Adil Najam
Some time back I had done a post with the title: Fifty-Fifty: The Best PTV Show Ever and included a clip from the show. The show was loosely based on Saturday Night Live and was the brainchild of Shoaib Mansoor and Anwar Maqsood, with the starring brilliance of Majid Jehangir, Ismail Tara and Zeba Shahnaz. It generated some interesting discussion and much nostalgia. Although not everone agreed it was the best show ever, there was a general sense that it had to be ‘amongst the very best.’
Today we bring you two clips from Fifty-Fifty, which may well be amongst the very best that the show ever offered, and may be amongst the best comedy skits even produced for Pakistan Television. The first of these skits may well be the iconic skit that defined the show in many memories; certainly mine. To those not familair with the Fifty-Fifty mystique or with the music of the time this may not seem all that funny, but when these were first telecast the whole country – quite literally – were talking about them. Enjoy.
Folks, do not know where else to post this, so will do so here.
‘Urdu Talk Radio Chicago’ – name is self explanatory – is right now talking about this blog (Pakistaniat.com) on their weekly Urdu show. I just found out and tuned in to the show online here. (Every Sunday 1- 3pm CST) (2-4pm EST) (11am-1pm PST).
I am told that you can also leave comments for them or find information on them at http://www.abnchicago.org or call at 847-475-1555 (56, 57).
Amongst the issues being discussed today is teh tragic fire that just consumed part of Devon Street in Chicago, including the famous Sabri Nihari.
These clips are truly classic stuff. Especially the first one. I agree, that may be the best ever. Like the very best of comedy, it needs no words and is timeless. There is some new TV comedy now but it has a tendency to go overboard and become uncouth. The great thing about both these clips is that even if you have seen it before, you still enjoy the surprise at the very end. Thanks for putting this.
[quote post=”439″]and was the brainchild of Shoaib Mansoor and Anwar Maqsood,[/quote]
Sorry it was not between Shaoib Mansoor and AM only. The half or less episodes were produced by late Mohsin Ali as well. That’s other thing one could make a difference between work by mohsin and shoaib. No doubt shoaib sahib is a genius guy and his last drama Alpha BRavo Charlie is still the most modern drama in the history of PTV due to camera techniques he used to shoot different stunts.
Bilal, yes that was well before we had MTV. One of the impacts of having MTV is that now the parody can also go the other way… so it no longer has to be Ismail Tara lipsyncing to Michael Jackson, now you can also have Michael Jackson dancing to a Pushto song (from Rahim Shah)!
These were classic. And Adil, people were doing more than just talking about it :). I have embarassing pictures of myself dressed up in Michael jackson clothes and dancing at a school tableau. The funniest part is that i am sure we did not have access to MTV etc then so I had not seen the video, and clearly even though my dress was copied from photographs of Michael Jackson, the dance must have been copied from Ismail Tara. Oh, how I would love to have a video copy of that!