DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

It is surprising that two of the funniest shows on TV these days are cartoons. Unfortunately it might be under whelming that they are not shown on Indian television. Yes, I am talking about South Park and Family Guy. To the uninitiated, South Park is an animated series that veers between extreme levels of grossness to surprisingly intelligent levels of cutting wit. Once of the most influential cartoons of the past decade, South Park is a show that, in their writers’ words, ‘is an equal opportunity offender’.

Meaning, it takes digs at all communities without discrimination. It generally targets hypocrisy in modern society, organized religion and cults, and pop culture. Family Guy on the other hand is a no-frills animated comedy whose strengths lie in the show being honest enough to not take itself too seriously. Often one would see random cutbacks during the course of the show to some pop culture references and some bizarrely goofy comic sequences. Both shows however are meant for mature audiences due to the obvious coarseness in language and sexual references. But none of all this makes any sense for them not to be shown on Indian television.

I was genuinely surprised to see highly suggestive (to the point of trying to be erotic) shows that were ratings duds in the US - like Fashion House - show up late night on TV channels like Star World. Because, frankly, I would be out of my mind if I were to say Fashion House is a sure shot critics’ choice winner. Now I don’t say they should not have such shows on TV, but why ban those that are genuinely good. The Simpsons were more subtle than either of the two cartoons that I have talked about, but hey, The Simpsons are just subtle, not cryptic. Their level of sex-related jokes is not very different from daily sitcoms.

Your average college going teenager, or your 20-30 year old software engineer (which is the demographic these channels target anyway) are going to understand any level of sexual innuendo that you throw at them. And that is besides the point. Shows like these, being animated, allow writers freedom in story structure that one may not have in stereotypical laugh-track ridden sitcoms. So why deny this to such a large public? And it’s not as if the morality of kids are at stake. AXN was banned for showing ’suggestive commercials’ (the right or wrong of it is a separate matter of debate) but it at least attempted to show them. Also, modern cable television providers like Tata Sky and Dish TV (and of course set top boxes) allow the facility of parental control.

Shows like Family Guy and South Park, if seen beyond just the top layers of providing comic relief, have underlying layers of truth about them. They mock society at certain levels. Their subtlety levels may vary, they might not necessarily get all up their ass trying to preach things, but beneath all these layers of ‘mature humor’ lie hard facts. Facts that might possibly be too much for the self-righteous censor board to digest. Facts that, if they do come out in the open, might create a joke out of the daily fights we see in the name of religions and cults and whatever product that may have been invented by some creative mind. And yeah, we need these daily fights don’t we. (Not that airing of these shows are going to preach and stop people from getting offended in general.)

As Eric Cartman would say, "If you ban an episode of Family Guy because it hurts the sentiments of Muslims, then tomorrow the Catholics might have problems with another and soon the show will be off air". Such truths I say, make far more fruitful television viewing than your weekly dose of a past-it Bo Derek (in Fashion House), or The OC (yes that’s right, I hate The OC).