Kummeli

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Kummeli is the name of a Finnish comedy crew formed by Heikki Silvennoinen, Timo Kahilainen and Heikki Hela from Tampere. They are also the heads of Porkkana Ryhmä, the crew's production company. Other famous members have included Olli Keskinen, better known for his on-screen persona Eero Kakko, and Heikki Vihinen who replaced Keskinen in the mid-90s.

Kummeli appeared on television between 1991 and 1995. After a successful three-part pilot aired they were given their own show on YLE's channel 2 with a completely new look. The Kummeli TV show was primarily composed of sketches with insane characters, but would also feature musical guests as the core crew of the team were actually musicians rather than professional actors (with the exception of Hela, who, ironically, ended up behind the camera for the early episodes of the show). Some episodes would also have a running set of sketches that would reach a conclusion at the end of the episode (such as a father and son visiting an exhibit where the wax figures are actually the caretakers in various costumes).

In the mid-90s, after the end of the show, the Kummeli crew would make random appearances on TV and at different events. During this time Keskinen left the crew and was replaced by Heikki Vihinen.

After the mid-90s the Kummeli crew began to make films. Their first, Kummeli: Stories begins as a story of a fictional conflict between Finland and Luxemburg but concentrated on the stories of the soldiers which were built into long sketches. The sketches also had recurring characters and one of them reveals the character of Kahilainen to be the grown up version of a character he portrayed in the TV show. The movie also contains a movie in itself; a short flick called Lakaisijat (The Sweepers) about newlyweds staying at a hotel run by a murderous psychopath who has trapped his simple-minded twin brother in the attic. The titular Sweepers are a two-man cleaning company (Silvennoinen and Kahilainen) modelled after the stereotypical Frankenstein's monster and Igor characters.

Their second film was the 1997 Kummeli: Kultakuume (Gold Rush) which told the story of a motley crew of characters travelling to Lapland to collect a hidden gold treasure hidden by the main protagonist's father. The movie also featured popular comedy actors such Aake Kalliala of Pulttibois fame and Vesa-Matti Loiri of Uuno Turhapuro fame.

A third movie Kummelin Jackpot, was released in February 2006.

Kummeli was re-launched at the turn of the millennium, with Keskinen returning to host the show, now with a live studio audience. Another re-launch occurred in 2004, with Mikko Kivinen hosting the show for its short run. In between these two seasons of Kummeli, Keskinen and Silvennoinen, along with some other colleagues, produced another short-lived show Mankeli.

[edit] The Name

Kummeli comes from a Finnish word for a sea marker which indicates territorial waters. This is sometimes used as a symbol of fans for the group as a signpost of comedy and telling people to do their own thing. Though the Kummeli crew do not deny the potential symbolism the reason for picking the name (which was suggested by Keskinen's wife), it was probably chosen just because it sounds humorous to Finns.

The group is often incorrectly referred to as Kummelit which is the plural of "Kummeli" and is not the name of the crew itself. The official name of the team is Porkkana Ryhmä, which translates as "Carrot Crew".

[edit] Famous characters

• Eero Kakko = The on-screen persona of Olli Keskinen who hosted the show after the first three pilots and also reported on "live" happenings such as public marathons and also for the "program within a program" Ympäristöruutu (=Ecology Screen).
• Matti Näsä = a grotesque caricature of a typical working-class Finnish man with boyish charm but with black marks under his eyes and a mild speech impediment (in addition to a heavy Tampere accent). He was portrayed by Silvennoinen. In his skits "Matti Näsällä on asiaa" (Matti Näsä has something to say) he would often go into rants about the high cost of living, the ambiguity of tax forms, public vandalism and commercialism. Later episodes introduced his brother Teppo, portrayed by Hela. Has a tattoo of a crudely drawn penis on his right arm.
• Jaakko Parantainen = (portrayed by Silvennoinen) The only regular guest on "Ympäristöruutu" who started as a mild-mannered person hired by the government to fix things (which he admitted to not always understanding). Later he grew a bit of a backbone and started coming up with jokes, metaphors, singing and talking back to his constant interviewer Kakko. On one rare occasion he also burst out in a superhero outfit, claiming that being a superhero is his actual job, and also interviewed Kakko.
• Raimo Vormisto & Timo Silakka = trainer and athlete respectively, performed by Silvennoinen and Kahilainen, who became the stars of "SporttiVartti" after the three pilots. Silvennoinen is Vormisto, an overweight sports instructor with a speech impediment (he croaks his Rs from his throat), unorthodox (but occasionally successful) training methods and an over-emphasis on the importance of one's behind. Silakka is the athlete who makes up for his lack of stature with his enthusiasm. Silakka has admitted that his least favourite form of sport is the squat.
• Iso Pebe = A music reporter, played by Keskinen, who dressed in black, always wore shades and spoke with raspy voice and in an incomprehensible form of slang in an attempt to be cool.
• The "Best Class A" (Paras A-Ryhmä) = The show would often be opened by two characters exhibiting the difference between a "loser" and an "Class A citizen", then declaring the Class A citizen superior. The differences between the loser and the Class A citizen were often based on proper etiquette (not wasting water when washing hands), machismo (driving a Mercedes-Benz instead of a "Japanese piece of junk"), or just on plain absurdity (crossing a street while relying solely on luck, as opposed to "style, skill, pain or common sense").
• The Professor & the Midgets (Älykääpiöt) = A bizarre and intentionally phallic skit where the professor (Hela) would discover two bald dwarves (Silvennoinen and Kahilainen) making a racket (älämölö). In the end the three settle their differences and the midgets offer the professor some "nuts". The main joke of the sketch is the professor asking the names of the dwarves which like the bald, stern dwarves themselves are intentionally phallic:
  • Tero Nuppi, referring to terska (the Finnish equivalent of the British slang "knob").
  • Esa Nahka, referring to esinahka, the Finnish word for foreskin.
• Mauno Ahonen = a hapless reporter played by Silvennoinen who was supposed to make speedy news reports but actually slowed the show down. He also reported for the "live" TV quiz "Missä mennään? Jouko ja Kosti". He has terribly unclean teeth, not having seen a dentist in several decades. His reporting career never gets anywhere because he is constantly assigned to report on droll topics, such as situations where a black has been hit with a stick--in a game of pool. His favourite bar is the Ohranjyvä pub.
• Pertti "Speedy" Keinonen & Sakari "Saku" Östermalm = Two aging metalheads (Silvennoinen & Kahilainen) whose long hair and rock'n'roll lifestyle often result in injuries. In the Kummeli Stories movie the soldier portrayed by Kahilainen is in fact the grown-up version of Saku. They have an "artist pays all expenses" record contract with an unknown record company, and their favourite songs include their own "Hänmies" (He-Man), "Tuomiopäivä" (Doomsday) and Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". Saku has a habit of always chewing gum and getting it stuck on his and Speedy's hair.

Some characters were also created just to deliver two or more words as short skits. Most infamous being the famous "Kyllä lähtee!" shout which became the show's trademark opening. There is no comprehensive way to translate the shout in to English, the word kyllä meaning very much in this context and lähtee being the third or improper form of the word lähteä meaning to leave.