At the beginning of the 1930s, in Joensuu, Esa acquired a five-line accordion from a rectified spirits trading bootlegger and then joined an amateur band called Keskiyö ("Midnight").

Esa used to fooling around with his tour partners without dentures; later, that toothless side character got a name from Reino Helismaa: Severi Suhonen.

[4] Pakarinen played for some time in the orchestra of the Jyväskylä Workers' Association and in the re-introduced accordion trio, until he moved to Lahti with his second wife, Orvokki Vesaranta.

It is noteworthy that at this stage Esa Pakarinen, whose family roots are in Karelia, adopted his identity throughout the local dialect of Savonia with her new place of residence, and he later became acquainted with e.g. as an excellent Savonian comedian.

In 1946, SAK ("Finnish Federation of Trade Unions") began organizing program tours featuring renowned artists such as Siiri Angerkoski, Eugen Malmstén and Viljo Vesterinen.

Inspired by Malmstén, he then included in his repertoire a toothless accordionist, Severi Suhonen, who developed into an even more popular performer than Esa Pakarinen himself.

At that time, he also met the accordionist-composer Toivo Kärki and the singer-guitarist Jorma Ikävalko, who became the third, more serious member of the duo Helismaa-Pakarinen.

[6] In the summer of '51, the first "rillumarei" [fi] film was Rovaniemen markkinoilla, where Esa Pakarinen was first seen on the screen as the role of Severi Suhonen.

The performances were the songs of Kärki and Helismaa, Lännen lokarin veli and Lentävä kalakukko, both of which also became known as the theme tunes of the films.

In 1953, Rantasalmen sulttaani, directed by Eddie Stenberg under the nickname Outsider (Aarne Haapakoski), was completed, filmed mainly in North Africa in Tunisia.

[8] The first of the thirteen films in that series,[1] Pekka Puupää, directed by Ville Salminen, premiered on the eve of May Day.