Ananth Mahadevan

Comedy serials: What a la(ugh!)

Most of what we see now on television is not even the classical slip on the banana peel comedy.

* At the sound of the doorbell, one of the daughters invariably jumps to her feet, breaking into a jive before opening the door. (Laughter). A burly man walks in trying to make his face look gruesome. (Laughter). Another daughter, pretending to be a son, and that too from the underworld (laughter) speaks in what is known as Mumbai’s tapori lingo. (Laughter). She usually addresses her elder sister, the one who dances at the door, as Chikni. (Laughter).

* A joint family. Several bahus belonging to different states in India announce that they are about to start a business of their own. (Laughter). Their hubbies are horrified. (Laughter). The wives decide to set up a cookery class. (Laughter). One teaches with a Punjabi accent. (Laughter). The other is a South Indian. (Laughter).

Whoever said that laughter is the best medicine had never seen what our TV channels like to call ‘comedy’. Every entertainment channel has its own set of such ‘funnies’ which they seem to be proud of. They have some of the best actors in the TV industry playing the major roles. They (the serials) get a lot of hype from the channel before and during their telecast. And of course, they get a lot of backing by way of laughter. The canned variety.

But very often, the manner in which the laughter is used in the programme is funnier than the story itself. Which is, of course, unintentional. A character grimaces and the can is opened. There is a pause in the dialogue, you put in some laughter. Is there a major flaw in the script? No problem. Open the can once again. And you are ready with a hot, hot comedy. Very funny.

Once upon a time on Indian television, there used to be a comedy called Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. And then there was another one called Nukkad. There have been hundreds of wanna be comedies on TV since then. TV is now much more lucrative than it ever was.

The number of directors has risen, the budgets have increased. But we are yet to see something that could hold a candle to those memorable serials. What went wrong over these years? “At that time, there was a real dearth of comedies. When Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi was being telecast, there were hardly any other comedies on air. There was only one channel. Besides, during those days, writers used to spend a lot of time on the script,” says Ajit Pal, who tried his hand at a comedy with the recently concluded Baat Ban Jaye on Zee TV. His latest comedy, Hello Friends has just begun its run on STAR Plus.

According to Pal, devoting time to the script was not the only reason for the high quality of comedy serials then. “There used to be a panel of writers working on one comedy script. Today, they can think of just one format for comedy - the family drama. There are no good writers available. Moreover, no writer of repute would ever work with other writers. They have a major ego problem,” he fumes.

However, these are not the only factors responsible for the sorry state of comedies. Or so believes Ananth Mahadevan, the brain behind the popular comedy series, Ghar Jamai on Zee TV. “People like Kundan Shah and Aziz Mirza had a real knack for (making a) comedy (series),” Mahadevan admits, adding, “But today, if we talk about making anything on those lines, we are told point-blank that that won’t do. ‘Don’t give something so subtle, they say. Make us laugh.’ They want something loud.”

Loud is demanded because loud, apparently, sells. “We are basically loud people,” says Pal. Go to a restaurant and just listen to the noise there. It is the same with comedies. But I tried to tone down the loudness a little bit in Baat Ban Jaye and I have done it again in Hello Friends. Baat Ban Jaye was liked by viewers, which means that my experiment was successful,” he claims.

Loudness, according to Mahadevan, is also a device used by series-makers to make people smile. “And they do smile! he exclaims. “To hell with values, to hell with aesthetics and everything else.”

In fact, it is the classic, balancing act between market forces and the quest for achieving creative satisfaction. “I cannot descend to the deplorable depths that most so-called comedies are sinking to. Most of what we see now on television is not even the classical slip on the banana peel comedy. But the literacy level in our country is quite pathetic. So much so that it becomes difficult for us to create something which is even slightly cerebral. At the same time, there are people who love subtle comedy. So the question is, who do you cater to?” he asks.

That is where the television channels come in. For ultimately, they or their marketing departments, to be precise, are the ones who decide what the people are going to watch. It is clear that a director, whatever his credentials, simply cannot create whatever he or she wants and have it aired on the channel. If the marketing whiz kids feel that a subtle comedy will not sell, the director has to tone down the subtleness and actually increase inane content!

To find out what sells and what does not, These “experts” rely heavily on TRP ratings, which, as one prominent channel has admitted, are far from accurate.

“You cannot make something totally different and then sit at home with it. You need a channel to air it,” Mahadevan points out. “And I don’t blame the channels for being reluctant to take risks. I would love to make a subtle, refined comedy. But this change should come gradually, so that viewers have the time to develop a liking for it.”

Until then, it is back to square one. (Laughter).