Gäst hos Hagge = Guest at Hagge's

Gäst hos Hagge was a television series from Gothenburg hosted by witty and charming Hagge Geigert which ran from 30 May 1975 to 1991 with a total of 85 programmes.

Hagge Geigert had a short interview with Stig Anderson and then ABBA sent individual funny messages to Stig one by one. Stig had tears in his eys at the messages and later peformed his song Tivedshambo.

This clip has obviously been broadcast on another programme - possibly another Gäst Hos Hagge programme - because some fan footage shows the clip with the original brown/orange set behind Stig and then changing to a blue background set.

There are also sub-titles on some of the fan footage circulating.  One fan offers this explanation: “The subtitles in the first and the last screen captures (above) are in Swedish, which is quite strange, since Hagge's interview with Stig was in Swedish. However, the subtitles appear in different colours which could indicate the subtitles were meant for those with impaired hearing and those subtitles could have been set via teletext as the font looks very much teletext-like.”

Another fan adds: “It is often so in the Scandinavian countries that programmes that are being re-run (usually on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon or late evening) have subtitles added to them - almost as a standard procedure - to accomodate the hearing-impaired. So perhaps the pictures are from a re-un of the programme? Swedish TV (SVT) is very good at showing reruns 2 or 3 times of a new self-produced programme (like Allsång På Skansen for example) which they then switch between the two national stations within a span of 7-14 days after the original showing.”

It was originally thought that the ABBA clip was filmed in early 1979, just before broadcast, but it is now clear that it was filmed in November 1978.  An article in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, dated 30 August 1978 mentioned the upcoming season of Gäst hos Hagge, which was to be filmed and taped during the autumn.  It said that filming would start on 31 October 1978 and that the programmes would “likely be broadcast November–December”,  which obviously didn’t happen until the beginning of 1979.  In another article (source unknown) dated 8 October 1979, we learned that the tapings would end on 17 November 1978.  Broadcast of the series didn't begin until 13 January 1979. It also seemed that Stig was the penultimate interviewee in the schedule.  So ABBA's contribution was obviously filmed some time before the actual taping of the interview with Stig, since it’s screened during the taping.