Editorial Reviews:
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This video retrospective of the Stan Boreson show was released in the Seattle area around 1991. Stan Boreson toured 25 countries as a young USO musician during World War II. In 1949, he got onto a student-talent show on KING, Seattle's first TV station. From there he got his own weekly variety show. He told Scandinavian-dialect stories, skits and sang corny songs while accompanying himself on accordion and piano. In 1956, KING assigned Boreson to create a kiddie show. He teamed up with Doug Setterberg, who'd been doing his own dialect humor on KOMO's Scandia Barn Dance. Boreson and Setterberg combined their salty-Swede comedy with shticks inspired by comics such as Ernie Kovacs. Setterberg was also Uncle Torvald, the other half of Boreson's drag character Grandma Torvald. Boreson made the live appearances at supermarkets and schools. He sang the opening theme ("Zero-dochus, mucho-crockus, hallazaboobabub, that's the secret password that we use down at the club") Boreson and Setterberg made several "Stan & Doug" albums for national record labels. In addition to their own songs, they remade songs done in the 1940s by Yogi Yorgesson with names like "Freida the Clamdigger's Sweetheart". A Yorgeson song became Boreson's annual holiday tune, "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas." Setterberg got equal billing on the records, but was uncredited on the show except for the final episode in 1968. After the show ended, Boreson made one more Stan & Doug album, singing both parts. They appeared on KING's morning talk show, with Setterberg talking in his electronic voice. Then they lip-synced from the record, with Doug mouthing Stan's impersonation of Doug's former voice. Stan Boreson still preforms and has appeared six times on Garrison Keillor's radio shows. But to know what he was really about, you've got to see the video. It's a pleasant trip to a distinctly Northwest brand of light absurdity.
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