Happy Chef Blogging Friday!
Today...let's have some fun...Meet....The Swedish Chef
A parody of televised cooking shows, the Swedish Chef wears a toque blanche and has bushy eyebrows that completely obscure his eyes. He was one of the few Muppets to employ an actual puppeteer's hands, originally Oz's, in the designs—that is, they were visible to the audience through his sleeves and facilitated handling food and utensils.
Nearly all Swedish Chef sketches begin with him in a kitchen, waving some utensils while singing his signature song in a trademark semi-comprehensible gibberish which parodies the characteristic vowel sounds of Swedish. "Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue, Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn bork! bork! bork!". The last line of the song is always "Børk! Børk! Børk!", and is punctuated by him throwing the utensils over his shoulder to crash into the crockery behind.
After this introduction, the Chef continues speaking gibberish while preparing a particular recipe. His commentary is spiced with the occasional English word to clue the viewer in to what he is attempting. These clues are necessary as he frequently uses unorthodox culinary equipment (firearms, tennis racquets, etc.) to prepare his dishes. The sketch typically degenerates into a slapstick finale where the ingredients or equipment get the better of him.
In one sketch, a misaimed explosive charge slightly damaged the face of the puppet. The Chef's face remained scarred through the rest of the season.
The Chef's gibberish gained a life of its own with the creation of a Unix lex filter capable of converting standard English to "chefspeak" in 1992. The filter quickly became a staple of hacker culture and eventually spread to the mainstream with "Swedish Chef" translators on several websites such as Google. In 2003 Opera Software published a special "Bork" version of its internet browser which turned the MSN website into "Swedish."
It is sometimes said that The Swedish Chef character is based on real life Swedish chef Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman. He claims that his rather unsuccessful appearance on Good Morning America caught the attention of Jim Henson, who later bought the rights to the recording and created Lars Bäckman's Muppet alter ego. Bäckman's Dalecarlian accent would explain the chef's strange pronunciation. This story is however denied by writer Jerry Juhl. (Thanks to Wikipedia and Veekeepedia)
Listen to his classic Chocolate Mooose recipe. and...read it too...but read it "out loud" to have some fun.
Noo, toodie wee well meg dee chocolate mooose. Step oone, geet a five-pound block oof chocolate.
Step twoo, get dee mooose. Heer, mooosee mooosee mooosee mooosee!
Step three, put dee mooose een dee bleender.
Nuutice: dee bleender cun't hundel dee entlers. Put dee entlers een last.
Seeve dee entlers, yoo cun use dem fur furks.
Steep three: cuut chocolate eentoo leetle bite-size peeces. Heer, we uuse a cleever.Dees is guud chocolate. Weell, eef at furst yuu dun't succeed, pass dee buck. Get dee asseesteent. Aseesteent! (Miss Piggy)
Asseesteent, pulees cuut dee chocolate eentoo leedle bite-size peeces. Theenk yooo, asseestent.
Steep fuur, put chocolate een weeth mooose, und bleend egen.
Allweeys remembur oone uf twoo theengs. Eether puut dee leed on dee bleender, ur meg shuur det yuur diiners ur een dee keetchen.
Uum! Dees ees guud mooosee!
(thanks to the Messy Gourmet)
I love the Swedish Chef! I've been known to include "ee bork bork bork" in my conversations on days i'm in an especially good mood.
Posted by
shayera |
Fri Nov 04, 09:22:00 PM
I think we should start a petition to the Food Network to give the Swedish Chef a TV show. It would be great for kids in the afternoon. I can see him now competing on the Iron Chef against Masahuru Morimoto.
Posted by
Anonymous |
Sun Nov 06, 03:11:00 PM
Catching up on my blog reading - love this! My favorite muppet.
Posted by
Rurality |
Tue Dec 27, 12:28:00 PM