What is the historical context for this Finnish "instructional" video on how to open doors correctly?

by Jtwil2191

Question 1, is this video real? If yes...

Question 2, What was going on in Finland in 1979 that there was a perceived need to explain to the public how to accomplish such a simple task?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wof0xPUmW38

RenaissanceSnowblizz

Question the first: Is it real? Well yes. You just watched it right?

You can find the video on the Finnish public broadcasting company's (YLE) site:

https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2007/03/28/hepskukkuu-kuinka-avaan-oven-oikein

Two important things to notice: YLE itself tags the clip with "humour" and "parody". The clip comes from a sketch show produced from 1979-1981 called Hepskukkuu.

Question the one after the question the first: Not much since this is a joke. The sketch pokes fun at instructional videos in general, and mimics the structure and tone of how such a video might look with an actor performing the task and a speaker explaining it off a written script. The humour comes from the juxtaposition of the simplicity, ordinary nature and banality of the task the man performs with perceived seriousness with which it is done. I.e. the format of a teaching video.

Finland as part of the Nordic model countries would produce this type of instructional videos for various parts of society, e.g. when new social phenomena or technical innovations arrived. I can't think of any good examples now of course.

I know there are similar in principle American instruction/educational videos form the 1950s and 60s, some of them rather questionable today of course. I myself could certainly have encountered something like this at school. Just you know, for an actual thing. The fact the sketch is extremely well done and mimics the general (slightly condescending pat-on-the-head) tone (literally in the case of the speaker) made me actually have to fact-check it.

The show was broadcast at a time and day when it wasn't expected as an entertainment show (at the time there would have been few tv channels available and they would follow certain broad guidelines as to when it was appropriate to show certain types of programs) and mimicked the educational content YLE made at the time, specifically making it difficult to spot it's parodical nature as is further explained here:

http://vintti.yle.fi/yle.fi/elavaarkisto/index8739.html?s=s&g=4&ag=29&t=400&a=3480

Where we can also find an interview with the creators. All in Finnish though.