Danish railroad commercials

[muppet_dk]

This past spring or the next one? Either way, it's a shame that Mr. Ficner won't be performing Harry anymore, let alone that that could be a hint about DSB has stopped making Harry-commercials.

I've read somewhere that there are some new commercials on it's way. Apparently they include a old and young Harry puppet.

Edit: I've just re-read the article that contains the info on the new commercials. It's not a old Harry that will appear but it's Harry's grandfather along with Bahnsen's grandfather. I guess it's basicly still the Harry puppet that have been made old.
It's still both Søs Egelind and Søren Pilmark that play the roles.

 

[MFICNER]

FEB 2005
Hello, I am Matt Ficner.
I just wanted to forward this information to those who may be interested. I was browsing the web and I happened across these questions in regards to the work I had done for the Danish railway DSB as a performer for the “Harry” puppet. I was the puppeteer for the puppet for 3 years (2001 – 2004) . I performed Harry for 30 commercial spots that aired on Danish television. The puppet was built in Denmark.

A fantastic friend of mine and fellow puppeteer Bob Stutt is now performing Harry.

There was a mis-translation during an interview that I did while I was in Denmark.

I did spend time in a television studio with the Swedish Chef character. I was a guest of Bill Baretta and John Kennedy who where performing the Swedish Chef for a kids cooking show that was being produced at Disney MGM (sometime in 2000). Bill was performing and voicing the Chef and John was performing the Chef’s hands. I was merely a guest at the studio and was fortunate enough to have been in the company of such great performers.

In my experience with many media interviews I have often found that they never get the story quite right. I also believe that, in this case, my story was lost in the translation.

M. Ficner
www.mfproductions.ca

Hi there, totally newbie here...

I've been wondering about some commercials, that have been shown on danish television for the past 2-3 years or so, featuring a very Muppet-esque character, by the name of Harry.

Naturally, he's not an official Muppet, but I read somewhere that the puppet was built and performed by a (former?) Muppeteer, and I was wondering, if someone hereabouts had the real story...

Here is a link to the commercials shown on TV, and here are some stills of the Harry character.

I know the name of the danish dub actress (yes, the character is a male, but the voice is done by a female), which is Søs Egelind. You can clearly see that the (presumably american) puppeteer isn't quite adept at syncing to the danish voicetrack, but he does a great job with it.

The character is quite popular in my country, with lots of merchandise available, and in case anybody's wondering: The commercials are for the Danish State Railways (or whatever that translates into...).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!