Father of Four

Cast

Story origin

In 1947, Hakon Steffensen, editor of the Politiken newspaper wanted to start running a comic strip that depicted typical Danish life. It was his response to the glut of American comic strips flooding the European marketplace in the post-war years. Steffensen asked cartoonist Kaj Engholm for ideas. Engholm then asked his friend, advertising executive Olav Hast, and Hast proposed the father of four idea. Together, Engholm and Hast roughed out the story of a single father of four children with the oldest daughter running the household. The cartoonists agreed that the father would be a single parent without ever creating a back story for the mother absence. She might have died or left the father for someone else. In interviews, whenever the authors were asked, "Where is the mother?", they replied, "I don't know but we promise to look into it."

The comic strip first appeared in 1948 and ran daily for 40 years—on the back page of Politiken until 1955, then in the Berlingske Tidende newspaper until 1988. The text was written by Hast until retired from the strip in 1973, after which it was written by a variety of writers. Engholm drew the strip until his death in 1988.

Sequels

Father of Four was such an enormous success that a sequel Father of Four in the Snow (Far til fire i sneen) was quickly made and released in 1954. Thereafter, seven more sequels were made, one every year until 1961, all directed by Alice O'Fredericks. A ninth film was planned for release in 1962 but was never produced.

In 2005, the series was renewed with the release of Father of Four is Back (Far til fire - gi'r aldrig op) directed by Claus Bjerre and in 2006 with Father of Four: Living Large (Far til fire - i stor stil).