancer. In the third movie, he was revealed to have moved "back home" to Finland, and his place in the gang was taken over by Dynamit-Harry.

* LovableCoward: Kjeld.

* ForeignQueasine: [[SelfDepreciativeHumor Danish Remoulade]] in movie 13, which Egon replaces another sauce with (note: they're in France then) to cause mass fainting and thus provide a distraction.

** In movie 3, Boffen actor plays obviously different character.

*** The first, second, and fourth movie don't feature Jensen, bringing us instead WalkingDisaster Mortensen (or him and his two clones, given the series loads of similar characters). He's degraded by the fourth movie, so Jensen's appearance is not that sudden. The third movie doesn't takes place in Copenhague, so it doesn't feature any familiar cops.

* TakeThat: In a teaser trailer for the 2010 animated movie, they take great care to seperate the 13 original movies from the 14th, calling it the "senior citizen movie".

* DistractedBySexy: While in Paris, Egon decides to hire a prostitute as an additional helping hand. However a combination of interlanguage communication problems leads Benny to stop helping Egon with a conccurrent heist, thus forcing the team to make another one.
** A lesser example happens in the fourth movie, where a competing trio of thieves utilizes their human resources to steal just stolen money that Egon for whatever reason decided to HideInPlainSight.

* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: And in many Danish movies, they use identical red briefcases. Nobody comments on it, obviously. [[IncrediblyLamePun In a few cases]] they played around the concept, introducing multiple briefcases with most filled with ordinary stuff.

* {{Cameo}}: Many small roles were played by well known danish actors, some times even after having had other major roles earlier in the serie.

** Competing two-man gangs shows up in two of the Danish movies: Kongen og Knægten in ''Olsen Bandens Store Kup'' og Archibald Hansen og Bøffen i ''Olsen Banden Deruda'''.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: In the fifth Jönssonligan movie, Wall-Enberg uses a team of criminals, siblings called "Ödlan"(Lizard) and "Brorsan"(Bro/Big Brother), a dwarfish, pale man, and a tall, brawny guy respectively, in his plan to steal the Kings Cross from the Palma cathedral. They show up throughout the movie doing his bidding prior to that.

* InspiredBy: Part of the inspiration to the Olsen Gang came from "Det borende X" ("The drilling X"), a Danish burglar, who in the years 1909-31 carried out a string of meticulously planned and technically complicated safe-burglaries. When he was finally caught it turned out that he had used the money to keep up appearances as a greengrocer and family man.

* Bang-Johansen/Hallandsen/Holm Hansen: The recurring BigBad in many of the movies. A corrupt authority figure with villainous schemes of his own. This character is subject to an unusual and confusing gag. In most of the movies where he appears he has one of those three names and is supposedly a new character who has nothing to do with any of the previous incarnations. To further add to the confusion, they are all played by the same actor and have the same personality. None of the other characters have ever made any comments on this - however, in Danish film series at the time it was normal for actors to return in different roles, and there is a number of other recurring actors in Olsen-Banden too. Most frequently, he takes on the role of a CorruptCorporateExecutive, but he has also been a corrupt civil servant and a criminal nobleman. Frequently hires the gang to help him, just to betray them later, with the help of:

** A baron's family motto is "Honi soit qui pense" (Shame on those who think).
** An Stasi-esque government surveillance and registration building has "Per fas et nefas" ([We do it] with or without rights) written over the door.

** An Stasi-esque government surveillance and registration building has "Per fas et nefas" ([We do it w]ith or without rights) written over the door.

** When Egon at one point is posing as an arrogant German businessman, he introduces himself as "Generaldirektor von Arschloch."

* Egon Olsen: Criminal mastermind and [[SafeCracking expert safe-craker]] [[ClockKing who's plans often relies heavily on correct timing and secluding]]. (Named "Charles-Ingvar 'Sickan' Jönsson" in Sweden.)
* Benny Frandsen: Small-time [[ConMan thief and swindler]]. The more competent of Egon's accomplices and the driver of whatever vechile which may be at hand. (Named "Ragnar Vanheden" in Sweden.)
* Kjeld Jensen: The [[TheDitz stupid]] and [[LovableCoward nervous]] guy. By far the less competent of Egon's accomplices. Does have a CrowningMomentOfAwesome however while disguised as a policeman, where he tells Egon to just shut up and quit horsing around and open the safe they were trying to break into. (In Norway the name is spelled "Kjell," and in Sweden he was a Finn named "Rocky" and was PutOnABus after the second movie.)

* AccidentalMisnaming: In the Swedish movies, "Sickan" will always [[InsistentTerminology correct anyone calling him Sickan to call him "Charles Ingvar]]

* TheAlcoholic: Harry, in all three versions. At one point, he decides to stop drinking. At the end of that movie, when he's needed to blow up a wall, it turns out that [[INeedAFreakingDrink he needs to drink a beer]] to do that reliably.

** A corrupt oil sheik's crest carry the motto "Pecunia non olet" (Money has no smell)
** A baron's family motto is "Honi soit qui pense" (Shame on those who think)
** An Stasi-esque government surveillance and registration building has "Per fas et nefas" ((We do it) with or without rights) written over the door.
** The World Bank's motto is "Sine Pecunia Dolet" (It hurts to be without money)

* BreakingTheFourthWall: At the end of the last movie in the Norwegian series, Egon has finally got the money, and proclaim he has a plan, whereupon the camera zooms out to reveal the movie crew and the director yelling. "No Egon, not another plan."
** The Danish version ends their thirteen and supposed last movie with Benny, Kjeld and Yvonne waving goodbye to the audience during the latters 25-years-anniversary.

* CatchPhrase: The regular characters all have a few.

* ClockTower - One of the most memorable scenes in the serie happen in ''Olsen-banden går i krig'' ("The Olsen Gang goes to War") when Bøffen place Egon in front of the clock on the Copenhagen Town Hall Tower awaiting the big clock hand to come down and sending Egon the more than 70 meter down to street level. Kjeld and Benny discover him in nick of time but when they free him they all three end up hanging in the clock hands. Which in turn create chaos in the mechanism knocking Bøffen and fellow criminal The Black Baron out.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Unlike his danish counterpart, Wall-Enberg is always shown as being the same character from movie to movie, and hires or agrees to buy something from Sickan and the gang on several occasions. Despite stabbing them in the back every single time, Sickan keeps taking him up on his offers.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: On occasion. An example is in Olsen Banden Ser Rødt (The Olsen Gang Sees Red), when the gang is sneaking around in the basements of a wealthy baron's estate. Egon remarks that one of the halls was the secret entrance to an ancestors' lovers, but that said ancestor's great-grandmother had it walled up.

*** The recurring villain in the Swedish films, CorruptCorporateExecutive Wall-Enberg, is a ''very'' un-subtle jab at the Wallenberg family, one of Sweden's most influential "old money"-families, as well as possibly one at Anders Wall, an at that time very famous corporate raider.

* PricelessMingVase: Subverted with a literal vase in eighth movie.
** For the first time, it slides out of palms of Børge's fiancee (her shaky hands were already [[ForeShadowing hinted at]]). Gang decides to play with it as with a jigsaw puzzle, and then they noticed it's a MadeInChina knockoff.
** [[spoiler:Then, the knockoff vase gets broken by the vase merchant. He does it to show it's a knockoff though.]]
** [[spoiler:And then played straight when Egon [[TooDumbToLive gives the genuine vase to Børge's fiancee to hold for a moment...]] ]]
* PutOnABus: Børge after the eighth movie, ''Olsenbanden ser rødt,'' at the end of which he gets married. He's absent for most of the rest of the series, but [[TheBusCameBack does appear in the eleventh and fourteenth movies.]]
** Actually an example of RealLifeWritesThePlot. The actor had problems with drugs and real crimes and ended up hidding from the movie makers. Was however clean again at the making of the fourteenth movie.

* RunningGag: Quite a few.

*** The recurring villain in the Swedish films, CorruptCorporateExecutive Wall-Enberg, is a ''very'' un-subtle jab at the Wallenberg family, one of Sweden's most influential "old money"-families, as well as possibly one at Anders Wall, a famous and ruthless corporate raider.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To the 1965 Danish movie ''Slå Først Frede'' (distributed abroad as ''OperationLovebirds''), also written/directed by Balling and Bahs, and with Sprogøe, Grunwald and Bundgaard in the leading roles. ''Slå Først Frede'' spoofs JamesBond - style agent movies in the same way the ''OlsenBanden'' movies spoof crime/caper movies and Grunwald's character, Frede Hansen, a happy-go-lucky novelty salesman who is mistaken for a secret agent, is very similar to Benny.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: The happy, harmonic and always sunny Denmark seen in the films is frequently revealed to be a facade over a country at the mercy of ruthless businessmen and utterly corrupt officials whose nefarious schemes are only stopped by our bumbling heroes - usually by accident.

* AscendedExtra: Harry in the Norwegian and Swedish series, possibly thanks to the fact that both Norwegian and Swedish moviemakers had the role played by a popular and beloved comedian (Harald Heide-Steen Jr in Norway and Björn Gustafson in Sweden). As such, in the Norwegian series the movies featuring him usually upgrade him to titular character, and in the Swedish series he's a permanent member of the gang from the third movie on.