Visit Oslo · NewsLab · Norway · October 2026
Halfdan spent 2024 telling tourists not to bother visiting Oslo. Now he’s back to put them off visiting Oslo for Christmas, too. NewsLab’s ‘It’s Totally Even a City’ gives the deadpan local plenty to complain about, but this time he has to do it in a musical. He complains in verse. A choir threatens to put him on a bonfire. Oslo seems rather more fun than he’d like to admit.
The Challenge
Northern destinations share a winter problem: cold, dark months that sound like a reason to stay away. Visit Oslo, which calls itself the underdog of Nordic city breaks, needed its sequel to sell the season without losing the joke that made the first film famous.
What They Did
Directed again by August Jorfald, with Bendik Aunan back as Halfdan, the film starts as a grumble and becomes a musical. Halfdan complains in verse about bankers who commute on skis and parks overrun by children on sledges. A choir of residents, a troupe of singing children and a scheming rabbit answer him. When he quits and asks for the airport, the choir threatens to burn him on a bonfire and eat him. He concedes he could manage one more week. The lyrics sit on the Visit Oslo homepage, beside Halfdan's 'sort of OK' winter guide.
Why It Works
Oslo gives the microphone to someone who hates the place, and every complaint he makes is a reason to go. Skiing to work and sledging in the park arrive as grievances; viewers hear a city where winter is part of daily life. The sequel lets the city answer back. In 2024 the pictures contradicted Halfdan. Now the residents do it to his face, in song.
Creative Deviance: Unexpectedness
Oslo's ambassador tells you not to bother. The surprise has a purpose: each complaint smuggles in a selling point, so the joke and the brochure are the same thing. And because Halfdan is now Visit Oslo's best-known asset, the grumbling lands on the city rather than on comedy in general.
The Tactic
The Unlikeliest Ambassador → Let the Wrong Ambassador Reject It
What to Steal
When a character works, keep the joke and change the format. Halfdan is exactly as grumpy as he was in 2024. What's new is the musical around him, which gives the city a voice and the sequel a reason to exist. Keep the asset fixed and move everything else.
The Question That Could Get You There
Whose surprising yes or no could prove who we're really for?
Or, more pointedly: who would complain about the very thing we do best, and what would they say?
