Whose Line Is It Anyway?

I was watching this show called Whose Like Is It Anyway on my pop up tv a little while ago. Ok, ok, maybe not a pop up tv, just your regular old free second hand tv given by your boss ... hehehe ...

The show happens to be one of my favourite shows since way back when they first aired it over here. I think they're currently running repeats of the show, apparently a season I haven't seen before. How many of you have seen this show? It's an excellent show where a group of stand up comedians act out scenes given by the audience.

For those of you who have seen this show, you'd probably know what I mean and for those of you who haven't, you can always catch it on Astro channel 711 at 9.30pm on Saturdays. Trust me, you'll come away laughing. The show is hosted by Drew Carey and they have a regular panel of 4 comedians consisting of Wayne Grady, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles and one other person who changes every week.

And the quality of these guys are incredible. They way they spontaneously come up with jokes, scenarios, songs and impersonations are absolutely rib tickling that whenever this show is on I try not to miss it. Colin and Ryan are my favourites by the way.

And that brings me to our own local stand up comedians. I happened to watch this local show called 'Raja Lawak' (loosely translated - King of Laughs), a reality show about finding the ultimate comedian. Let me tell you that the quality of contestants in the show are absolutely horrible. They're not funny. They lack talent. And most of all, for a show called 'Raja Lawak', they most certainly lack the most important ingredient, the laugh factor!

None of them had it in them to be comedians. They just tried all kinds of slap stick nonsense to get some laugh and ended up being pathetic. Half the time, no make that all the time, I didn't understand a single word they said and their supposedly punch line deliveries were totally of the mark. I was more embarrassed for them that they probably were!

The thing with Malaysian shows is they lack originality, talent and entertainment value. Granted, there are some that are pretty good but most of them really shouldn't even be aired at all. Half the time, they try to copy some US show or series and end up doing a horrendous job with it.

I don't think I've seen an original show over here that the premise for it hasn't been ripped off some US tv series or something. Back when they were showing Three's Company, they had something here very similar to that show with the same plot. And many more copy cat shows that I can't even remember. These days, when Grey's Anatomy is all the rage, we have something called Ampang Medikal with characters cast in the same veins as those from Grey's.

And what gets me is the acting. It's so fake and pathetic and often times get on my nerves! Which is one reason why I seldom watch any of our local shows. Especially the current ones. Back when I was young, they had much more original shows and way better actors like the late Tan Sri P. Ramlee whose shows were a joy to watch.

I can still remember, the whole family would gather in the hall every Friday night cos that would be movie night and we'd all enjoy every minute of the movies with him acting in it. In fact I still do watch the reruns of his shows even till this very day.

Now, that was a time when Malaysian tv actually had original story lines and not something copied from a current series or movie. The shows or dramas back then were unique, varied and fun to watch. The comedies were even better and actually had me rolling on the floor in laughter unlike the ones today. Those were the days when I would have been proud to watch a local show.

Not these days though. Sometimes the only reason I watch a local show is just to see how bad it is ... LOL!
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