Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

Jest like that

Photo: S. Gopakumar

For laughs Youngsters are hooked on to spoofed scenes on Youtube

You have to give it to the guy who posted the video of Spiderman’s face off with the Goblin in the movie ‘Spiderman’ with the dialogues replaced by a sickeningly sweet Malayalam pop track. The Goblin’s antics seem perfectly choreographed to confess the particular brand of eternal love that the song is promoting.

That – in the words of the Youtube generation – is one great ROTFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing in internet lingo).

The number of spoofed videos that are turning up on Youtube is growing evidence that the creative potential of the Kerala youth is not getting wasted over drawing boards and case studies. Everything from Hollywood thrillers to the venerable BBC news gets the Malayalam treatment.

These spoofs, along with a host of comedy scenes ripped from movies and videos of umpteen number of comedy shows, make Malayalam comedy a presence to be reckoned with on the international video portal.

Of course, making the comedy is no joke. To replace the soundtrack of the romantic chit chat between Jack and Rose in ‘Titanic’ with Sreenivasan’s pathetic attempt at telling Parvathy a joke in ‘Vadakkunokki Yanthram’ and almost perfectly matching the words to the actions takes an insane amount of humour sense.

Neo from ‘Matrix’ is another casualty when he is made to confess in a choirboy tenor voice – in chaste Malayalam of course – to having a gastric problem from eating too many cooked jackfruit seeds.

If you thought it was just the movies, you should hear former General Secretary of the United Nations Koffi Annan confess to how he was challenged to a game of ‘poojyam vettu’ by George Bush Jr. Britney Spears gets the semi-classical treatment, leaving her not just a girl, not yet a woman but a true blue Malayalam playback singer. The only regret is that Michael Jackson gets off easy.

Malayalam filmdom’s macho man Jayan and his extended last syllables remain a perennial favourite. After all, anyone will have goose bumps hearing the “We are not beggars…” dialogue from ‘Angadi.’ You also realise that there is a lot more to the evergreen Prem Nazir when you see him in action with a bit of hip hop in the background.

The combination of Mohanlal and Sreenivasan is another favourite. The two as the deadly duo Dasan and Vijayan in ‘Nadodikkattu’ and ‘Pattanapravesham’ and the hilarious “How many kilometres from Washington DC to Miami beach…?” in ‘Mazha Peyyunnu Maddalam Kottunnu’ find more takers than clips from recent releases.

Suraj Venjaranmoodu’s impromptu training session on imitating the super stars and the drunken antics of ‘Baiju’ are the hits among stage shows.

It is amazing how someone with a good video editing tool and a voice recorder can extend our lives. Hats off to the creative minds who spend hours in front of the monitor just to make us laugh.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail