Of Telly Tubbies, Panto Dames, and Youth Tubies
Of Telly Tubbies, Panto Dames, and Youth Tubies
by Rosalea Barker
::In the night::
On
learning this weekend of Missy Teka’s death in a car
accident, I searched for and found a video filmed (perhaps) at the Westward
Ho Tavern in Kelston back in 1982. It’s Prince Tui Teka
singing E Ipo to Missy, and the pair of them joshing
with each other. Choice!
::Cosplay and sing and
dance::
“Costume play”—role-playing taken to
fabricated heights—has become as popular in the States as it is in Japan,
where it originated. But I’ve become addicted to the more
traditional costume- and role-play of Russian television adaptations of famous
books, fairy tales, and operas that have been playing on the
MHz Channel.
Not that the way the productions were staged was in any way “traditional”—The three musketeers, for example, were all women and their musical performances were like a cross between a punk band and country and western balladeers. Although it’s another vein, here’s an ad from an online showreel for the Three Musketeers director, Tinatin Barkalaya. No language skills needed.
Director of several other musicals in the series, Semen Gorov, has a website where you can view some of the trailers and “making of” videos, to get some sense of the whacky (and adult) nature of the productions. They were subtitled on MHz, but who cared about the story when the costumes, acting, and scenery were just so faaaabulous, darlings! Gorov is also mentor of the Kiev Video Lab, which is one of Nokia’s Trends Labs.
::Words and
pictures::
Praise be to Fox’s affiliate here in the
Bay Area, which now broadcasts LATV on its
second digital channel. At last I can watch music videos
again, with my new buddies Ceasar & Chuy, Puerto
Rican and Mexican cartoon characters whose commentary on the
music videos they’re watching in their basement is both
funny and incisive. They’ve recently added the ability for
amateur critics to text their comments to the show while
it’s playing on air.
Click here to link to a promo for the second series. (Language warning.)
LATV is pretty big on viewer interaction. It also has a program called Texty Videos, which streams text messages live on-screen, enabling viewers to communicate with each other while watching music videos. For monolingual moi, completely unfamiliar with the abbreviations and other style usages in text messages, it’s like watching a stream of internet passwords go by. You know, “must contain at least one uppercase letter, number, and special character”.
::In the works::
If this listing
in the Gigs section of Craigslist last week is anything to go
by, some nasty ads are going to be turning up later in the
year:
We are looking for the following
actors:
1 white male 25-35 to play John McCain in
his navy days. He must be well built, square jawed and
possess a military-type bearing. An actual resemblance to
the young Senator McCain is not strictly
necessary.
3 Asian-American females
18-30 to play Vietnamese prison guards. These are comedic
roles, so the actors should have comedy experience and
excellent timing.
The ads are apparently going to be “comedic parodies of contemporary campaign ads. These ‘ads’ will be posted on the most popular liberal political blogs and video sites, and will also be submitted to short film festivals.”
--PEACE—