Friday, September 30, 2005

Lazy Town



Some "old" photos of the original Icelandic "Sportacus" or "Íþróttaálfurinn" in Icelandic ("Íþróttaálfurinn means "The Sporting Elf"), alias his creator Magnús Scheving, fitness champion as well as many other things.


"Íþróttaálfurinn" with the president of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and his first wife Guðrún Katrín (she died of cancer in October 1998) on Christmas 1997.
I don´t know who his ladyfriend is!


Lazy Town Fanclub
Interview
Interview with Magnús Scheving from Iceland Review

Some more about Lazy Town from the www:
From an Icelandic guy who calles himself "Svenni" on "Metafilter":

"This "idea" is over ten years old.

It started as a pretty bad children's play called "Áfram Latibær", written, directed by and starring this aerobics guy who's previous media experience was selling dubious cleaning products on the TV market of a low budget TV station here in Iceland.

Magnús's idea progressed over the years, he made cartoon likenesses of the actors portraying the parts in the play, and those were licensed to push banks, milk products and whatnot in Iceland.

Five years ago I was involved in creating a web site for Latibær, it's purpose was to promote savings accounts for kids. This guy shows up to the office, tells us about his talks with major US TV networks about making a TV show out of this concept. We of course thought the guy was completely nuts.

Without any kind of support or grants this guy singlehandedly built up a media empire. Their studios in Garðabær has built up HDTV technology and technical staff that you can find in few places in the world.

AND he can do 20 push-ups with one hand, as I experienced at one meeting.

Beat that, Walt Disney!"

Talk about success stories; here are the latest news about Lazy Town (Latibær):


Michael Carrington, head of BBC´s children´s entertainment and Magnús Scheving after signing a 5 year contract.

BBC will start showing Lazy Town on October 3rd, where it is estimated to get 57 million viewers.

We are really proud of this guy here in Iceland!

2 comments:

Johnny Newt said...

Good afternoon greta, I have as a mtter of fact seen Lazytown and I was a little confused and started to feel dizzy , so i'm not a huge fan. If you had to spell "Ífiróttaálfurinn" in english what would it look like?
by the way i can also do 20 push-ups with one hand
I think I've maybe even done 25 or 26, of course thats over the last 35 years not all at once! :D

Unknown said...

Magnus scheving is amazing!