Originally published 2017-06-26.
Unless Donald Trump is somehow included, politics isn’t usually that entertaining. In fact, it’s frequently almost as fun as watching paint dry. However, a TV station in Sweden accidentally discovered a way to make a political debate exciting by putting subtitles from a kid’s TV show. As you can imagine, the results are hilarious.
The unexpectedly interesting debate (that was caught by an Imgur user called TheBlondeSwede) became viral as everyone could see Sweden’s Minister for the Environment welcoming people by saying, as per the subtitles, 'greetings, earth creature,' as well as other weird things. Scroll down, and you'll see what we mean.
Reference: Bored Panda
Two programmes, one accidental joke
The humour depends on a collision between the formal setting and dialogue that plainly belongs somewhere else. A serious expression appears to deliver an absurd greeting, and the viewer briefly reads the two as a single performance. Looking at the pairing makes the mechanism clear: the subtitle changes how the image is interpreted even though the person on screen has not changed what they are saying.
A caption can rewrite a scene
This collection is also an entertaining reminder to distinguish subtitles from the original speech. A screenshot can travel much farther than the programme it came from, particularly once the explanation of the mismatch disappears. Keep that explanation attached when sharing an example. The joke remains funny when everyone knows how it arose, and the people pictured are less likely to be mistaken for having actually said the unrelated lines.
What the subtitles said
The mix-up was already circulating in January 2016. The subtitles came from Dinosaur Train, an American children’s programme about dinosaurs. NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! included it as its true story on 23 January 2016: the environment minister Åsa Romson appeared to greet viewers with “Earth creature” and to wonder which of two pairs of boots to take – “I’m going to ask my dolls” – while Jan Björklund appeared to promise “the best sandcastle in the galaxy” and the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, to announce a “dinosaur train submarine”. Lead Stories, which traced the screenshots to the Imgur user TheBlondeSwede, said the cause seemed to be a technical glitch.
Sources: NPR, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, 23 January 2016: Bluff the Listener (via KEDM) Lead Stories, 4 February 2016: Debate subtitle switch
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