Remembering Gref Dafflebaum

Sadly, Google can only find two lingering online evidences of the delightful Finnish sitcom Gref Dafflebaum, considered by many to be the finest Scandinavian situation comedy since Bunion Thunder. Yet it was only three years ago when Gref references were plentiful – he had his own tribute page, a raging discussion on the Cinescape board, and even memorabilia sales on eBay.

Confused?

You’re probably not as confused as the admins on the old Cinescape Classic Television bulletin board, which Languatron invaded a few years ago. After being banned from every other respectable board, Langy was trying to find a new audience for his wild-eyed theories that Ron Moore drinks the blood of flatulent virgins and Universal Studios controls the weather. So Lang landed at Cinescape.com, and I, along with several of my fellow Lang battle veterans, followed him there to make his life miserable.

The Cinescape folks got pretty grumpy, because amid this sudden explosion of Langy flame wars, no one was actually discussing classic television shows. We were, in the words of the admins, “wasting valuable bandwidth.” This had clearly never been a problem before, as the board was getting about three posts a month before we arrived. Still, to avoid being banned, it was important that we temper our anti-Lang rhetoric with some actual discussion of long-cancelled TV shows.

So, on a whim, I wrote a post that said “Anyone else remember the show Gref Dafflebaum, about the guy with the limp and the unibrow? What a classic.”

It all snowballed from there.

Suddenly, everyone was remembering specific details about this obscure little treasure. There was, of course, the limp, the unibrow, and assorted other physical oddities. There was the best friend character who was always stuffing hams down his pants. There was the infamous "Hats" episode, which everyone hated because it had too many hats.

The admins got pretty angry. They insisted that we were making it all up, and our silly banter was eating up valuable server space that should have been devoted to conversations about The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Sanford and Son. They threatened to kick us off the board unless we stopped fooling around.

Suddenly, a tribute page to the Gref Dafflebaum series appeared online. It featured an episode guide, a few reviews, and this picture (left), identified as a screen capture from one of the actual Gref shows. The caption to the picture read “Dafflebaum! You have report for me? Yes or no?”

How could anyone doubt Dafflebaum anymore? The verdict was in - Gref was for real. We were vindicated at last. After all, you couldn't make up something like that.

Astonishingly, the admins still weren’t convinced. They needed proof. Physical, tangible evidence that Gref Dafflebaum wasn't just a fignment of our deranged imaginations.

And the proof came.

An actual Gref Dafflebaum lunchbox came up for sale on eBay.

The bidding was fast and furious. We were clearly not the only ones with a fondness for our limping, unibrowed Finnish friend. Sure, a skeptic could say that the lunchbox was a crudely Photoshopped forgery, but skeptics also think Elvis is dead. Who are you going to believe – a skeptic or a guy who puts ham sandwiches in a lunchbox so he can stuff lunchmeat down his pants? Huh? I rest my case.

In the end, it was all for naught. Cinescape didn’t buy it. We were all summarily banned, and the Cinescape board eventually disappeared. At least Lang was banned, too, though, so we actually accomplished something.

Now that the dust has settled, the memory still brings a tear to my eye. How could anyone doubt the majesty of Dafflebaum? After all, I know Gref is for real. Real, I tell you! I know this!

And how do I know this?

I won the bidding on the lunchbox.

It arrived shortly after the bidding ended, and it's in mint condition. I still have it. I sleep with it. I bathe with it. I keep it close to my heart, along with cherished memories of Dafflebaum’s finest moments, like the time when his shoes fell into a vat of pasta.

It’s not as good as Bunion Thunder, but it’ll do.