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I am slowly going into nostalgia mode, and may evoke some memories in people who were kids when Doordarshan was the single channel on TV, and when there was a serial called ‘Giant Robot’ that would come on TV. Nowadays, there are such a lot of cartoon channels, but at that time, there was this show among the few that would be coming on TV which was of interest specifically to children (along with Spiderman, and a few others). From what I recall, it used to come in the late afternoon. This is actually a very old serial, which was created in Japan in the late 60′s, became a craze in the US in the 70′s and then was recycled here in India by Doordarshan in the 80′s. But all this does not matter really, nobody cares whether this was recycled or not. There was the thrill of watching it, and it used to get tense when you had to go somewhere (parental pressure or something else unavoidable), and how am I going to be able to miss this episode, and wait for the next episode ?

Continue reading ‘Nostalgia: ‘Giant Robot’ Great Serial For Kids’

I believe if there was a choice to pick the 8th Wonder of the World then Mr. Bean would most certainly get my vote. I must confess I simply cant get enough of him in spite of devoting more than two hours every week night in front of the television, watching him do his jig on Pogo Channel.

Mr. Bean undoubtedly is one of the most successful British cultural tele-series to have made it big across several nations. It began back 1990 and its 16 half-hour programmes have been sold to more than 200 TV territories worldwide.

Continue reading ‘No Other Like Mr. Bean’

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’.

Continue reading ‘Mature Cartoons on Indian TV’

Nina Paley bills herself as America’s Best Loved Unknown Cartoonist . Give her till 2008 and she’ll be India’s Best Debated Unknown Cartoonist.

To rewind a little, Paley is the creator of Sitayana, a series of animations based on the story of Sita from the Ramayana. Paley, an American artist who lives in New York, has already attracted a lot of attention from Indian netizens for her colorful work set to little known jazz music from the 1930s.

Continue reading ‘Sitayana‘

The Films Division masterpiece — “Ek Chidia” has been doing the rounds across the emails recently. The video uploaded on the You Tube conjures up memories of childhood when the kids played langdi tang and gallery while humming the lines of this beautiful song that encourages harmony and unity in diversity— the mottos that best describe India. In a time when the TV News channels are fighting tooth and nail to create an atmosphere that generates news (read chaos, riots, disharmony and sensationalism), the song is something of a reminder of simpler times.

Since the day I received this particular link in the mail I have been trying to find the elder community Didi, who shares wisdom with the aid of simple tools like beads or seeds, mangoes and short stories; the kid who actually truly believes that the elder Didi is the wiser one and listens to her solution; the other kids whose appetite is satiated with fresh mangoes plucked from the trees unlike those dissatisfied bundles of trouble I spot around with designer shoes and garb outside Mc Donald’s always greedily asking for one more Happy Meal.

Continue reading ‘Ek Chidiya — Refreshing the memory’