137 Facts About Spede Pasanen

Pertti Olavi "Spede" Pasanen was a Finnish film director and producer, comedian, and inventor, who has been called an "all-around entertainer".

Spede Pasanen was the owner of his own film production company, Filmituotanto Spede Pasanen Ky.

Spede Pasanen was ranked 17th at the Suuret suomalaiset competition show broadcast by Yleisradio.

Pertti Olavi Spede Pasanen was born on 10 April 1930 in Kuopio, to Kusti and Helmi Spede Pasanen.

Spede Pasanen's father was a forestry technician and worked as the district chief of the paper company Ahlstrom.

The nickname "Spede Pasanen" comes from an earlier nickname "Speedy" which he got from playing ice hockey, and was given to him at an early age.

Spede Pasanen was the star of the Kuopio Lyceum's evening programs, played ice hockey with passion and performed chemical experiments in his home's basement.

Spede Pasanen spent the next year doing his military service and completed it with the rank of Sub-lieutenant in the anti-aircraft branch.

Spede Pasanen appeared in the film as a man at a bar.

Spede Pasanen applied to work at Yleisradio twice in 1956 and again in 1959 as an entertainment provider.

Spede Pasanen applied again in 1959 when the popular Niilo Tarvajarvi moved over to television.

Spede Pasanen sent another application which was almost completely identical to his first one, and attached a note "my folder is already there".

Spede Pasanen brought into radio the screwball comedy style he had assumed in the conventions at the Iisalmi Lyceum and at student nation parties.

Spede Pasanen was inspired by American film comedians such as Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye and wanted to bring the swift and clever style of American comedy into Finnish radio.

Spede Pasanen felt right at home in front of a live audience and hosted live performances with ease, whereas many other entertainment providers feared them.

Spede Pasanen's programs were one-hour-long entertainment shows broadcast on Saturday evenings, combining music, sketch comedy and individual jokes.

Spede Pasanen invented Pula-aho's style of talking when he asked Jokela to imitate the quiz show host Tauno Rautiainen.

Spede Pasanen doesn't listen to ready-made tapes by others and make fixes to them, he doesn't create ideas for others, he doesn't sift through scripts.

Spede Pasanen was making more and more of his own entertainment gigs and got into a dispute about his salary with the management board of Yleisradio.

Especially the initiation parties of new students organised by Spede Pasanen gained fame throughout the university and other student nations.

Already at the Kuopio Lyceum Spede Pasanen had assembled a band called Bluff Brothers, consisting of Spede Pasanen himself as well as Pentti Nevaluoma and later Matti Kuusla, who joined the band in Helsinki.

Spede Pasanen auditioned for the part of Antero Rokka in the 1955 film The Unknown Soldier, but the part went to Reino Tolvanen.

In 1958 Spede Pasanen got a unique role: he appeared in the main role at the Finnish National Ballet's version of the novel Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes.

The National Ballet was not looking for a ballet dancer as such for the main role, but instead for an actor who was familiar with pantomime and physical comedy, and Spede Pasanen had made an impression on the choreographer George Ge at the audition.

Since the late 1950s Spede Pasanen started a career at the radio and television.

Spede Pasanen chose his old friend Jukka Virtanen and the young director Ere Kokkonen from Mainostelevisio as his business partners.

Millipilleri introduced moviegoers to Simo Salminen who became a fixture of Spede Pasanen's acting troupe, often playing the side-kick to Spede Pasanen's own characters.

The 1967 period-comedy About Seven Brothers was a parody of Robin Hood which Spede Pasanen had worked on since the 1950s and introduced Vesa-Matti Loiri as an adult actor.

The success of these movies led to Spede Pasanen producing and releasing three movies in 1969, Nakoradiomiehen ihmeelliset siekailut, Leikkikalugangsteri as well as his first colour feature Pohjan Tahteet.

Spede Pasanen was in no hurry to switch to colour film, as he wanted his films to make as much money as possible.

Spede Pasanen had to finance most of his films during this period due to his poor relations with the Finnish Film Foundation.

Jussi Pussi was written and directed by Kokkonen, while Spede Pasanen was responsible for the production but did not appear in the film and was not interested in the plot.

Spede Pasanen found suitable shooting scenes at the sand pits in Hyryla and on the sandy beaches of Yyteri.

Spede Pasanen himself played the role of the lead character Speedy Gonzales, the fastest gun in the west.

Spede Pasanen's company managed to pay off its earlier losses, but at the same time, Spede Pasanen and Kokkonen got into arguments for many years.

In 1971, Spede Pasanen released three motion-pictures, Kahdeksas Veljes and Hirttamattomat both starring himself as well as Saatanan Radikaalit, which was co-directed by its four starring actors Paavo Piironen, Heikki Nousiainen, Timo Nissi and Heikki Huopainen, all fresh from the Helsinki Theatre Academy.

Spede Pasanen only produced this film which was intended to give its four stars a chance to complete a motion-picture on their own.

Regardless, Spede Pasanen won the 1971 Producers' Jussi Award for all three films.

Spede Pasanen started planning a new colour film and to his surprise, he got a loan of 75 thousand markka from the Finnish Film Foundation.

Spede Pasanen ended up using the loan to cover the losses caused by Hirttamattomat.

In 1973, Spede Pasanen released the first Uuno Turhapuro movie based on the popular skit-character by the same name.

Spede Pasanen resumed filming small budget comedies with 1974's Viu-Hah-Hah-Taja, directed by Ere Kokkonen and mostly starring Spede Pasanen's TV actors.

Spede Pasanen only appeared in a cameo and went uncredited as the film's writer.

Spede Pasanen cranked out movies on an annual basis, using his stock actors and frequently utilizing the popular skit characters for movies such as Kliffaa Hei, Pikkupojat, Fakta Homma and Onks Viljoo Nakyny.

The final movie directed by Spede Pasanen was Naisen Logiikka, released in 1999 though production of it began in 1992.

The film was hastily completed for release to prevent Spede Pasanen from having to pay back his grant for the movie.

Spede Pasanen thought it was a matter of honour to make films for the whole family, and the films never showed any nudity or contained any profanity.

However, the director of the advertisement studio that had filmed the commercials featuring him announced he could not stand the "Spede style", so Pasanen made a suggestion to Mainostelevisio to make a program all of his own.

Only parts of these early Spede Pasanen shows have survived, because MTV3 could not afford many expensive picture tapes and thus had to record new shows on top of old ones.

Spede Pasanen appeared on TV continuously until 1976 when he started to focus primarily on film work.

Spede Pasanen began making new skits in 1984 with Spede, Simo Salminen and Vesa-Matti Loiri.

The new Spede Pasanen Show continued to air until 1987 when Spede Pasanen and Loiri had a mock-feud which led to the launch of Vesa-Matti Loiri's own TV sketch show, Vesku Show.

Spede Pasanen wanted a trustworthy long-time partner for his sketches to perform comedy with.

Spede Pasanen ended up pairing himself with Simo Salminen, who was already a famous show jumper in the 1960s.

Spede Pasanen produced more drama-programming such as Hynttyyt Yhteen, Blondi tuli taloon, and Ihmeiden tekijat.

Spede Pasanen approved the production of the dramedy-series Kuumia Aaltoja, which aired in 2003.

Spede Pasanen had a principle of defining the limits of good taste himself.

The sketch shows were always made with the content first and without any definite overall view, and Spede Pasanen seldom paid attention to the filming or other artistic viewpoints.

Since the latter half of the 1960s Spede Pasanen made comedy films he had written himself under his own production company almost every year; often he would make two or three films during the same year.

The character Uuno Turhapuro played by Loiri, who had already starred earlier in the Spede Pasanen Show in 1971, soon became a popular sketch character.

The character appeared in about 20 sketches until Spede Pasanen started thinking if there would be enough material for a film.

Spede Pasanen began making a script and managed to entice Ere Kokkonen back to his team.

Spede Pasanen quit his ten-year-old TV show in 1974 after getting in an argument with the show director.

Spede Pasanen contemplated taking a year off from making films, but instead decided to make a film about the new fashion of streaking with new stars.

Spede Pasanen did not intend to make a sequel to the Turhapuro film, but after its huge success, he reconsidered the possibility.

The film Viu-hah hah-taja had made a considerable profit, but Spede Pasanen did not see it as a full hit considering its content.

Spede Pasanen understood that the public was fond of the Turhapuro character, so from 1975 to 1978 he wrote and produced a new Turhapuro film every year, and they were huge successes each.

Spede Pasanen distanced himself from the films and in 1979 he made a new film Koeputkiaikuinen ja Simon enkelit without Kokkonen as a director.

Spede Pasanen made a sequel for it in the same pattern called Tup-akka-lakko, inspired by Spede Pasanen failing to quit smoking.

In 1981 Spede Pasanen publicly expressed his frustration at the Finnish Film Foundation not granting financial support for his films despite his applications.

Spede Pasanen even went as far as to invite a newspaper photographer to witness the fulfilment of his threat.

Ilta-Sanomat wrote prominently about it right on the front page and in the article itself with a series of photographs, where Spede Pasanen cut up a series of film reels into pieces with an axe at the floor of his storage room.

Later it became apparent that when the photographer was present, Spede Pasanen had only really destroyed a couple of ready-to-show film reels of his films while the original negatives had survived.

Spede Pasanen continued as the CEO of the new fusion company and wanted to hire Ere Kokkonen who had moved over to MTV as the chief of production.

In 1982 Pasanen planned on restarting Spede Show, but Vesa-Matti Loiri's problems with time prevented this.

Two collective episodes of Spede Show were made in the spring of the same year, showing old black-and-white sketches and intermediary speeches by Pasanen, Simo Salminen and Vesa-Matti Loiri in colour.

Pasanen stopped producing Spede Show in December 1987 and instead started producing new shows about his lifelong passion: various games.

Spede Pasanen invented and designed one of the longest-lived quiz shows in the history of Finnish television, Kymppitonni, in 1984, when the pilot episodes of the show were shot.

Regardless of this, Spede Pasanen kept on making a new Turhapuro film every year from 1990 to 1993.

Spede Pasanen took a huge risk in making the film Uuno Turhapuron veli that did not feature Loiri at all and instead starred Esko Salminen as the lead male actor.

The film was a complete flop just like the creators had expected, and so Spede Pasanen decided that there would be no new Turhapuro films without Loiri.

In 1993 Spede Pasanen began producing the drama comedy series Blondi tuli taloon written by Elina Halttunen for MTV3, which was followed by the two hospital series Ihmeidentekijat and Parhaat vuodet.

In 1995 Spede Pasanen caused a surprise with the Bingolotto game show he had produced for Yle TV1 incorporating Veikkaus.

In spring 1996 Spede Pasanen wrote and produced 23 episodes of the Uuno Turhapuro series which fell short of its expectations.

In 1998 Spede Pasanen was forced to finish the film off to avoid having to pay his support grant back to the Finnish Film Foundation.

Spede Pasanen said at the time that Naisen logiikka will come to the theatre but no one was allowed to go see it.

The threshold to start producing them again was too high after Spede Pasanen had already begun to lose his confidence.

The last episode of Speden Spelit hosted by Pasanen himself was shown on television on 6 September 2001, one day before Pasanen's death.

Spede Pasanen was planning a new television series about inventions, but this never went to production.

Spede Pasanen named Bob Hope as one of his biggest comedy influences.

Spede Pasanen is considered emblematic of Savonian ironic humor varying between the fullest extremes of understatement and hyperbole.

Spede Pasanen was an inventor and jack-of-all-trades; he submitted dozens of patent applications, of which ten were registered, and many of his films include Rube Goldberg-style gadgets.

Spede Pasanen was related to singer Kaija Koo and to actor Antti Holma.

Actor Veijo Spede Pasanen was Spede Pasanen's distant relative, a seventh cousin.

Spede Pasanen lived in the Lauttasaari district of Helsinki from 1956 up to his death in 2001.

When Spede Pasanen was starting the production of his first starring picture X-Paroni, he was looking for a suitable female actress.

Spede Pasanen visited a party of the advertisement association of Turku in March 1964 and fell in love with Pirjo Vainimaki who was selling lottery tickets there.

Vainimaki got a part in Spede's first film of his own and in the next year she became Mrs Pasanen - they were married on 14 July 1965.

Spede Pasanen told in an interview by Apu magazine in 1981 that their marriage was still ongoing even though she and Pertti lived at different addresses.

Spede Pasanen had an eye for feminine beauty and he often dated beauty pageants.

Spede Pasanen had a long relationship with the 1976 Miss Europe, Riitta Vaisanen.

Spede Pasanen got Vaisanen a part in his next film Lentavat luupaat and planned a television quiz show for her own called Kymppitonni.

Spede Pasanen valued loyalty and friendship, and even after separation, kept employing and financially supporting previous companions.

In 1997, Spede Pasanen appointed the 1997 Miss Finland runner-up Maria Drockila as the CEO of his companies.

Spede Pasanen wanted to make Drockila a figurehead for his companies, but in reality he still held control over them himself from the background.

Spede Pasanen had a few arguments with some of the journalists, which they felt were threatening.

Already in the 1970 Spede Pasanen disowned the magazine publisher Urpo Lahtinen, and after that Spede Pasanen's name was never mentioned in Hymy magazine any more.

Salminen became Spede Pasanen's trusted actor and a comedic partner for his television shows.

Salminen and Spede Pasanen remained close friends in private life and were partly business partners.

At the time, Pasanen became the victim of fraud, when his business partner Timo T Kaukonen abused mortgage payments and disappeared into Spain.

In summertime, Spede Pasanen did not want to leave Finland, but since the late 1970s he started spending wintertime in Florida, where he acquired two apartments for his free time.

In Florida Spede Pasanen became interested in golf, which he became so enthusiastic about that it replaced many of his other hobbies at the time.

One of the targets of his aggression was Isto Lysma, the editor of Nyrkkiposti, who published a fake story about a relationship between Spede Pasanen's trusted actor Ville-Veikko Salminen and 1968 Miss Finland Leena Brusiin.

Spede Pasanen demanded that Lysma write a correction, threatening him with the revenge of the group "Musta kasi" that he had founded.

Spede Pasanen made a similar threat to Urpo Lahtinen, at which point the temperamental Lahtinen drew a puukko knife from his pocket and struck its point into the table in front of Spede Pasanen.

Spede Pasanen got into a scandal in autumn 1986 when the police suspected that about two hundred Finns had taken Finnish currency abroad to the United States illegally in order to buy an apartment or to engage in business.

When buying free time apartments in Florida in 1979 Spede Pasanen had taken 12 thousand US dollars and 4 thousand Finnish markka to the United States.

One of Spede Pasanen's hobbies was backgammon which he did well at on an international level.

Spede Pasanen became the Finnish champion in backgammon in 1979.

Spede Pasanen took part in international backgammon tournaments in West Germany, Spain and the United States.

Spede Pasanen was quick to get angry and calm down, preferred to keep to himself and was social only with people he knew closely.

Spede Pasanen had a lifetime habit of smoking, which he started in 1958 when he got a role in the ballet Don Quijote.

Spede Pasanen had previously been sportsmanlike, but chainsmoked cigarettes and drank about four litres of full-fat milk every day.

Spede Pasanen was aware of his weak condition, so he decided to sell off his entire entertainment empire and only concentrate on the things he felt were most important for himself: golf and new inventions.

On 7 September 2001 Spede Pasanen was playing a round of golf at the Sarfvik golf course in Kirkkonummi, Finland.

Spede Pasanen lay down on the couch at the lobby of the club house, where he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Spede Pasanen's death was attributed to advanced coronary artery disease.

Spede Pasanen is buried at the "Artists' Hill" at the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.

Spede Pasanen died very wealthy, and his daughter Pirre Alanen inherited almost the entirety of her father's wealth of about 10 million euro.

From 1998 to 1999, Spede Pasanen had lent Maria Drockila a total sum of 1.85 million markka for a period of 30 years without interest.

Alanen and Drockila had an argument about paying the inheritance tax and about the sum of 220 thousand markka that Spede Pasanen lent Drockila after making his will.

From 2005 to 2008 almost all surviving episodes of the sketch comedy Spede Pasanen Show were published on DVD.

In 2009, the short-lived channel SuomiTV took it into its programming for a few years, after which Spede Pasanen's name disappeared from the credits of Finnish television programmes forever.

Spede Pasanen appeared as one of the characters in the board game Steampunk Rally Fusion by the Canadian game publisher Roxley Games Laboratory in spring 2020.

Spede Pasanen usually ignored criticism towards him, but in a way he got back to his criticisers.

Spede Pasanen is considered the father of modern Finnish television sketch-humour.

In 2023, a biopic feature-length film, Spede Pasanen, directed by Aleksi Delikouras and starring Riku Nieminen in the title role, was released.