A CHILDREN'S PROGG SPECIAL

This post is different to other posts here as it contains no album reviews. Many – most – progg albums made for children have no international relevance because they often feature too many spoken word bits, and the music usually isn't very fun to listen to as an adult. Therefore there's really no point in posting links to the albums. (A brilliant exception would of course Jojje Wadenius' ”Goda' goda'” be, basically a Made In Sweden album with fine lyrics by children's author Barbro Lindgren, but that album deserves a post of its own.)

Still this is a very important Swedish Progg Blog feature, as children's culture was taken very seriously in those days and it's necessary to consider it in order to understand the progg movement from a wider perspective. Many artists were involved in kid's television, theatre, music, literature etc, always with an intent just as serious as when they were creating for grown-ups. Children were taken as seriously as anyone else.

One reason was of course political – it was considered important to teach kids what the society is like and present to them a socialist solution to economic problems and eradicate the inequality of social classes. It's a popular opinion today that children's television in the 70's was politically indoctrinating, and upon looking back at, for instance, Nationalteatern's highly successful double album ”Kåldolmar och kalsipper” (”cabbage rolls and underpants” – no, I don't know what that's supposed to mean, and neither did Nationalteatern), and TV series such as ”Huset Silfvercronas gåta”, (”the mystery of the house of Silfvercrona), ”Ville & Valle & Viktor” and ”Kapten Zoom” (”Captain Zoom”) (both with Anders Linder as lead actor), you have to agree it has a definite left-wing bent. 

However, I've never met one single person who took damage from watching those or any other 70's children TV series... with the possible exception of Staffan Westerberg's very disturbing ”Vilse i pannkakan” (”lost in the pancake”), already mentioned in my Thomas Wiehe runthrough. I dare say that everyone I know that grew up during the progg era has become caring people with a keen sense of justice and solidarity. So maybe the socialist aspect wasn't that hurtful after all...

Sometimes an album corresponding to a certain TV series was released, some of these albums are now moderately sought-after in good condition. (Children aren't known for taking care of records too well, so most copies that turn up are pretty mangled.)

Regardless of what one thinks of the political views expressed and transfered to the young generation of the day, the socialist stance was that education is an all important thing. Insufficient education is disastrous to society in the long run (which is indeed true – the world as we know it today should explain why). The Social Democratic Party of Sweden invested a lot of money in ABF, the Workers' Educational Association, but basic knowledge had to start with the children. 

There were several 70's TV shows without an obvious political agenda making great use of the pedagogical possibilites of television. The most notable example is mid-70's ”Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter” (”five ants are more than four elephants”), with music by jazz illuminary Bengt Ernryd and featuring actors Magnus Härenstam, Brasse Brännström and Eva Rameaus, the latter also active in Musikteatergruppen Oktober (an independent theatre group performing several plays for children) and Tältprojektet. ”Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter” is acknowledged as one of the best shows ever made for children, and rightly so. In a fashion similar to the famed U.S. show ”Sesame Street”, it taught young kids to read and write in a very entertaining way and showing young and old alike that learning things doesn't have to come from just dull books with boring black and white photographs.

Eva Ramaeus was far from the only progg personality to get involved with children's television. Carl Johan de Geer of Blå Tåget co-wrote ”Tårtan” (”the cake”) with Håkan Alexandersson, and featuring Blå Tåget's Mats G. Bengtsson as actor. ”Tårtan” was an incredibly funny and anarchic fourteen part 1972 series about three unemployed sailors opening a bakery shop where absolutely everything goes wrong. Still a splendid watch today! The following year, the Swedish broadcasting company aired ”Mumlan” (hard to translate, but something like ”the mumbler” will do), a very entertaining show hosted by much loved actor Gösta Ekman and actress Lena Söderblom in which musicians such as Kjell Westling and Bengt Berger appeared.

There was a large number of children's books published during this period too. Some of them aren't very different to 'ordinary' kids literature, while others took the pedagogical approach maybe a little too far, with sterile documentary photos of mum's giving birth and the gynecologist having a look, and titles like ”Chairman Mao Is Your Uncle”, ”A Fun Day at the Kolkhoz”, ”Say Hello to the Soviet Farmer Building a Factory All by Himself”. OK, so maybe I made up those titles myself, but they could have been for real. (Swedish readers who want to investigate children's progg books further are advised to check out Kalle Lind's ”Proggiga barnböcker”. He's got a somewhat condescending narrative style but the book is informative and sometimes very amusing amd clearsighted. Swedes who'd like to delve deeper into children's television may also want to check out Göran Everdahl's ”Kom nu'rå! Barnprogrammen vi minns – eller helst vill glömma”.)

I realize that most of what's been mentioned here is of little interest to non-Swedish readers, but like I said initially, all of this (and a lot more) was a very important progg element and influential to kids growing up in during the era. Bringing it up in a post of its own will hopefully shed some further light on how multifaceted progg in fact was.