Oh, To Be on the Bandwagon premiered at the 1972 Berlin Film Festival, where Variety's Keith Keller gathered the following impressions: "This film compares favorably with such obvious guiding lights as Milos Forman's The Fireman's Ball and Loves of a Blonde. The idea is to depict very ordinary people in their natural habitats and to let them speak slightly romanticized versions of everyday language. Also to let same people run very slightly amok at times, but most of the time conform to the patterns of their shopworn lives. Most of the action, or non-action, takes place in The Ostrich, a dimly-lit, lower-level night cafe. Why The Ostrich? Because all its people, guests and employees alike, are in hiding here. They nurse their daydreams here without too many rude interruptions of reality. Of course, they have to face the daylight now and then, but that only sharpens their thirst for more dreaming. A fine cast, beautifully directed, serves to give the audience many a laugh and equally many sighs of sympathy....Carlsen's feature is moodily humorous in a very Scandinavian way."