Spede Pasanen

(1930-2001) A Finnish producer, actor, and inventor. Bald and wise-looking. =) A Big Guru in the Finnish Entertainment Industry.

Pertti "Spede" Pasanen has written, produced and acted in many clever and funny movies. My personal favorites include "Noin seitsemän veljestä" ("Approximately Seven Brothers"), a Robin Hood parody, and "Speedy Gonzales", one of the few "Sand pit Westerns" he made. Among the most popular of his movie creations are the "Uuno Turhapuro" movies, starred by Vesa-Matti Loiri.

He has also made a few songs, radio plays, and produces TV competition shows (Kymppitonni is his creation; one of the shows that has been on TV for a long time with the same format that's also pretty original.)

And, as mentioned, he made inventions - 34 patents. The inventions were of varying seriousness, some were pretty outrageous, some very practical (such as his last invention, a candle holder.)

Pertti Pasanen passed away on the afternoon of September 7, 2001. According to MTV3 the 71-year-old Pasanen suffered a sudden and unexpected heart attack while playing on the Sarfvik golf course in Kirkkonummi, Finland.

"It's about time"
- a random punk teenager on IRC 10 minutes after the story was out

Judging by the general reaction the news have received in IRCnet, many of those currently in their teens do not view the late entertainer as someone who did groundbreaking work on Finnish movie and TV comedy between the 60s and 80s. For them he was just a strange old geezer who produced a few shows only the elderly watched. Not that this would be completely untrue: the cheap and old-fashioned gameshows he ran during his late years certainly didn't enjoy much popularity among the younger viewers. However, it is sad to see the guy's lifelong career disregarded, and himself compared to the likes of Matti Nykänen as a laughable and pathetic character.

Something about the influence and importance of Spede's work might be seen on the readers' columns in our country's TV Guide -type magazines: His old series like Spede Show seem to get as much rerun requests as all the other Finnish programs put together.