Christmas on Vesterbro

Jul på Vesterbro (Christmas on Vesterbro) is a Danish advent calendar (Julekalender) TV series that originally aired in December 2003. It stars comedian Anders Matthesen in all roles. The characters include:

• Stewart Stardust: Retired sailor and musician, now a hot dog vendor. Was beaten extensively by his father as a boy.
• Vivian Stardust: Stewart's wife, who is never seen but stays in her room and screams "GO AWAY" whenever someone opens the door.
• Danny Stardust: Son of Stewart and Vivian; drug addict and juvenile delinquent.
• Randi: Danny's girlfriend.
• Arne Nougatgren: Well-meaning, hippie social worker, who are assigned to the Stardust family case.
• Greta: Stewart's landlady, who would like to see some rent soon.
• Kefir: Middle-eastern mechanic who are really interested in Stewart's sausage vending stand.
• Igor: Russian arms dealer with really rotten luck in love.

Tropes used in Christmas on Vesterbro include:

• All Just a Dream: It's really just the archaeologist speculating about what had happened. What he actually knows is just that there had been a nuclear explosion in Copenhagen, and some things about the Danish culture in the beginning of the 21st century.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon:

Igor: I am going to kill you in a very inventive way! I am going to pee in a paper cone, freeze it, remove the paper and STAB you with my own ice-cold URINE!

• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Back in the day, Stewart's father had a fatherly advice for every occasion...which he always punctuated by beating Stewart senseless with a blunt and/or heavy object.
  • This is used as a Running Gag where Stewart gets nostalgic and goes "Like my father used to say ..." followed by a black and white clip of the father beating Stewart senseless. The collected clips with English subtitles can be found here.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Several characters have conversations with the narrator. Danny seems to know that there's a camera somewhere in the room during the thrid episode.
• Mall Santa: Arne gets Danny a job as a Mall Santa. Not a good idea.
  • Gets even worse, when Stewart fills in.
• Once Per Episode: Vivian's "GO AWAY", Stewart reminiscing about his father, and other things, including the Running Gag with Steward's Crhistmas calendar (24 neatly wrapped bottles of beer - he appears to be equally surprised each day).
  • The calendar is subverted in one episode, when it turns out Arne replaced the daily beer with herbal tea. Stewart is not pleased.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Played straight, then subverted hard, with Greta. She's really just a landlady who wants her money, and doesn't go around acting strange in any way. That is, until we find out she's a nazi.
  • She DOES however make it pretty clear early on that she is incredibly racist, and everytime she is actually inside the Stardust apartment, she spends ages ragging on Danny (which eventually transforms into a strange complimentory come-on about his physique. It's... bizarre).
• Russian Guy Suffers Most: Igor is the Butt Monkey of the show. Even when he shows up with a Kalashnikov he gets no respect, but is beaten and thrown out. And his song about his rotten love life is a true Tear Jerker:

I sent her videofilms that Russians aren't allowed to see
She sent me to a GULAG, the bitch was KGB.

• Spit Take: Done with stew, when Randi tells Steward and Danny that Danny is the father of her child.
• Talking to Himself: Played to the extremes. Not only does Anders Matthesen play every single role, he even has a Cameo As Himself.
• Too Dumb to Live: Except for Igor (who probably planned to be far away at the explosion) and Kefir + crew (didn't expect to live through the nuke), everyone involved in the plot, really. Seriously, who decides that the best idea with a nuke is to leave it completely unattended in a hotdog stand. The police are the worst in this case. Greta gets one for eating a disgustingly dirty sausage and Ibrahim for saying "I'd rather die" when offered a sausage. What did you think would happen?
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Arne Nougatgren. He is a parody of a Stock Character in Danish comedy, the former hippie turned social worker/schoolteacher.