Saturday 25 July 2009

When's the Mauritian Les Guignols de l'info?


Canal Plus' Les Guignols de l'info has already celebrated its 20 years anniversary last year. This show, which is quite popular in French-speaking countries, uses latex puppets representing celebrities, namely politicians to satirically and humorously comment on current news. The host of the show is the puppet-clone of TF1's news anchor, Patrice Poivre d'Arvor (PPD).


Nicolas Sarkozy's and Carla Bruni's puppets,


Obama's puppet

An awesome factor about Les Guignols de l'info is that the appearance of some of the puppets are very realistic and the voices and tone of speech attributed to each of them really resemble those of the real persons.

Anyway, coming back to the real purpose of this post, I was wondering whether something like Les Guignols de l'info would be feasible in Mauritius. I've created a little checklist for the factors that would need to be present to contribute to the realisation of the above.

1st - The politicians - Politicians, sure we have that and loads of it for that matter!

2nd - The audience - The audience should be willing to accept satire with humour and not aggressively. I know that a lot of die-hard Mauritian partisans could feel offended if their favourite politicians' blunders are criticised.

3rd - The anchor - Now that could be kind of rare to find. I'm not saying that Mauritian news anchors are not professional enough, but I mean it. Plus anyone doing that would have to be really brave, without forgetting that the person should have a secure job 'cause you know what happens when journalists "hurt" politicians.

4th - The TV channel - Given our only local channel's habit of favouring reigning political parties, it could not be trusted upon to provide such a show. We'd rather need an independent TV channel to carry out such a project and that could be a "long chak" as some would say.

Anyway dudettes and dudes, I'll keep on hoping that such a show becomes a reality in our little island one of these day and I feel like this might actually help our islanders not to blindly follow their political favourite just because it is a tradition to vote for such and such party.


Do you think something like that could be beneficial to our population?


Image sources:
www.miwim.fr
www.lepost.fr
www.24heures.ch

22 comments:

  1. I don't believe the politicians would be for it.

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  2. Perhaps the day an independent channel is born... we'll get to see a Mauritian Guignol! :)

    Btw NDTV has one such show for India. :P

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  3. Our info is already a "Guignols de l'info".
    What can we ask more? :P

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  4. no way.. the politichiens would immediately sue the producers.. these things will not be tolerated in mauritius. people(at the top) are too narrow minded.

    and mayB yashvin is right! :P

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  5. It would be great - I loved the guignols! They reminded me of older, more grown up versions of 'Les Minikeums' puppets! Howevever, not sure if you could really do that in Mauritius unless, as carrotmadman6 said, we get some indie channels. Politicians have way too much power over our national TV channels atm.

    V

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  6. Le guignols de l'info? We already have one which is funnier that that. It's called "The Navin Show" and is broadcast in several languages :P

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  7. J'adore les guinols de l'info!!! Haha, really laughed with that :P But I doubt anyone would go ahead with producing a similar one...

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  8. @ Neelesh, yeah it's obvious that they won't be for it. I wonder whether Canal plus asks for rights to carry on with les guignols.

    @ Carrotmadman, hehe, it's refreshing to see those countries indulging into that for their local politics.

    @ Yashvin, sure! Even if they don't strive to sound like stupids they succeed at doing it!

    @ Sun, yeah. If this were started, it should really be from someone powerful.

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  9. @ V, yeah, I mentioned the independent TV as well. The local TV channel can surely not be counted upon to get on with something like les guignols. :D

    @ sjdvda, yeah the navin show is one cool show. We are so "lucky". XD

    @ Nussaibah, yeah it would be kind of difficult for anyone to start that kind of thing.

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  10. I think Mauritians should take a firm stand and go for it! Last time I checked you have to move forward to make progress...The power should be in the voters' hands and not in the politicians'!

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  11. Wez,
    I don't want to say it's high time that someone did it. I wish I could just be at the right position to do it. :) Maybe in a decade or two. I wish someone did it sooner.

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  12. Most Mauritians actually take criticism bad. If they were to be featured in a Mauritian guignols, they would take it bad.

    I think French politicians really like to be on guignols. I know I'd love to. Hahaa

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  13. Jevin,
    I bet you would! I would love it too in fact. Politicians should be taught to accept criticisms. Once this is done, the rest would be a hell lot easier.

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  14. You'll have to walk over Ramgoolam's dead body to get such a legendary show started in Mauritius!

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  15. Unless we have private channel networks, I'm not sure we'll ever have a local "guignols de l'info" in Mauritius! Haahahaha.

    Omg.. just imagine our politicians as puppets! Rofl :P

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  16. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  17. Hi Moana,

    Even though I can understand the dilemma you are in, this seems to be a matter pertaining to the privacy of someone.
    Unfortunately, I will have to remove the comment from here. I hope this issue is solved soon.

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  18. les guignole de l;infos is one of my fav tv shows :p

    mauritians lacks a lot of creativity tho' and i doubt that even a private channels will be able to cope with it..

    take for e.g the private guys running the show on those private radio channels..each time they try to do something but in the end..zot rod fr plis ki bisin :p

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  19. oh btw who are your favourite characters?

    mine: chirac, barthez, sylvester & that french guy who did cycling and always a victim..i forgot his name :P..bound to laugh when those guyz are on ;)

    i badly want the special dvd for the special anniversary :p i watch it on c+ till late last time but thats something to have in one's collection i think :p

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  20. Mervin,

    You mean Richard Virenque! LOL! This guy is too funny. Especially when he says "On m'aurait menti?" Hihi!

    I like Ben Laden's puppet as well. He was quite recurrent in 2001 to 2003.

    Chirac's voice is really realistic don't you think?

    What about "W"? He was depicted as a little naive boy! Hihihi!

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  21. LOL ..virenque...li avec so ban piqures la lol :p

    yeah like the 'tic' chirac has ..that was genuine :p lol :) W..with his finger in his nose lol :p

    when he is accompanied by Sylvester of course lol :p

    ben oh ben..ispis di counas :p lol :)

    a;way i must put my hand on this dvd somehow :p

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