Web Series ‘STD: Oddfjord’ Brings Violence, Comedy to YouTube [INTERVIEW]

If you loved “Hot Fuzz” (I’m talking about the Edgar Wright movie here, buddy), then buy a Lotto ticket, because today is your lucky day. Recently debuted on YouTube, the new web series “STD: Oddfjord” gets straight up big-city-cop-in-the-crazy-dirty-little-city-violent and firmly positions Norway as a contender on the Internet’s comedy landscape. Who knew?

STD (which stands for Small Town Detectives): Oddfjord comes from the Norwegian comedy duo Pistol Shrimps and is a slick ode to the cliche of hard cops doing bad things the old-fashioned way. The plot is simple enough: an overwhelmed New York City detective begs for a transfer to something a little less violent, so captain ships him off on the “cop exchange” program (that’s a thing?) to a sleepy-sounding hamlet named “Oddfjord.” Instead of idyllic small-town bliss, the hell he inherits comes at the end of blazing gunfire and the hardest European detectives to ever wear the mustache. Think Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” by way of “Natural Born Killers.”

Dave T. Koenig (pronounced Kay-nig), who stars as the beleaguered American transplant detective appropriately also named “Dave,” shot the shit with NMR recently about working “the beat” in the fictional town of “Oddfjord, Norway.” “I never knew much about Norway except for the fact that it wasn’t Finland, and it wasn’t Sweden. But … I’d love to go back whether it was work-related or not.”

The series, which has shot eight episodes so far, is the brainchild of Stian Hafstad, a Norwegian filmmaker who studied at Columbia University and one half of the Pistol Shrimps. Be sure to watch my interview with him (down below) in order to find out, amongst other things, just how a Norwegian web comedy series has an American star and is filmed entirely in English. “Stian seemed to have written a character that spoke exactly as I speak,” says Koenig, who met the Hafstad through contacts as Columbia. “I don’t know if that was a coincidence, or if I somehow inspired the character, but it fit like a glove.”

If gun-wielding grannies in mechanized wheelchairs seems like your cup of tea, then by all means, find your way to “STD: Oddfjord.”