Samvirke

Samvirke are a Danish monthly magazine published by the company FDB, it focuses on articles on consumers, culture and family life.

In issue number 9, 1979, there was a article writen by Ellen Bick Meier warning Danes about the dangers of importing American fast food culture and The Muppet Show. The first part of the article covers the opening og the second Burger King in Copenhagen, and the authors thoughts about American fast food and Danish fast food.

The second part covers the meaningless violence of American shows on Danish television and the mass produced merchandise based on TV shows, and the representative for all of this are The Muppet Show. The article describes Jim Henson as a cool and serious businessman and how he started his career in puppetry earning money on meaningless violence with two puppets in commercials for coffee, that earned him so much money that he could afford a Rolls Royce. The article continues making examples of violence on the show from Muppets that blow each other up, just to be on the scene next, Lobsters shooting at The Swedish Chef, Gonzo's exploding trumpet, Dr. Bob laughing and telling jokes while his patients are dying. The article says that violence are as American as apple pie, and in that case The Muppet Show are a big slice of apple pie. The article also mentions Sam the Eagle, as being one of the must trustworthy characters on the show, and that for some reasons he is the one that are being made most fun of. But on the other side theres also some harmless things on the show such as songs from the 50's, duets from Gilbert and Sulivan and a lot of innocent fun. But viewers should be prepared that everything is not so harmless. Compared to Danish children television, The Muppets are chocking and noisy, and that the explanation to this have to be found in the hard competition on the American television market, that the producers think they can earn more by using violence.

The author ends up concluding that Danes should be careful of how much of the American mass produced culture they chose to embrace.