Pertti Pasanen
passed away on the afternoon of
September 7, 2001. According to
MTV3 the 71-year-old Pasanen suffered a
sudden and unexpected
heart attack while playing on the Sarfvik
golf course in
Kirkkonummi, Finland.
"It's about time"
- a random punk teenager on IRC 10 minutes after the story was out
Judging by the general reaction the news have received in IRCnet, many of those currently in their teens do not view the late entertainer as someone who did groundbreaking work on Finnish movie and TV comedy between the 60s and 80s. For them he was just a strange old geezer who produced a few shows only the elderly watched. Not that this would be completely untrue: the cheap and old-fashioned gameshows he ran during his late years certainly didn't enjoy much popularity among the younger viewers. However, it is sad to see the guy's lifelong career disregarded, and himself compared to the likes of Matti Nykänen as a laughable and pathetic character.
Something about the influence and importance of Spede's work might be seen on the readers' columns in our country's TV Guide -type magazines: His old series like Spede Show seem to get as much rerun requests as all the other Finnish programs put together.