OBSCURE FANDOM WEEK POST #1!
HEY GUYS! SORRY IN ADVANCE THIS IS REALLY LONG. Basically, although there are a few things I want to post about over the course of this week, my biggest obscure fandom is Latibær, and I feel like I should make a post to introduce it so that people won’t just wonder what the fuck is going on! Well, you probably will anyway, and I doubt many people are going to care about this but nonetheless I feel that it deserves an introduction.
Most people know the TV series, Lazytown. Or if they don’t know it, they know either Cooking by the Book or You Are A Pirate. Which, don’t get me wrong, are great songs, but as someone really heavily involved in the series it’s a little bit frustrating that hardly anyone recognises the rest of it! I’ve been a massive fan of LT since about 2007 when I started watching it on TV, and I loved it so much that I decided to delve a bit further and discover its origins. Basically, the concept began as a series of books written by Magnus Scheving, which was then turned into two stage plays that were only ever performed in the show’s native Iceland. I managed to track them down and watch them and I fell TRULY MADLY DEEPLY IN LOVE.
There are no official translations of the plays and I don’t think there are any completed unofficial ones either, although some people have attempted bits (including me). But regardless, I bought the DVDs from Iceland and have watched them so many times now that I pretty much know exactly what happens in every last second of the entire thing, even without being able to speak Icelandic. Being a thing aimed at kids, it’s not really too hard to work out what’s going on…
It’s a bit hard to explain why I love it so much and why Glanni Glæpur í Latabæ is basically my favourite film ever. I’ve always loved children’s tv and stuff like that so the sort of ridiculousness that comes with that kind of thing made me love it even more, rather than making me feel alienated. Not only is the music totally fabulous, but the characters are all so endearing and interesting, and I really hugely admire the whole idea and point of Lazytown in the first place. And the plot of GGIL is really great in my opinion. It’s pretty scary in that the villain manages to successfully fool almost the entire town into thinking he’s completely amazing by dressing well and flashing a tiny bit of money. He’s handsome and charming and everyone falls for him, to the point where they actually decide to elect him as mayor and he has the entire town under his control before people gradually begin to realise that he’s not as great as everyone thinks he is. It’s not really something I’ve seen much in films for children - usually the villains are quite obvious even to the main cast, and they rarely get so far in their plans before someone overthrows them. For that reason I actually think it’s pretty damn scary.
Of course, there’s also headcanon. With my best friend and I having been totally into it for years we naturally came up with a vast amount of backstory for the whole thing, but to be honest, it’s not incredibly far-fetched. It might not be obvious to the casual viewer but there’s a huge amount of thought and history behind Lazytown, quite a lot of hints to a much deeper and perhaps even sinister plot. Thinking about how the original books and plays fit in with the recent TV series is pretty interesting, especially since there’s a film in the works that’s most likely going to expand that sort of thing even further…
I’m not gonna say you should should go out and watch it all, because it’s definitely not for everyone. But if you’ve ever watched Lazytown and quite enjoyed it I’d definitely reccommend the plays. Glanni Glæpur í Latabæ, the second play, is a lot more accessable than the first one because it has a much more cohesive and interesting plot, but the first one has its merits too!
Anyway, this week I’m going to post lots of things to do with it because, well, it’s obscure fandom week. I hope you all either enjoy it or put up with it! It does mean a lot to me, ya know. I haven’t really talked about my more personal connection with all this but yeah IT DOES, OKAY? ;_;
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