Comedy Roundtable

Greipur Hjaltason - Comedian from Iceland named Icelandic Comedian of the Year

October 04, 2022 Greipur Hjaltason Season 8 Episode 74
Comedy Roundtable
Greipur Hjaltason - Comedian from Iceland named Icelandic Comedian of the Year
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Show Notes Transcript

Greipur Hjaltason comes all the way from Iceland to pull up a chair to the Comedy Roundtable. It was pretty cool, as Greipur likes to say.  Comedian Bill Burr has said Greipur is funny as hell and has a crazy laugh, which Greipur puts on full display during our conversation. Is there an app that Icelandic folks use to confirm if they are dating a relative? Do Icelandic people believe in elves? What does the fox say? Greipur tackles these compelling questions and more while answering queries from episode topics "Witch, Please," "European Vacation," and "Not a Chance."

Check out Greipur's videos on Instagram and Tik Tok, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers who are treated to his quick quips about Icelandic life. 

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greipjokes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greipjokes/

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Ladies and gentleman, comedy roundtable these are great questions. Yes, good comedian a math question. Really good question. Thank you. This is so much fun you guys. That is a good question. And that lightning round was so fun. That's a really good question. comedy fans con versation enthusiast it is a brand new episode of the comedy roundtable pull up a chair settle in. We have a great conversation for you this episode. Let's get this party started. Jamie Bendel Jamie, Hernan, Adam. Hey look at you getting in on the game. I appreciate that. Usually you're so negative about him giving me the big intro. I just figured people deserve to hear it in stereo. I didn't even know that our podcast was available in stereo. Yeah, it is actually. And actually, if you put the SAP button, it's available in Spanish. We have saved a cheer for you our listener and we've also saved a chair here at the roundtable for our guest this evening. raper helped us if you could grab a chair. We have saved space for you here for both you and our guest who is joining us from Iceland. Yeah, we are international. We actually produce a high number of international comedy podcasts we do. I don't know what the average is for how many international guests most comedy podcasts have, but we have got to be in the top percentile for the Eurovision of podcasts. So it's like what 130 In the morning for you to 245 in the afternoon. It's 40 minutes over midnight. I always get pm and I am confused. Yeah, me too. Because I always felt that a M was after midnight. But Vicki period and it was like a plot. It's like some locked in stuff or something. It is Oh Now hold on a second. I could embrace am being after midnight and pm being pre midnight. That's pretty easy to remember. Okay, quick change to Wikipedia. We'll make that make sure we're on it while it's 40 past midnight. Midnight. We appreciate you joining us. Yeah, no problem. My pleasure. We were talking before we began the episode that you're busy with some friends doing some gaming. No, I was just killing time before this thing. If I was not gonna do this thing. I would have just got to sleep. So it was a good thing. Well, so we're gonna pay off this. It's gonna be a big payoff loss. Yeah, a quick overview. I saw when we were doing some research for the episode or stand up of the year for 2020 right here. It was in February 2020. Right before COVID date and I want Icelandic champion of Iceland. No standard champion of Iceland Iceland picture of Iceland. Of course, there are some really established comedians that were not participating in that. You know, you can't you can't downplay your win. No, come on. Like my entire field. The entire feet. Yeah, no, no, it was pretty cool. It was a it was in a big theater. And it was a lot of people and I killed it with myself. And I'm still really annoyed that there was no mic in the audience. They didn't mind the audience. That No, the only mic was in the mic I was using Oh, no. So it was like one of yeah, you can still hear the last because the people were crawling know what it was it was seriously one of the best sets of my life and just everything clicked together. And I was really prepared for it. So that annoyed that she thought of me put some put some mics in this I slept this like many years after you guys in when it comes to stand up. You know we're not you know, we don't know how to do this. Now hold on a second. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. First of all, I'm not going to tell you about comedy in your own country. But having said that, it would seem as though a funny is always funny, right? So laughter isn't new to Iceland? No, no, there's no one laughing Iceland we have some really good comment committee and stuff like that but like recording us recording like competition and stuff like that. People are not really thinking about putting a mic in the audience. So I guess like it's this technically speaking we're not really we don't really know what we're doing but so average average AV production person difficulty finding a job in the US should consider movie king of audio visual production. Yes. Timing of that competition though. If things have gone really south with COVID You might have gone down in history as a last last The Last Stand Up Champion of Iceland so format of our show, is we do several kinds of rapid fire subjects. So we're gonna give you three potential topics you are going to choose to okay, we're going to do them one at a time. So Topic number one which please not a chance or a European vacation now which please might also be which please. Am I supposed to pick like one of those? Well, what was it European occasion European vacation, which please, or not a chance, everything but the European thing. So which one you want to go first? The first one. Now, I will also say for the record, we have had many international guests, when we come up with topic definitions, we don't necessarily think of them in terms of pawns on American idioms. Right, which this is one. So it's entirely possible that this whole line of questions will literally get lost in the translation. But go ahead. Yeah, there we see. All right. All right, starting with Jamie. Alright, so you have upset the town witch. And so unfortunately, she is going to turn you into an animal. However, she likes you. So she lets you pick the animal. Which animal do you choose? And why? Just like a simple MC or something. Chimpanzee? Yes. Why the chimpanzee? Because I would freak out to be a goldfish, right? Yeah, that would be a really bad to be a goldfish. Good point. So you're going to understand about 98% of being a chimpanzee, right? My wife would probably just find me more attractive because I would be in a better shape. So do you have your chimpanzees in Iceland? I think not. They've never seen one. So you will be famous as the chimpanzee of Iceland. People will come from where you can sell tickets. And yeah, you kind of would have licensed to win unhappy rip people's faces off, right are happier actually. No, I think there's an assumption excited, happy. Yeah, the downside would be the flinging of the poo. Now chimpanzees are who flavors. Oh, I thought that was the thing. No. Like, what I have in my brain are just a simple fish brain. That's also a question your brain, my brain? Yeah. Yeah. It'd be a little frustrating with your brain stuck in a goldfish tank. You would have to I would try to drown myself. Just like I just gotta get into the air. I have a question. A follow up question. Do some research for tonight's episode. I did take a quick perusal through your Facebook page. Yes. And there is a small child I believe to perhaps be yours. Yes, that is playing with an animal that I could not recognize. Is it a like? I couldn't tell if it was a dog or Oh, it was a fox? It was a fox? Yeah. Is that a pet Fox? No. But it's my girlfriend is from the north, south east east of Iceland. And we've been there for a couple of weeks and they packed it the fox they're like it's called Elvin Goodwin. The fox is small. I don't know what the small like a young foxes called. But it'll be good. So like if you catch them young, they just they just like, there's like there's like a couple of guesthouses. They're like, couple of little red blood, quiet. Coffee, Little Red houses. You can rent one of them. And it's like pretty cool. And it's just mountains and ocean and Icelandic nature. But the the one or the English came there and they packed it in basically. So yeah, it was like Fox domesticated, for sure. It was interesting. I'm like, I have no idea what this animal is. Yeah, it was pretty cool. We went we went there because we heard heard about them in the news. And we were like, in the town. And it took us like 11 hours to try. They're serious. We're there for a couple of years. It's on the other side of Iceland. And we were staying there with my girlfriends grandmother and and we heard this folks on the news. They were like, Oh, we have to look for him. And we went to look for him and saw him and it was cool. Interesting. He's a famous Fox. It's famous Fox. Yeah, like like not patting foxes everywhere in Iceland. So he came on the news and we were there. So okay. They interviewed the fox. What does the fox say? Was that like a reference to a song? What does the fox say? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say actually listen to the song earlier today. So yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So yeah. Do you have you have witches in Icelandic mythology, right? No, no, no, we've got more of electrophiles Okay, I'd like a big old ladies in the mountains that turned into stone and stuff like that. You know when they get this and in Iceland, you have like 13 Santa Clauses. Yeah. And their mother she is called like grilled cheese like pick her know that she will like steal the babies and make soup out of them and stuff like that. It's like always like it's always some horrifying stuff like that. But your Hallmark Channel at Christmas time has got to be brutal Can you pet them? Yeah. Yeah. Third cat will like eat your eat. Do if you're not well dressed enough and stuff like that. Oh, and they stop because been taught to death by Icelandic comedians, I wanted it because it's just, it's like the first thing that every Icelandic committed comes up with because it's just so surreal, you know, kind of killed the poor Icelandic job and moves to the US and just goes through a mall and Mrs. Claus just happens to be there. And we don't have Miss Santa. We don't have her but we have like 13 Santa Clauses. Are they single centers? Yeah. And they like it like 13 days before Christmas. One of them will come and then the next one and they're all have like stupid names. Like, look a guy here like window picker and stuff like that window window. Yeah, it's all it's all really creepy. If you think about it, you know? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. We got a significant warning from our guest Graper. Who was the champion comedian of his country? Yes. For the year. Yes. And he said very clearly. It is hacky low hanging easy comedic fruit to hang out with to talk about all the craziness with the 13th Santos and even though he just said one of them is a peeping Tom criminal. We should not go there. Because we will sound like underperforming new Icelandic comedians. I don't know where to go that if I know I want to I want to hear. Is there a possibility that Gregor was talking to his friends beforehand, and he was like, What rumors could I spread across? He's like, I want to make sure we're gonna. Like there's this woman. People who don't trust well. There's all these 13 Different Santos it's like Hanukkah, but for Santa I love the fact that the Classic family drama mother of all Santos Yes. was so aggressive as a parent that all 13 of her children decided just to bring joy and happiness and she overcompensates by stealing children. Yes. Yeah. And then it's her husband that's called black balloon it's basically a like and he's basically a side character but we look we don't do anything about it is all husbands are left balloon. All Looby loo there's like a nerd. Let me just say oh my god. So hypothetically, hold on a sec. I don't want to talk about these standards. To this like a little pirates have one I know like, know what pilots every front. Yeah, I pad so it's like a Pat's nerd that says if my children all grew up to be Santas, yes, I would be big timing. Any parent that wanted to tell me about their children's accomplishments? Oh my god, right. Oh, my kid hit the homerun. Really my children deliver toys all around the world. To children with kids, a doctor who just graduated from Stanford, right? I gave birth to 13 Santas. 13 Santa and my children went into the Santa business, and I heard one of her kids a window looker. First of all, listen, some of them are a little awkward about how they go about giving their presents. He's a pirate slash nerd. Now that's me. I poked my eye out my he's friggin ELLs are always coming to Europe. Oh my turn. Which which please. All right. I have never ever had a sandwich in Iceland. If I wanted to have the ultimate Icelandic sandwich. What would be on it? It would be roast beef sandwich. What? roast beef sandwich that seems so common. Like fish or something like it's it's many people like shrimp salad tuna and stuff like that. That's what you get to the store or roast beef sandwich and with like pickles roast beef or ramola I don't know you want to use me on roast beef sandwiches or what? You're making the sandwich not me. I am the one coming for like you don't know what it is. That's what we put on hotdogs here so it's an MLA pickles. Roast beef and stick delay Correct. Also we put that on hotdog. So it's fried on your own? Yeah. So what kind of bread? Oh, but wait seems to be nice that just the normal white bread you know, but essentially a nice that you have to drink it with cocoa milk. That's like a combo people use chocolate milk. Yeah, so it's always nice guys to chocolate milk. Yeah. Roma wire with pears and fried onions fried onions. When we go to Iceland to visit we're gonna be going into the store placing that order and Grinders gonna be in a corner and giggling So what brought you to Iceland? to track down the 13 Santa Clauses? You've been talking to? Oh, yes, the 13 but by the way, I am going to forever never call someone a peeping Tom. I'm gonna be like, the window speaker. Oh, window PK, just window beacon, Ellen windows. For the audience it I recommend googling the 13. Icelandic said the closest and there's probably someone on Google has translated all their names that are pretty, pretty hard to recommend windows. We are that's a great place to end round one. Our comedian is Graper he helped to Zune just the song so we will be back with more of our guests in just a moment comedy roundtable. Jamie, Jamie and Adam don't go too far. In America, they say that if you're not ready to do the time, don't commit the crime. But then I slept we just say to the crime because nothing rhymes with clipboards. How many parents does it take to raise a child? One thing's for nothing Papa. They say that the average gorilla penis is approximately four centimeters. And I thought maybe we should give Starving Children food before we mature gorilla ticks. My biggest fear is that my roommate will invite the child to elope It's my biggest fear. In Iceland, if you want to take the family member all you need to do is make them fall in love with you and use concepts a lot of people asked me what is the best time to come to Iceland and it's the future a lot of people think Icelanders say use this to see if they're related before intercourse but that's not true. We check after the sex a lot of people think Icelanders believe in elves but the everybody knows there are no elves here. They're extinct. County round table Jamie Bendele Jamie Hernan Anna. Hey, we are midway through our show or so with a guest who is joining us from Iceland. Normally we're in the diner at the punch line comedy club in Atlanta, Georgia. But this evening we have a special guest sun hasn't even gone down and it is just a fraction of an hour away from being 1am where he is we were talking before the break about the 13 Yule Lads that Iceland has which by the way were banned officially in 1746. Parents were no longer able to torment their kids with Monster stories about these particular creatures, so says Smithsonian Magazine, and here are their names. Sheep coat, Claude gully Gok, who steals phone from the bucket of cow milk obviously stubby spoon liquor, pod Scraper with a spoon liqueur do he licks spoons. Pot scraper apparently steals unwashed pots. I'm glad you didn't ask what stubby does. It go step by step b is actually stupid at basically a tour of or like a tiny person. Yeah, and he's short and he steals food from frying pan. I thought stubby I'm in the middle of reading this. Bowl liqueur Doorslammer. Sky gobbler sausage. Swiper. Oh. Jamie also underfoot he does. What does he do? I think he'd stolen sausages. Sausage and students favorite window paper no paper and door sniffer? Dogs sniffer? That's not right. That's what it says he has a huge nose and insatiable appetite for stolen baked goods. No I like I'm not up to date to the center law for the Meat Hook and candle beggar. You can't look back and catch the sneaky Yeah, it's cool. That's amazing. So hold on a second grabber. This also might be of some interest to you next link down here in the Smithsonian magazine.com Which I'm reading from it actually says some Icelanders are accidentally dating relative and now there's an app for that. Yes, no. If there is, if there's one thing that Icelandic a committee, I said more about them The third theme song the fact that we are all facing each other. Even I have a joke about it, so yeah, but like there's one famous guy I'm here in Iceland really really famous and he had like a wife and babies and everything and then they realized that they had like, oh like your grandma and my great grandma or sisters. It's like what do you need? Do we have babies already? We're not going to and the babies are healthy and nice. You mean it's pretty it's pretty rare it's pretty rare like like like 10 15% of relationships. I've had sex with more than two girls and it's never happened to me it's like the old joke that says 50% of all marriages end in divorce so if you're as having your wife's probably will rapper didn't tell you is that all of the 13 Santa Clauses are brothers and also cousins I've had some unfair silence and stairs and I just want to say uncommon word it's all that I'm getting across in the audio of the episode but I will all right. What is the app What is the name of the the app is a bit of a myth? Because I've never seen this app in action because but it's really not a problem like people go downtown they find someone and they will be like Oh nice. You want to fork and like and they just do it right there in the street. The coolest place ever 13 Santa Clauses in the streets like you get my pet foxes pet foxes the fun game though after the sex though is you both call your parents and see the same phone rings no stairs from grade 10 Again I didn't I missed the fun game after two people have sex in Iceland as they decide they're going to call their parents and see if the same phone rings on the two minutes away from being told by Jamie that he's shutting down his law practice and he's moving to Iceland to become a stand up is pretty cool there are population sample is one but Jamie crushes it among Icelanders I don't think he's ever gotten this No Yeah, it's probably it's probably the acid that took before he killed him Yeah, so I started sweating mushroom season now so it's probably the season there. I haven't found any you know, but they are here no peach season here. What's Pete? Peaches? Oh yeah, like the fruit my girlfriend bought a six pack of fruit for the first time yesterday. I'm looking forward to throw that in the trash where it's like rotten weed in my house we play the game of who's going to wash the fruit and no one wins every time. Yeah, like no one washed it so Okay, yeah, we're now we're just buying it at the grocery store and then throwing it in the trash can right by the cashier. Okay, he's killing it but I will admit if he's on acid he's here and totally I've got to go I love it. Yeah. But maybe you should just throw it into the trash before you like pay for it you know doing that and supermarkets thrown him out the hips to kicking him out of the market. Alright, so we have Hold on a second remaining. Can you just I'm gonna get a book my flight Iceland. Remaining topics here for you to choose from not a chance or European vacation. Not a chance not a chance starting a European vacation. If you are an acid this question will make a lot of sense if you are not. I haven't used one of these type of questions in a while. So Adam and Jamie can check out for a little bit. A battle is underway in comedy roundtable Creek in one corner. We have a beaver it'd be a fox if you want that has just finished building a fortress of a dam. Okay, so this beaver has built this incredible dam. So it can't really be up folks get it. That is that is a that is a fair point. Although I don't want to underestimate the fox. It did manage. It's got a good marketing team. So in the next corner, we have an alligator but the alligator has opposable thumbs, opposable films, it has a sentence right. The alligator is able to make tools. Oh, yeah, hit the thumbs down. And finally we have Tara Reed. Do you know Tara Reed is? Yes, but I'll have to google her again. Is he black or white? She is white. Mallory Wait, I don't her wait, let me google it. I don't tell her It instead of Tara Reid, we will say that we have Hillary Clinton. You know, Hillary Clinton this Yeah. Oh, I know everything about Hillary Clinton. Okay. That bit that was the reaction I thought I get for Tara Reid. Hillary Clinton. Alright, so we've got a beaver that has built the fortress of a dam. We have an alligator that can build tools and give you the thumbs up and we have Hillary Clinton who wins the battle between those three, Hillary Clinton because he calls the FBI brings them in. Yeah. True. Hey, what are you saying? Okay, so Hillary Clinton, she calls in the FBI. Right? Yeah. Okay. And goes after the alligator or the beaver or just sits goes after both? Yes. Both of them. Yeah. Yeah. Seems like dirty play. Yeah. What do you got? Okay, for Not a chance. That's not my favorite question of all time of ask. Okay. So not a chance. I think for your entertainment here. We're going to have the question, come back to the hosts. And we are going to actually play a little game called Not a chance in that I want to see how many rounds we can go naming cities in Iceland. I will start with Reykjavik. Go ahead. Jamie. Avec. No, go ahead. Yeah, I did. So there is only one more safety. I think, technically, you need 20,000 people for safety. And there's only one more Are you serious? There's only one more city with 20,000 people in it. Ha civic No, no crucifix. Little like 2000 people who saw equal or like 1000 or something. So awesome. I'm moving to Iceland. It's an hour from who so so what you're telling us is that Jamie's comedy tour may not necessarily be very long. If he's multi city. I think I've done stand up in North America. It was fun. Yeah. What is the comedy club scene like in Iceland? The the comedy scene was getting really, really good before COVID it? Yeah, we had like shows pretty much every day on this club called Secret cellar downtown. It was always packed and older students do everything in English, blah, blah, blah. And COVID just killed it. We tried to try it and try it. But COVID just killed it. But it's getting back up. It's getting back up. And now I can do like open mics at least twice a week, maybe three times if I really want to my question to you under not a chance is what is your favorite kind of gambling. I like poker. I'm not a gambler. But like Texas Hold'em and stuff like that. I really liked that I started playing that the next books back in the day and just like it was for no money, so I would just go in there and just fuck or other people tell jokes while I was playing and stuff like that. And what's great is gambling legal in Iceland, like slot machines and poker and that it's this place downtown. And you go in there, and we got like, hundreds of slot machines and I'm just thinking who is doing this? We don't have like, we have one slot machine for every person in Iceland in this fucking room. And there's nobody that how is this possible? But I think a lot of people are wasting away their money. No, you know what the hardest thing about gambling probably is in Iceland is that you can go into the casino and it's daylight and you can come out and it's daylight stay late. Then I hear ya two hours. It's pretty very near for two hours. Yeah. What do you think are the greatest misconceptions that people have about Iceland? The believing elves but you don't you believe in trolls not elves? No, we don't believe it or not we don't believe in elves and and we don't fuck or relatives that much yes, yeah, but it definitely the elves thing we hear a lot but like yeah, we heard like, oh, we have polar bears that are no polar bears. No Penquin Screenland This is not the screen most of the time. You know, it's all all that stuff you've probably heard before. Yeah, it's pretty popular tourist destination. Yeah, tourists love it and like it's I understand why like if you if you live in like Tokyo or New York and go to Iceland, then it's just like, nothing but monitors everywhere you look it's like a weird experience. No houses, nothing just rocks and mountains for where you can see that's pretty cool. Like, but I grew up with it. So it's not like, great. You go to New York and you like it's buildings as far as you can see. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, this has been a treat. I'm thrilled about the episode only for the fact that I have discovered the country that Jamie is funniest and we're funny. Yeah, we I have so Jamie does coordinate a lot of the booking stuff for us sometimes and I have a feeling this is the first of many episodes. You should alert your friends in the Icelandic comedy community. Hey, I'd be getting reached out to by Jamie. Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, it was. It was great. It was fun it was it was fun if we wanted to remind people where they could find you. It's what great jokes on Instagram, Instagram. I'm blowing up on Facebook on Instagram pretty good. So it should be able to find me there. Let's use the G R E i p jokes. So it's just the first start of my name crepe jokes. Great jokes. All right, well, we wish you continued success as far as I'm concerned. You are the ones and always stand up champion of Iceland indeed. Long may you rain. Yeah. Thank you for that. I will just keep doing jokes you know, and this was pretty fun. We appreciate it get some rest. Well, I'm more hyped up now. Now. There's gonna be some more video games. But yeah, nice to meet all of you. All right, thanks, buddy. We appreciate it for Jamie, Jamie Adam and great for her. This is put your chairs away and we will see you next episode.