The ABBA phenomenon

You hear a lot about how Scandinavians are all crazy for ABBA, the Swedish pop group that sold nearly half a billion records and had huge hits throughout the late 1970s and early 80s. An exaggeration? No.

The film "Mamma Mia!" based on the Broadway musical opened here this summer, and when the stars of the film held a presser in Stockholm, it was front-page news. It wasn't the presence of Hollywood stars like Meryl Streep or Pierce Brosnan that kick-started the frenzy, but the fact that the event had all four members of ABBA together in the same room for the first time in over a decade. Would there be a reunion? A tour?

Like everywhere else in the world, the recent Batman movie "The Dark Knight" was a huge hit here. It's still in theaters, and in the first two months Norwegian theaters sold enough tickets for half the country's 4.5 million residents to see the Batman battle the Joker. It's one of the biggest hits of all time here, just like everywhere else, but...

...the "Mamma Mia!" film has sold over 10 million tickets to 4.5 million Norwegians and is still going strong. After over three months they're still selling enough tickets for 10% of all Norwegians to see the movie EVERY SINGLE WEEK. There are karaoke showings where the audience sings along -- Inki's planning to get together with a friend to go see the karaoke version as soon as both of them have a free night, which is not as often as it used to be since Ella's arrival.

If the rest of the world had the same sort of ABBA mania, "Mamma Mia!" would have doubled the worldwide gross of "Titanic" by now.