Vintiöt was known for its bizarre characters and absurd humour. Most sketches were simply improvised at the shooting location, with makeshift props and rarely any specially built sets. The show's budget was non-existent. Often the idea of a sketch was the interaction between two absurd characters. Some sketches were also "accelerated" in post production to give the characters a nasal sound. Most often the characters would appear in multiple sketches and episodes, although there were no continuous plot lines. There were also one-off sketches and characters.
The show's original opening credits showed the cast as crew members on a Soviet submarine, performing various tasks and generally running around the mostly dark boat in a frenzy. Incidentally, the same boat was later used in the Harrison Ford film K-19 Widowmaker.
The Estonian Exercise Program
A sports instructor greets the audience cheerfully in fake Estonian and proceeds to present the "warmup" exercise, often very ridiculous. He is backed up by a group of at least four others. The main punchline of the sketch is that the instructor counts from one to four in a funny "Estonian" way. Often he would also deliver short monologues of nonsense while the other members of his team did something incredibly silly in the background.
Rampe and Sirkka
A married couple argue a lot, often the target being an orange Opel Kadett car from the seventies. Several sketches end with either one of them driving the car, and then they show a shot of the same car crashing into a gravel pit. The character's names are also very stereotypical middle-class Finnish names.
Nakkikaverit ("The Sausage Pals")
This sketch revolved around a tiny hot-dog stand selling Finnish meat pies and hamburgers. The small stand had a staff of three chefs, the manager and a female attendant Mirjami. Only the customers' hands were ever shown, and their speech was never heard. Often the character Mirjami had a one-way dialogue with the customer while the others just argued in the background. Most sketches ended with Mirjami declaring "Now you're gonna get punched!"
Varjomiehet (The Silhouette Men)
Two men would walk in a dark street and look through a curtained window to see something terrible happening inside.. The pair would rush inside only to find two men doing something bizarre at the window.
Rane ja Keravan kollit (Rane and the Kerava Tomcats)
Rane is a young man who speaks with an incredibly nasal voice and brags continually to his friends about his adventures with women and trouble with police. His friends are often awed by Rane. In the end of each sketch they would kick at a concrete wall, repeating "Asiaa!"
Moilanen
Mr. Moilanen visits his neighbour, usually driving the poor man crazy. He is most recognizable for his tone of laughing.
Armas Tanska ja Charme (Armas Tanska and Charme)
Armas Tanska is a crazy man who has a large leather mitten as a "pet". Mr. Tanska keeps talking to the mitten in his hand in a high-pitched voice and usually bothers everyone around him.
Two men perform makeshift theatre for an audience of one. All plays have essentially the same plot. One man irritates the other and then the other takes out an imaginary JaTiMaticsubmachine gun and strafes the other man. He immediately regrets and soon gets arrested. After this he announces intermission.
Hundkarusellen (The Dog Carousel)
Two men with very long blond hair answer the phone in their studio and talk about dogs in Swedish. Their pronunciation and language skills in general are very bad, which is the main joke of the entire sketch.
Kyttäruutu (The Cop TV)
The crime reporter Sakari Kaulaote interviews victims of various crimes.
Kesämies (The Summer Man)
The Summer Man is a slick-haired man who appears in various sketches. Often he just recites things he is allowed and not allowed to do in a nasal voice.
Tourists returning home
In this sketch a middle-class couple returns home from a cruise to the Estonian capital city ofTallinn, which is a popular place to visit by the Finns, mostly because you can buy cheap alcohol and fake products there. The couple proceeds to unpack their shopping - a pirate version of the movie Häjyt featuring Samuli Edelmann, one of the show's actors, two cartons of cigarettes Often cursing because they have lost so much money they open a bottle of vodka and lose their eyesight - the bottle was filled with poisonous methanol.
