Yattay gattay, yattay gattay, yattay gattay! This has no meaning but few decades back this was a dialogue used everywhere and most of the Pakistani television viewers of 70s and 80s still remember this dialogue and obviously the character Ismail Tara played. It was the era of Fifty-Fifty, the most famous comedy show of Pakistan’s television history. Its characters, situations, and dialogues were all the rage back in the day.
That was the time when Pakistan television was the only source of entertainment for the whole family and viewers were never disappointed. Plays of PTV were for all age groups and every segment of the society and writers and drama producers always kept this in their minds.
Small wonder we still remember comedy characters with a specific dialogue in all PTV dramas of that time. We still discuss Kaka Manna of Atta ul Haq Qasmi’s Shab Deg, Direct Hawaladar of Andhera ujala, Jawadd Ji of Khawaja and Son, and my name is Rambo Rambo John Rambo of Guesthouse.
Pakistan television still occasionally re-telecasts these daramas from time to time and viewers never relish them on every occasion.
But that was another century and another era altogether. Times they’re a changing. Emergence of private TV channels and production houses took this drama industry to a peak of commercialism. Dramas, dramas, and dramas everywhere. A new darama every hour but one thing misses or lacks is strong, catchy entertainment and specifically light, situational comedy and comedy characters to be remembered for long.
New generation only knows Momo from Bulbuly, running for almost a decade now with even TV channels like Geo repeating its decade old comedy sitcom Nadanian and it still gets a rating. That shows viewers want to watch comedy but it is not there for them on darama channels.
When we speak with people who are responsible for content on entertainment channels they said there is a scarcity of good comedy writers. There are hardly any comedy writers as to create a comedy and to write comic stuff is not easy, especially when you have to create this content on regular basis.
Although it is relatively easy to produce sitcoms, the lack of good comedy content is a hurdle while there are a number of writers who are writing stories of family controversies, which is much easier but still there are hardly any comedy characters in these family daramas.
Even the two popular sitcoms of two major entertainment channels Bulbulay and Nadanian have the same writer, hence the inevitable similarities despite different situations and characters.
We also see comedy turning to news shows might be to fulfill viewers thrust and almost every news TV channel running a talk show with stage actors and comedians and these shows are successfully getting huge ratings.
Lack of comic content on entertainment channels has also shifted viewers to social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. YouTube channels with comic content attrach huge followings. TikTok owes its huge popularity in Pakistan primarily to user-generated comic content.
and characters like Bajis, Nasreen, and Zaid Ali have millions of subscribers between them and their videos are always trending. New comic social media stars are emerging every day. Old PTV plays we discussed above get views in many millions on YouTube.
But the question remains if young individual YouTubers and TikTokers can create quality comic content consistently on shoestring budgets, why can’t the mainstream entertainment channels do it with their huge budgets?
When will we meet the next Kaka Manna or Direct Hawaldar? When will we hear our next yattay gattay?
