Chutti TV : Entertainment Unlimited. :D

Note 1 : I know there is a lot to blog about, with the coming of the holidays, Christmas, etc, but I shall leave all that for later.

Note 2 : Please don't complain if you don't understand the way the Tamil dialogues have been written in this post. 

Prologue : A friend came over to my house a week or so ago and we were at a loss as to what to do. We couldn't use the internet – the guy from BSNL came over and took the modem away for repair. On first glance I thought he'd taken the mouse away with him too, but on further inspection I learned that it had been pushed down by my sister. And so, acting like most teens of our age, we settled down in front of the TV. We considered watching HBO, World Movie, or even Disney Channel, but we realized that we were in the mood for something plain stupid. (Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to say that Disney Channel isn't stupid. With shows like Hannah Montana, Kya Mast Hai Life, Son Pari and Krsihma Ka Karishma, it just misses the top spot on the list of the dumbest channels ever. Actually, I'm still debating between Toon Disney and Disney Channel for the second place. Toon Disney because it has a show named Hero, where the superhero gets superpowers by doing poojas.) So, which channel did we choose to watch? No, not Podhigai or DD News, we chose the channel that tops the list : Chutti TV.          

Chutti TV is brilliant. The people who run Chutti TV too are brilliant. To those of you Martians who don't know what Chutti TV is – it's a Tamil channel for little kids.

Martians : Oh. That's nice. What kind of shows do they have?

Me : Jackie Chan, Godzilla, Stuart Little, etc.

Martians : Short though our stay on this dying planet has been, we've gathered enough satellite information to come to the conclusion that those shows aren't all that stupid.

Me : If you view them in English they're not.

Martians : Ah.

Me : Even if you directly dub them into Tamil they won't seem all that stupid.

Martians : Oh.

Me : But watch them on Chutti TV and they're amazing.

Martians : So they aren't stupid after all!

Me : Argh! Amazing in a stupid way. :P

Martians : Oh. Please elaborate.

Me (smugly) : Read this blog post to know more.

So. About Chutti TV. Those who run this channel have come up with the rather bright idea of localizing all the aforementioned shows.

Take a look at Godzilla, where all sorts of hunks sporting six packs walk around with machine guns. Doesn't one of them addressing another by saying “Dai, Paandi...” sound a little out of place?

They have English movies too, localized, on Chutti TV. Some Hollywood movie was playing one of these days, and the two lead characters were engaging in a session of verbal jousts.

CharacterOne : Poda, poda... Chumma thevai illaama adi vaangaatha.

CharacterTwo : Ey! Mavanna naa mattum onna adichaa... Nee America'la poi vizhunthiduva!!!

Needless to say both of them were, and lived, in America.

You catch my drift, I suppose.

But on the night my friend came over, the show that was going on was The Jackie Chan Adventures or Jackie Chaanin Saakasangal, as it is called on the channel. I don't know how many of you have watched this series in English, but this gigantic character...

... is called Beema on Chutti TV. And the Uncle delivers the most amazing punch dialogues.  Two of them are - “Ey, Beema! Nee summa po ma!” and “Naa late-aa vanthaalum latest-aa thaan varuvén!”

The two of us sat, waiting for more rib tickling lines, but the show did not meet our expectations.

Rating : Six on ten    

The next show was Stuart Little. And I must be honest – that was the most amazing episode I've ever seen in any show in my (rather short) life. Read on for a brief description of the episode...

A rather bucolic setting. A blue car pulls up inside a farm. Stuart and George are singing Taxi Taxi. Both of them, their sister, Snowbell, another cat whose name evades me and their parents get down from the car. “Vanthu sérnthuttom baays,” the father says. They are greeted by their Uncle Crenshaw, who asks Stuart and George if they will help him with the farm work.

“Shoowar (sure)!” they exclaim, and get to work.

Uncle Crenshaw begins to put up a scarecrow. He hurts his finger in the process.

Stuart tries his hand at milking a cow. But the cow apparently didn't want to be milked. She screams at Stuart in complete porukki language. Stuart is stunned.

“Aama, neenga epdi ivlo local-aa pésareenga?” he asks the cow.

“Oh, athuvaa,” the cow says. “En sontha ooru Madras thaan pa.”

George tries to do something really strange with something that looks like a go cart and falls into some muddy water. He gets up, saddened by the fact that his face is covered in muddy water.

“Aiyaiyo,” he complains. “Christmas thaatha maari ayittén!”

The show paused for a while as an ad for Spiderman Two : Thamizhil (with the song Vanthuttaan da vanthuttaan da kaalai playing in the background as Spidey fought Doctor Oc) covered the screen. I decided to flip through the channels while the advertisemenst went on. Unfortunately, by the time I returned to Chutti TV, Stuart Little had resumed and I had missed some of it.

George lies on a hammock, his eyes closed, and listens to music. Stuart engages in conversation with Snowbell and another cat. They tell him horrifying stories about a falcon that haunts the farm. Uncle Crenshaw had gone to a nearby town to purchase something.  

While this is going on, the falcon, the cats were talking about, is making his plans for a meal. He plans to eat Stuart, Snowbell and the other cat for lunch. But for that he needs help from the crows. So he flies to a bunch of crows and threatens them by saying : “En pér Falcon. Naa ongala maari kaakkaagala dhomsam pannuvén.” he then proceeds to tell them how they should help him in catching his meal. Terrified, the crows yield to him and are ready to follow his plans.

The falcon swoops dramatically down at Stuart and the cats. Falcon tries to grab hold of Stuart, but he manages to escape between the wheels of a tractor.

“Tcha! Miss aayittaney!” Falcon growls. He changes course and pursues the cats, who are running for their lives. The crows go after Stuart. George is oblivious to all this and he slips into peaceful slumber.

The cats are no match for Falcon. He corners them in no time.

The cat that isn't Snowbell stammers. “Thala, epdi irukkeengo?” he asks. Falcon growls. The felines consider their options and come with the plan with the highest survival rate. They run in between Falcon's legs and make a beeline for the woods, where the crows are chasing Stuart.

The cats catch up with Stuart and they move cautiously through the woods. They have lost the birds thanks to the dense foliage.

“Aiyo!” Stuart wails miserably. “Uncle Krechaa (Crenshaw) enga thaan poyi tholanchtaaro!”

He cries out for help : “Jaaj (George), Jaaj! Vanthu kaappaathu!”

They keep walking through the desolate wilderness and reach a small clearing. They are spotted by the crows, who go after the trio. Stuart and the cats run in opposite directions. The crows chase Snowbell and the other cat.

Snowbell gets a brainwave. He suddenly turns around and shouts, “Anga paaru! Our pombla kaakka!”

The deluded crows go in search of the female crow gleefully while the cats escape. Later, Falcon finds the crows, who are desperately searching for a female of their kind.

Crows : Enga da irukkaa?!

Falcon : Dai, muttaal pasangala! Ongala émaathittaanga da!

Crows : Achucho!

Falcon : Poi pudinga da!   

The crows fly off in search of the rodent and the cats, but their path is obstructed by a scarecrow who scares them out of their wits. The crows scatter in fear.

Falcon arrives at the very same spot and relaizes what has happened.

“Tcha!” he spits, giving the scarecrow a distateful look. “Intha dhadiyana thavara ellórum thappichtaanga!”

Due to our violent fits of laughter, my friend and I lost track of the story for a few minutes, and then there was another ad. When the show resumed, Stuart and the cats were in a chicken coop, and Falcon was trying to enter through the barred window.

“Ey arivillaatha paravaye,” taunts Stuart. “Unaala enna pudikka mudiyaathu!”

Then somehow, the three of them escape and Falcon is trapped inside the coop with no way out.

“Chee,” a hen says in the background. “Intha falcon paarkathukku romba kévalamaa irukkaan.”

Stuart continues taunting Falcon from outside.

“Dai, vaaya moodura,” Snowbell says, nudging him. “Naa punch dialogue vudanum.”

We lost track of the story again and before we knew it, the episode had come to an end.

Rating : Nine and a half on ten.    

Next, the movie Honey, We Shrunk The Kids began to play on Chutti TV.

It was boring in parts but there were some awesome lines too. One was a robot-kinda fire alarm shouting “daynjaar (danger), daynjaar, fayaar (fire), fayaar,” in a pakka porukki voice.

And then there was “kavalappadaathey, honey,” “vaanga, poi dirings (drinks) saapdalaam,” and “onakku moolai kolambidichu.”

But the best dialogue was delivered by the scientist : Ennathu?! Namma veettukkulla oru alien inchekt(insect)-aa?!    

Rating : Five and a half on ten.    

After all that we lost interest in the movie and decided to get some sleep. Very embarrassing, it was only eleven-thirty. But I swear we didn't sleep before one. :)

Please forgive me for this rather abrupt ending. :P