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.
Another funny one was where Ismail Tara is dresseed as a cowboy and enters a saloon with the theme music from Shane playing in the background. No words are spoken. Tara sits at a table and starts sipping chai but is clearly displeased with what he tastes. The music and his expression turn ominous as he walks toward the counter with the keeper visibly scared. Tara points his gun at the keeper. The keeper starts taking cash (played by blank colored pieces of paper) out from under the counter. Tara disapproves. The keeper takes out some more cash. Tara still disapproves. The keeper starts shaking with fear. Tara reaches under the counter and pulls out a pot of sugar. The music stops and Tara says “cheeny chupata hai!” I’m told this was done around the time foodstuff was beeing rationed in Pakistan.
My top three sketches would be “Basheera In Trouble”, Ismaeel Tara dancing to “one way ticket to the moon” in a lacha, and the “Mutazalzaluzzaman Tarar” sketch.
some user by the name of princeali85 has loaded more then 60 short clips on youtube.com . Kudos to him
Fifty Fity to date remains my favourite program ever to be produced by PTV :) thanks for sharing these videos
Ahh, the famous “Disco Chor”!! I found quite a few Fifty Fifty clips on Google video and YouTube. Thanks to these websites, we can still enjoy these classics wherever we are.
But it’s a shame that I was unable to find PTV classics like these at video stores in lahore. I was there for two weeks and didn’t have a lot of time to go looking. Does anyone know a good website where I can order them??