Before “Flop Show”, there was “Yeh jo hai zindagi” and before both of them, there was “Baban Prabhu and Yakub Sayed” in the Doordarshan days. There was also “Chaal Nawachi vaachal vasti” and a whole lot of Marathi TV serials and legendary Marathi humorists like PuLa, that half of Raj Thackeray’s party members couldn’t even remember. Just like brothers-with-arms, the Samajwadi Party, wouldn’t know Kaka Hathrasi and Ashok Chakradhar. But I digress.
This post is simply about “What makes you LOL?” I’m talking old-fashioned laugh-out-loud. Not a smile, snicker, or heh, but a hearty laugh. Here’s what made me LOL over the years.
First there was..
The earliest stuff made me LOL were all those TV serials mentioned above. I loved them for the simple, situational comedy of everyday life. In movies, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro” and “Chashme Buddoor” had me in complete splits. Video was still new and staple viewing included “Mind Your Language”, the “Lemon Popsicle” and “Carry On” movie series. In comics, I was a huge fan of Beetle Bailey, Graffiti, Hagar the Horrible, The Lockhorns and Moose & Molly. (This was obviously before Mid-day in Bombay started my all-time fav “Calvin and Hobbes”)
I discovered the joys of PG when I enrolled at the British Council Library. Other than Mr. Wodehouse, I read magazines Punch and Private Eye and admired the way the Brits tear their politicians apart. In those cable-less days, we were also lucky to see Brit TV series like the legendary "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister", “Spitting Image”, “Drop the Dead Donkey” and “Fawlty Towers” on good ol’ Doordarshan. There was also “Different Strokes” but give me those Brit comedies any day.
..Then the nineties
With cable coming in the early nineties, Star TV, in its original avatar, showed some excellent stuff like “MASH”, “Home Improvement” and “The Simpsons”. There was also the brilliant improv show “Whose line is it anyway”. The few days that NBC aired in India, I looked forward to “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno and then “Late night with Conan O’Brien” – quickly coming to prefer Conan to Leno. But NBC shut shop soon deciding that there was no market for an English TV channel in India. It took time for Star TV to agree. (Since then Star has come back with a dedicated English channel, but not NBC).
Later in the 90s, I liked “Friends” for some time but got bored quickly of their self-obsession and sex obsession. An accusation that holds true for just about any American TV series, so it’s only a question of what you can take. So, I took on to “Seinfeld” like crazy. I think it’s the best comedy TV series ever for me. In movies, anything by Zucker-Abrahams was totally LOL’able( “Airplane”, “The Naked Gun” and “Hot Shots” series) and two other landmark comedies of the 90s were “My Cousin Vinny” and “There’s something about Mary”.
The here and now
Cut to present day. I don't think I’m enough. But then, comedy ain’t what it used to be. Political correctness is the order of the day and we take things too seriously. (That’s one reason I enjoy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” – if that’s daily life in the US then it’s more reality than comedy.)
No media house dare make a (comedy) TV series or movie on politics, bureaucracy or the system. Can’t blame them, who’d want their effigies and posters burnt? That sucks so much (just for that hats off to Cyrus Broacha on The Week that Wasn’t). And that’s why I’m a huge fan of “Real Time with Bill Maher”. For the love of God I can’t imagine anyone in Mumbai making fun of either Balu T or Raju T (both of them, ironically, being cartoonists). And I doubt that day would ever come. For example, why has stand-up comedy never taken off in Bombay?
Which means we have to rely mostly on slapstick, parody and risqué humor to run our “Laughter Challenges”. Not that I’ve disliked them. In the past, I’ve enjoyed Raju Srivastav and Sunil Pal much more than any Priyadarshan comedy (barring the first “Hera Pheri”). And I also think Munna-bhai took comedy to a completely different level. But still. There’s only so much that we can come up with. All the laughter shows have become photocopies of each other and I could never stand seeing Sidhu, Shekhar Suman, Mandira Bedi, et al with their over-the-top fake ear-to-ear laughs. The only comedy I enjoy on the Hindi TV channels today is the priceless "Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai". Whoever thought a clash between elitism and middle class-ism could be so hilarious. Ironically, the series has already closed a long time back and what I'm seeing today are re-runs - which are still very funny.
Finally, the internet. From emails, the fore bearers of the tech funnies, to Facebook wall posts, Orkut scraps and youtube videos, I’ve seen barely a handful of really funny stuff. And now there’s blogs. Even here, I’ve stopped following most of the blogs I found funny for a variety of reasons (Gawker being an exception because he's a class apart).
Hm. Funny. When I want it, it does become difficult to find comedy in my current world.
So, what makes you LOL?
Saturday, February 23, 2008
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28 comments:
On the Brit TV series, have you watched "Yes, Prime Minister?" The book is also terrific.
I still watch reruns of Seinfeld and "Everybody loves Raymond" here..
Lekhni - thanks for the comment. How could I miss out Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister! Updated post accordingly, thanks.
BA : You're being too generous on me man. But I thank you for your kind words. Ye jo hai jindagi I think was the best Indian serial back in those days probably because when I think comedy, that's the only one that comes to mind. There was also another Hindi serial based on "Leave it to Psmith" with Javed Jaffrey but I can't remember what it was called. That was funny as well obviously because it was based on the master's work.
When the age of cable tv began, there were two things I used to die for : One was "Whose line is it anyways". This was the British version (the American version sucks) and the funny thing was Star Plus did not have it as a regular program. They just showed it as filler material whenever some movie ended early. And the other one was "Newhart". Whenever there was a chance of a Star Plus movie ending early, I used to turn on the tv hoping that one of these two serials would be on.
Apart from that of course, Seinfeld (the dialogs of which I now know by heart), The Simpsons, The Office and there's a new comedy running here called "Carpoolers" which is pretty funny.
Wow, if you knock off "Friends" I think our comedy compatibility quotient is prettttty close to 100%!
And man, someone still remembers Baban Prabhu and Yakub Sayed? Gosh, even I just recall them as names. Yeah Ashok Chakradhar and the Haasyakavi sammelans were awesome awesomeness, especially Shail Chaturvedi and the wonderfully deadpan Surinder Sharma (I thought the "Beuller, Beuller.." guy totally took off on SS's prototype (:-D )
Brit-coms, of course, are seriously brilliant, mainly because the Brits just don't bother with being PC, taking off on anyone and everyone. Blackadder and Goodness Gracious Me would be good additions to that list.
PGW...well what needs to be said about him? My all-time fave humourist bar none. You should watch the Jeeves and Wooster series if you havent. Fry and Laurie do a fantastic job, though some plot deviations jar a little.
And that Psmith ripoff was called "Isi Bahane" with , as I recall, Saeed Jaffrey as Joe Keeble, Kiron Kher as Connie, Sushmita Mukherjee as Smooth Lizzie, Lilliput as Ed Cootes, Ajit Pal as Freddie Threepwood, and Mazhar Khan as Psmith aka Qurban Bedil (the desi Ralston McTodd). For some reason I forget who played Eve Halliday.
Newhart was funny too, though after a while, the "Anything you say, DICK" and "Hi I'm Larry this is my Brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl" routines got kinda cringeworthy.
Back in the DD days there was also "Are you being served?", "To the Manor Born" and "Some mothers do 'ave 'em". To be honest I can't really remember much of any of those though.
In Indian comedy, there was "Idhar Udhar" - the desi Three's Company/Man about the house, Sai Paranjpe's "Ados Pados", "Chhoti Badi Batein" (which did a nice job of mixing comedy with social relevance), "Mr. ya Mrs" with Jayant Kriplani, Ravi Baswani & co., the rather bizarre "Phatichar", and Mohan Gokhale's "Mr. Yogi", among others I can't recall off-hand.
There was another Marathi comedy I quite liked called "Ase Paahune Yeti", and of course the eternal favourite "Chimanrao".
Gosh, how I've rambled on here! Ah, but good memories.... :-)
Gawker: Bro I meant it. The PSmith serial you were referring to was - as Sughosh says below - "Isi Bahaane" although I coulda sworn it had a one-word name!. Ho boy, you got back some memories of the cable days man, I know how WLIIA was only like a feeder, thank God they also did the full show. Doubt our DVD library here in B'bay would have Carpoolers, but I will check it out anyways. Thanks for the comment, always good to have you here!
Sughosh - Arre comment away yaar, it's great to relive those days. And boy, you've got some photographic memory man! (btw, who is the Beuller guy?!). Was Blackadder shown on DD? I remember all the other Brit serials, and they were quite funny. All those Hindi and Martahi serials..heck, they're like ages and ages ahead of the stuff we have now! but then again, I doubt they'd run today. Thanks for the comment man and come back to tell what makes you LOL today!
I think Frasier was LOL-funny too.
A hindi serial that I am reminded of is "Mister Yogi". Did you ever catch it?
Seinfeld, Coupling's British version (in spite of its sex obsession, but it is only natural for a sex comedy) and Black Adder in that order.
Vivek - Thanks for the comment. Frasier was just superb, very funny stuff. Pity they took it off Star World. Wonder if it's still running in the USA. And of course I remember Mr. Yogi - he of the 12 girls of 12 star signs!
Sankalp - Thanks for the comment. Coupling has been recommended by so many people, I think I'll just rush to the DVD lib and pick it up!
Pankaj kapur's 'Office Office' anyone? Mr. Yogi...LOLable again...movie 'Chupke Chupke', Brits' 'Whose line is it anyway?', 'Isi Bahane' was wayyy too LOLable!!
Now, for LOLs...I just quit hindi..and switch on 'South Park' - risque sometimes...but times we live in..hmm!!
Kiran - thanks for the comment, I remember all those serials! Will also check out South Park!
The "Beuller..." guy was this total deadpan teacher in "Ferris Beuller's Day Off" (fun film). Not that he would've known anything about Surinder Sharma, but his delivery was quite similar. IIRC there was also a teacher on "The wonder years" who had that kind of style.
Blackadder and Goodness Gracious Me were both on Star World a few years ago. Didn't catch em then, but got most of the dvds from the British Council.
What makes me LOL these days? Well, not much actually since I find very little time to watch TV. Nothing I follow regularly as such, but there's a couple of shows on BBC entertainment ("My family" , "Keeping up appearances") that are good fun. Other than that its mostly my own VCD/DVD collection, which includes the entire Yes Minister/ Prime Minister, Flop Show, a Marx Brothers box set, and selected Hrishikesh Mukherjee / Basu Chatterjee / Sai Paranjpe movies from the 70s and 80s
ba, Once again you have written a post which in breadth and depth is awesome and establishes you as 'Mumbai bloggers ka raja kaun'. Some things in the post I do not know/agree but it is ok.
What makes me LOL? Well at times I am like the princess in some tale who has forgotten to smile. Or in modernspeak- I completely lack any sense of humour and have no funny bone at all in my body. Other times when I am happy, most things-almost everything makes me laugh- people,politics,horror serials included, business, email forwards,my neighbours bad hair day (wicked..wicked I know). You are right. Not neccessarily comedy-sad but true state of affairs.
I've mentioned how much I enjoy the s v/s s episodes, both first time around and re-runs. They are total rotfl and awesome. Recent past?- I was in splits at Raju Srivastava's stand-up act (on TV) at the last Mumbai Police Day function. The gags on the bikini calenders, festival arrangements-chala..chala..lavkar kara..-general take off on many things Mumbaiya. From the past - Wagle ki Duniya? Of Anjan Srivastav & Bharati Achrekar fame. Sulabha Deshpande, Kitty Sarmishta (mukherjee),Chimanrao, Supriya Pathak- all great. Pu La on Puneri maansa and Nagpur ke log-hilarious. Hum Panch and Kichdi recently were popular too. Some people I know enjoy office-office (Pankaj Kapur) but I haven't managed to catch it.
Oh, I found your use of Raju T and Balu T over at MM too very funny :))
Apart from the TV series, I think our Indian humor bloggers are really funny! Check out Sidins list at Desipundit.I sense a bit of jealousy in the way you have dismissed them. Gawker is a bore in my humble opinion.
apart from yeh jo hai zindagi, I liked "idhar udhar", "dekh bhai dekh".. seinfeld is too good.. I like the satire in Dilbert too.
And it's true.. the lack of humour on the net is enormous.. and one needs to write a topical blog on humour all the time to be classified as being good at it?! what a duh thing.. Individuals may be good at humour but they wouldnt get noticed if they write something apart from humour as well...
Oh yes, Sienfeld over Friends any day! :-)
And yes, My Cousin Vinny was a gem of a movie, wasn't it?
Sughosh - It's Bueller dude, and you're talking about Cameron, the guy about whom, Ferris famously said "Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond". And yups, I remember that prof in The Wonder Years with that absolutely dead-pan look, he's done a coupla movies with the same look!
Dude, with that kinda DVD/VCD collection, you don't need anything else. I'd recommend Curb Your Enthusiasm tho'. Thanks for the re-visit.
Deepa - Thanks very much, I don't know what to say, but you're just too kind with those words! I remember the Raju Srivastava piece you're talking about, it was hilarious. I also LOL at his Gabbar Singh routines. S v/s S is just great and I would've almost forgotten it were it not for a comment you'd left on an earlier post. Thanks for your comment, always nice to have you here!
Sushanth - Of course they're funny , it's just that I can't really LOL at them. I haven't dismissed them, in fact I admire them, but I can't find myself LOL'ing at what they write, that's all. I don't see how that makes me a jealous, but well, there's a thought! Thanks for the comment.
Twilight Fairy - Well said, I couldn't agree more! Also love(d) all the serials you mentioned. Thanks for the visit.
Shantanu - You know, earlier on I used to wonder what drove people totally mad over Friends. But I don't think there's even a comparison there with Seinfeld! And yes, "My Cousin Vinny" is a winner all-the-way, an all-time classic. Thanks for the comment!
Wow!! There are other people in India who like the same stuff I do!! Wow .. I thought I was the only one laughing at Bill Maher this side of the Pacific!! Just check out you tube, lotsa stuff.
S v/s S was the only Indian comedy which is actually funny. Too bad it got canceled. And Friends was such a phase. And who can forget the show about nothing. Still love every bit of it.
Also, didja watch Dharma & Greg? And what about Saturday Night Live? and personally I am beginning to prefer Lettermen over Leno. And after Fawlty Towers, the best British comedy, according to me is Keeping Up Appearances . It's awesome. It saddens me that there is no English language stand up comedy scene in India. The hindi knockoff of Last Comic Standing is an aberration of humor. The new age comedies like the Office (UK) are good too. It's sad that we don't really get to see a lot of good comedy acts in India. II yearn for the day when we can see Russel Peters, Wanda Sykes,Bill Maher on Indian television. I don't think that's going to happen soon.
Over Rated - Thanks for the comment. I've not caught Dharma and Greg (was shown on the channels here long back) and SNL (doubt it's been shown). Yup I doubt we'll see those shows on Indian TV but hey, as long as there's podcasts and YouTube, doesn't matter!
scrubs.
BA : great post. brought back humour-filled memories. Also remember a serial called Ados Pados by Sai Paranjpe where the kids were named a, ba , ka, da and e. And ofcourse the era of British comedies like Are You Being Served and Some Mothers Do Ave Em... and good ol' Dilip Prabhavalkar n Chimanrao and Gundya bhau.
Great post, BA! Brings back some nice memories. I remember having seen Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi as a kid and it used to be a laugh riot at home. Everyone used to look forward to Friday nights in those days of single channel TV. I recently bought the series on DVD and found it quite enjoyable (and not "so yesterday" as I feared it'd be). Others that've kept me laughing over the years are Seinfeld (all-time fave), Mr.Yogi / Karamchand (for some time), Flop Show (all-time Indian fave) and Dekh Bhai Dekh.
Abodh - Yep, those were indeed the days, man just the name Gundya brings back memories from those days! Thanks for the comment!
Praveen - "Ye jo hai zindagi" won't ever get outdated I think! I remember all those series you mentioned and they were hilarious! Thanks for the comment.
Seinfield would be it....everybody loves Raymond would be kinda ok too. D the DD, The yes series...and totally loved the old ones too.
Wassup with the hip hoppin' thing u got going on here...dont love it but cant say I hate it !!
So hows it going, I'm doing good vella vella.
That would be Seinfeld..lol typo there !
Red - Long time no see, good to have you here!. I'm doing ok, wishing to keep blogging more, but as usual something or the else keeps coming up. Life hai. Thanks for the comment and keep coming over! Envy your vellaness!
Doing good, but yeah life keeps creeping up from time to time.
Glad I could be of some envy LOL Envy your vellaness !
I'll flit by as oft as I can - Pucca Promise
Red - I will hold you to that promise!
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