PREMIERE WEEK SUCKS! THE MUSICAL: PART IV: THE TRILOGY: PART II: THE NEXT NEXT NEXT GENERATION! SUS-SUS-SUS-SUSSUDIO!

(DAVID, walks out onto an empty stage, with a large broom, sweeping it up after what seems to have been a long night.)

DAVID/ME
(Mumbling to self as he sweeps, completely out of rhythm, not singing)
There's, no business, like show business, like no business, I know-ow-ow-ow.

He looks around, and sees the theater empty, no one around. He starts twirling his broom using his fingertips in circles.

ME
(Singing slightly more rhythmically, into broom like it's a microphone)
Like no business, I know.

He twirls his broom again, this time tapping the end onto the stage which immediately turns into a cane, and his clothes, magically turn into a classic suit-and-tie

ME
(In tune to "It's a Wonderful Time for Oscar")
It's a horrible week for tel-evision
Tel-e-vision, what will suck!

(Stop songs)

ME
You didn't think I wasn't gonna do this did you?
(The theme from "The Facts of Life" starts, starts singing again)
You skip the good, you watch the bad
You Hulu the rest and then you had
It's premiere week! TV premiere week.

(Music continues, but singing has stopped)
For those who don't know what we're doing, we have a bit of a tradition here, where every Premiere we-eh,

(Music stops, finger quotes)
"Celebrate" sorta, the shows of Premiere Week, with a Musical production about them.

(Music continues)
Premiere Week, of course the first week of the year, when all the new shows start debuting on the major networks. This year, is no different. So, "David Baruffi's Entertainment Views and Reviews" is proud to bring you.

(Music stops, drumroll, huge billboard behind Me appears with dancers revealing the Billboard with the name, "Premiere Week Sucks! The Musical Part IV: The Trilogy Part II: The Next Next Next Generation, Sus-Sus-Sus-Sussudio!". It is abundantely obvious that it's last year's billboard with a few extra words and numbers change with white paper and marker covering over the rest of it.)

"Premiere Week Sucks!: The Musical Part IV: The Trilogy Part II: The Next Next Next Generation Sus-Sus-Sus-Sussudio!"

(Audience, which has suddenly appeared out of thin air, applauded and cheers)

Hit it.

("My Opinion-ation (Theme from "Blossom)" starts playing, singing)
Don't know about the future, that's anybody's guess
But how exactly was it, did that Jane get pregnant.
I heard what she is claiming, but I don't think it was immaculate.
And in my opinion-ation, Pretty sure Jane's telling a lie.

(Music switches to "Thank You for Being a Friend (Theme to "The Golden Girls")")

(Talking)
Matthew Perry, this is for you!
(Singing)
Thank you for being a "Friend."
Glad to see you back on TV again
On something new
Well it's "Odd Couple", so it's old, and I guess it's new.
And I loved your last show "Go On"
I love "Mr. Sunshine" and "Studio 60..." too.
But you will see, those shows were really just for me
And everyone else will just say
Thank you for being a "Friend."

(Music switches to "Save Me (Theme from "Smallville", tries singing but struggles)
I- I want you to saaaa--aave me
From- This, so, you won't- Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop the music.

(Music stops)

What the hell was that?!

(Off camera STAGE DIRECTOR yells from behind the camera.)

What was it, the theme from "Smallville"? That's what that was? That wasn't a theme song, that was a Bono-wannabe screeching! Jesus! No wonder we couldn't write anything with that. No give me something else, something you can actually sing and dance too. No, not "Spider-Man". Alright, if it has to be a WB one, than at least do the one with the good theme song. Yes, that's a good theme song! The show sucks but- I grew up during Lilith Fair, we're playing that one, I like it!

(After a delay music reluctantly comes on again; Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait" aka "'Dawson's Creek' Theme")
Do-do, do, do-do, do
Do-do, do, do-do, do
Do-do, do do-do, do
They had one baby, he was a kid when they were gone
Victims of the "Gotham" night
Every pain he would stress
Every moment of unrest
Until he be became the Prince of Darkness
Oh, but not what, "Gotham" is about.
I don't want to watch
All this boring origin
I want to watch him be Batman now
Not this depressing shit that I could've skipped through.
I don't want to watch
ten years to the most boring
part of the Batman tale, sorry?
Do-do-do, do-do-do...

(Music switches to Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help from Our Friends" (Theme song from "The Wonder Years"))
What do you do, now that "...Mother"'s gone too.
There's hardly anything good to watch on TV
So you hope and you try, and you write a new show
And hope it's as good as the first could be
Oh baby,
"How I Met Your Dad"
It didn't even make the schedule
"How I Met Your Dad"
Might not even be a replacement in Summer
"How I Met Your Dad"
I was looking forward to it too
Booo-hoo-hoo, hoo
Ba-hoo, hoo.

(Music switches to "ABC-DEF-GHI Song" from "Sesame Street")

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
That's what you might as well call "A to Z".
Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
You'd think Millioti'd got a better show to me.
It seems like any sitcoms that I have ever seen
Oh, yes I saw the pilot, it was just OK for me.
Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Sadly "A to Z", is one of the better shows you'll see.

(Outburst soon stops music!)
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
(Pause)
I've grown to accustomed to her "Selfie"

(Frederic Loewe's "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face/The Ending" from "My Fair Lady" plays briefly, singing)
She almost seems familiar
Like I'm accustomed to the tale
That she points and clicks and zooms
Her likes, her fails
The plot, it's doom
to seem familiar to me now
(Not singing)
So familiar

(Awkward pause goes to music changes to "The Patty Duke Show")
Meet Andre and his family
And their nice big house, in the 'burbs of L.A.
But he used to come from the streets of Compton
And that part of himself, seems to have gone away.
They're now just "Black-ish"
They're just "Black-ish", not really white
One weird strange conundrum
He's living with every day.

(Music changes to "Movin' On Up (Theme from "The Jeffersons)" Talking)
Oh, and the big show doesn't go on yet.

(Gospel choir begins walking out on stage, and David stands on an elevated pedestal.)

Oh, that man, Stephen, has hit the big time!
(Singing)
Oh, he's moving on up!

CHOIR
Movin' on up

ME
To the CBS eye
To that legendary timeslot, in late night
Oh, he's movin' on up!

CHOIR
Movin on up!

ME
To the CBS eye
He's earned his giant slice of the pie
No more basic cable
No more "The Daily Show..."
He's got to contend with Fallon
But no character he has to will
He's got a whole lot to live up to
Letterman's old shoes to fill
He's got time to prepare,
Colbert will be ready
And no Stewart to support him here
He's movin' on up!

CHOIR
Movin' on up

ME
To the CBS eye
He'll tell the Report, Good-bye!
Movin' on up!

CHOIR
Movin' on up!

ME
To the CBS eye
It's the next generation of Late Ni-iiiiiiiiiight!

(Music stops. David has returned to his old clothes, and the broom, which had first turned into a cane and then a microphone, is not back to a broom.)

ME
(Sweeping up as he head exits stage right, humming to self)
There's no business, like show business...

(He keeps humming the tune, but words are spoken loud enough to decipher as he quietly exits, leaving the stage dark and empty again.)



To view past years blogs on "Premiere Week Sucks!" go to the links below:
TV PREMIERE WEEK SUCKS: THE MUSICAL!...
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2011/09/tv-premiere-week-sucks-musical-and.html

PREMIERE WEEK SUCKS! THE MUSICAL II: THE SEQUEL!!!!!!!!
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2012/09/premiere-week-sucks-musical-ii-sequel_18.html

PREMIERE WEEK SUCKS: THE MUSICAL III: THE TRILOGY!!!!!!!!
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2013/10/premiere-week-sucks-musical-iii-trilogy.html

TV VIEWING 101: CLASS #4: SITCOM WRAP-UP and INTRO TO DRAMA SERIES

SMILE! You're on "Candid Camera"! Alright, you're not on camera, don't worry. Can't take a joke some of you; it's not like you were doing  anything, you we're wait- Hey wait a minute, what-the-hell we're you guy's doing? If I find a cell phone on in here, it better be turned to Hulu or Netflix or something, folks. There's no taking personal calls in this class, you better be watching television! There's plenty of shitty television I can make you all watch instead of what I'm teaching. I'm not against using "Flava of Love" as a punishment device, just so you know.

Okay, this is a light day, we're going to have a brief Introduction to Drama, but we're gonna finish comedy for now. Now, how many of you actually did your homework? Good, good. What did you guy's compare? "Veep" to "Parks and Recreation", that's two shows still on the air, but okay, I would've tried comparing it to an older show. Perhaps "Murphy Brown" or "Ally McBeal" maybe. Um, yes, what did you do? "Glee", with what? "Welcome Back, Kotter," that's actually not bad. There could've been some better ones, the Us. against Them, outcast/misfist concept isn't as strong with that show as it is for "Glee", per se, but you still got a lot of good parallels. Who did "Modern Family"? Alright, what did you come up with? "Soap"? Uh, that's not bad. A lot of family sitcoms could've worked there, but I'm glad you picked an extensive family one. You're right, there aren't a whole lot of-eh, extended family multi-narrative sitcoms from the past. Actually you know what would've been good? "Friends". Seems weird, but that was the trick to the show, that it was a family sitcom, it's just that, the family was your friends, so that actually could've worked out well. Anybody struggle with "The Big Bang Theory", (Raises hand) I did! That was so much harder than I thought it would be. What did you compare it to? "Friends", kinda, yeah. What did you have, "A Different World"! Really? How did you get that one? Whitley and Dwayne kinda like Penny and Leonard? I don't think so; you're really stretching it there, if that's the best you came up with. Yeah, they're students in the college, that's a different dynamic completely than scientists that work and teach in the college. There was never a date rape episode of "The Big Bang Theory", I think you're way off on that one. What did you have? "Newhart", I thought about "Newhart" but, it didn't quite work- What did you have? "Taxi", I thought about. You? "Family Matters"? You know, stop laughing actually, I think he's closer than you think he is. You know why this was harder, it took me awhile, but then I figured it out why. Okay, the original idea premise of the show, seems simple, somebody comes into a new world and they soon effect each other, but in every other version of that plot, Penny would've been the star, and everybody else would've been the supporting actors. Mary Richards, goes to get a job, and soon, she's one of the gang at WJM-TV, But it's still Mary, who's the main star. Not Lou, or Phyllis or Ted or somebody like that. They're not observing this new girl obsessed with her, you know? And that's the distinction with "The Big Bang Theory", it wasn't about the new character who comes in. That's why "Newhart", doesn't work, it's about the normal guy, surrounded by the bunch of crazies, "The Big Bang Theory" it's a bunch of crazies, in this case, intelligent crazies, focusing in on the way the new neighbor effects their world. That's why "Family Matters" is actually kinda close, because- well, they didn't do it on purpose originally, but Urkel comes in and effects the lives of everyone else, but essentially the show, for awhile anyway let's say, was still about the Winslows having to deal with Urkel, and not from Steve Urkel's perspective. So if you ever run into somebody who hates "The Big Bang Theory", tell them to think of another show that had that dynamic, seriously, 'cause I couldn't think of too many. That was much harder than I thought it would be for that show, but once you realize it, it's like "Whoa, that is different!", like the Tommy Chong character from "That '70s Show

Okay, I think you guys have gotten a very basic understanding of how to watch and read sitcoms properly, but we will probably revisit it before your tests. (Oh, we're having tests) Meantime, we're gonna move onto drama series now. And the truth of the matter is that TV dramas and TV sitcoms aren't really that different, per se. Comedy/tragedy, like those masks, they're basically two sides of the same coin.  There's some obvious differences, most drama are an hour, most sitcoms are thirty minutes, you rarely get a laugh in a drama series, although sometimes a drama series, can in fact, be pretty damn funny. That said, unlike sitcoms, which have always been somewhat continuous in their storylines, that, actually more of a newer phenomenon in drama series, at least Primetime ones, we'll get to soap operas a little later. When we're the beginning of television, some of the first reality big drama series were what we would think of now as anthology series. This was even before "The Twilight Zone", there were shows like "Studio One", "The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse", "Playhouse 90" even the much-maligned "Hallmark Hall of Fame", actually started that way, and what most of those shows actually shot live at some point in the earliest days of television. These were essentially an extension of radio plays, when things like the Mercury Theater would adapt famous plays and movies and other stories, and adapt them to the radio, and then, when television came along, they would turn these into what we would call teleplays, and they were popular, and relatively easy to put on the air at the time. And, while like I said soap operas, also transition from radio, as well as sitcom, serial drama series, also did as well at that time, cliffhanger-type stories.

Eventually though, more traditional continuous drama series would also pepper the landscape and essentially take over today, that said, though eh-, well, let's compare with sitcoms, 'cause essentially, you can narrow down 99% of sitcoms into basically one or two different basic concepts, the family sitcom and the workplace sitcom. You can take any sitcom and essentially it'll fall into either one or both of those structures/parameters. Look at the "Sex and the City", change the city of New York to a house in Miami, and the cosmopolitans to cheesecake, and it's "The Golden Girls". 4 old women, talking about each other's sex lives, so they don't live in the same, still a family sitcom. Even when sitcoms have more elements to them than simply family or workplace, we tend to think of them in those terms, most of the successful ones anyone. That doesn't mean it couldn't of sci-fi, fantasy or mystery, or even soap opera like aspects to them, but we still think of them like that, but there is a giant tendency to separate dramas into these subgroups, family dramas and workplace dramas, but we also found ourselves separating them even further into subgenres. doctor shows, cop dramas, lawyer shows, detective shows with private eyes- in fact, ever since nearly the beginning of television, over 18 hours a week, at a minimum in Primetime has been devoted to some section of the law. And honestly, I'm not even sure that counts the first big continuous drama series subgenre, the westerns, many of which, were based around law themselves.

Westerns were the really first one, and there were lots of westerns, and many different styles of westerns from wholesome family shows like "The Rifleman" or "Bonanza", to comedic ones like "Maverick", to your more classic sheriff and small town ones like what was the longest-running primetime series until "The Simpsons" passed it a few years back, "Gunsmoke". For the most part, this genre fell off, but shows got replaced by all the other ones we know, and most of these shows, have a certain pattern and rhythm that we're familiar with, and those are referred to as procedurals. We usually associate these mostly with detective or cop series, but essentially any drama that's not solely limited to the continuous serial nature of their nature as being the main point of entry, follow some form of a traditional rigid structure. For a long time, somebody dying on a doctor show was considered taboo. You know "Marcus Welby,M.D." never loss a patient that sort of thing, but that evolved in "M*A*S*H", or "St. Elsewhere" or "ER", you go to work, you're a doctor, there's patients you have to treat some you save, some die, etc. There's usually a b-plotline melodrama in their as well. Lawyer shows are even more predictable, there's a case, usually a new one each week, sometimes a few take long, and then we see the case and usually "Perry Mason" will figure out who actually did it, (He didn't once, that was weird) or nowadays, it's not too unusual for them to lose the case. Cop shows, investigate the crime, witness, maybe something a little sketchy by police standards to find a clue, often a reveal at the end of who did it. These continue today, primarily on the network shows, but don't be fooled, just because it "Law & Order: SVU" and "CSI..." one episode to usually solve it's case, and at least a whole season for "Homeland", "True Detective" or "The Killing" to solve theirs (Or did they ever solve the case in "Twin Peaks"?) doesn't mean they're not procedurals. You simply can't have a solve the case plot, or try a defendant, without following the structure of how to do that somehow. Even most family sitcoms, you've got your basic melodrama of the episode, usually it's relieved by the end.... This is when show started involving into more classical serial structures, first with primetime soaps, which actually originated with "Peyton Place" back in '64, and that was a big show for the time, and there were shows in between, but it didn't become more prevalent and relevant until, the Primetime soaps, like "Dallas" and "Dynasty", which were taking some of the things that daytime soaps were for, but moving them into primetime and taking the serial structure a little more seriously, the real key into modern day drama series, is when we started taking the procedurals and then adding the serialized continuous story arc.

This is where, in the late '70s and especially in the early '80s, with "Hill Street Blues". Now, "Hill Street Blues" wasn't the first how to combine a traditional procedural episode arc, with a long-form character arcs and development, probably something like "The Fugitive", probably gets the most credit, but "Hill Street Blues" is definitely where all the modern drama series can really be traced back to most.  It was a cop show, but it wasn't necessarily about, catching the bad guy or finding the next criminal, it really was the longterm story arcs and characters that we we're following, and reveals about the characters in certain cases, that was a big shift too, surprise reveals, (Subtlety revealed, which was also unusual) In fact, since "Hill Street Blues" won their first Emmy, back in '81, only one procedural drama has won the Best Drama Series, and that was the one year "Law & Order" won, everything else since, pretty much, so 1 in 33 years. So they seem like they've taken over, until you look at the ratings, and it's "Sunday Night Football", "NCIS", "NCIS: Los Angeles", "CSI: Crime Scenes Investigators", "Person of Interest"... right at the top. This is why "Hill Street Blues" gets the standard-bearer, 'cause there was the "Dallas" and "Dynasty"'s catching on at the time, but there were still "The Rockford Files", and "Kojak", and "Quincy, M.E."'s on, "Lou Grant"'s kinda of another tricky tweener one, although I tend to lean that one towards procedural just a different world, but "Hill Street Blues", really pushed aside the necessity of the procedural, in a procedural universe, but then advanced it towards this more complex, character-driven, serialized story arc, which really peppers what we now think as a premiere drama series in the spotlight.

Alright, this was a late day, for me, so we're gonna make it a short day for you. But you're gonna get some extra HOMEWORK: 1st, Identify your favorite drama series, and analyze whether it's more of a serialized continuous story arc or a procedural story arc, and obviously many shows are both, so think about how much each show is. Determine whether it's a workplace drama, a family drama, or some other genre it is, and if it mixes genres, be specific, and I want you to think about, especially if it isn't a procedural, think about the episode structure, 'cause they do have, very similar episode structure, even a long-form serialized series, have beginnings, middles and ends for each episode, and if it's done well it should be a complete one, each time. Just because it's a season or a series-long story arc, that doesn't mean, the episodes aren't themselves complete whole tales, you just have to figure out how to make those episodes compelling on their own. And finally, I want you to take a comedy series, which favorite one of yours you want, and think about how it could change and become a drama series. What kind would it be, would it have to be changed so much, how easily or how difficult would that be, all those things to turn a particular comedy series into a drama. I know somebody just tried doing that with "The Big Bang Theory", try a little better than they do, but I want you guys to consider it. Howard Hawks used to say if all else fails do a drama.

All right folks, that's all for today. Good night, and good luck.

If you missed a class, please catch up at the links below:
CLASS #1
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/08/tv-viewing-101-class-1-syllabus-intro.html

CLASS #2
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/08/tv-viewing-101-class-2-sitcoms.html

CLASS #3
http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/09/tv-viewing-101-class-3-sitcom-structure.html

MOVIE REVIEWS #95: "THE WOLF OF WALL STREET", "THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN", "LONE SURVIVOR", "NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. I", "NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. II", "FILTH", "ALAN PARTRIDGE", "G.B.F.", "THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY", "WADJDA", "NARCO CULTURA", "PANDORA'S PROMISE" and MORE!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

SPECIAL EDITION: "BURKA AVENGER" INTERVIEW! A DISCUSSION WITH ADI ABDURAB, THE HEAD OF WRITING FOR "BURKA AVENGER", PAKISTAN'S BIGGEST SUPERHERO.

I've always been willing to discuss anything regarding the entertainment world on this blog, although I didn't particularly imagine that would include children's superhero cartoons, that originate in Pakistan. That said, I try not to pass up too many opportunities and when I had the chance to discuss "Burka Avenger", the groundbreaking and award-winning TV show with the show's Head of Writing Adi Abdurab, I took advantage. What him, and the rest of the crew on the show are doing, is quite amazing with the first 3-D animated superhero in Pakistan, "Burka Avenger". She (Yes, a female superhero) has become famous worldwide, as a symbolic answer as Abdurab puts it "to extremes of the world". A powerful message especially in a county where such extremes like the right to women having an education is still being fought. For this SPECIAL EDITION blogpost, I got the opportunity to take some time and talk with Adi Abdurab, about "Burka Avenger", his journey and role on the Peabody Award-winning program, and what the future might hold for the series. We talked through instant messaging on Facebook, we were acquainted with each other through a mutual friend, and the conversation below is corrected from the original for grammatical reasons, as well as to present the interview in a more smoother way, with only brief, irrelevant and/or uninteresting exchanges between us taken out from the original discussion.  


ME: I'll just start with an easy one, who is "Burka Avenger"? 

ADI ABDURAB: There is a simple answer and a slightly longer answer, which would you like first?

ME: Start with the simple than go to the long.

ADI ABDURAB: The simple answer is that Burka Avenger is Pakistan's first superhero. She is a girl who has no super powers, is a highly trained martial artist and the answer to the extremes of the world. The long version is that Burka Avenger is the answer to a bunch of questions. Can women be superheroes without the revealing clothes? What role has education battling extremes, can a message designed for a specific country spread across the globe and can all of this be presented in an easy to digest package for children in such a way that they influence their environment. "Burka Avenger" talks about issues that are not common in the mainstream environment, women's right to education, not becoming a runaway, child labor and freedom of choice in how we live our lives. And, as a former business student, I feel works as a case study on how a show can come up from nothing (from the last place you'd expect) and take the world by storm because it hit all the right touch points at the right time. Does that answer your question?

ME: Very much so. It also leads me into my next questions, what are your responsibilities on the show, and how did you get to work on it? In other words, how did you get from business student to "Burka Avenger"? 

ADI ADBURAB: I had my own insignificant little blog where I used to write jokes and create random comics. It was mostly hit and miss. I was an IT manager for about 6 years at the time. A friend of mine was in the animation business, at the time, we talked about working on something together and I wrote some stories for him. He liked the ideas, none of them made it to film unfortunately. He was called in for an interview at Unicorn Black Animation Studios (then called Mango Animation). He did no take the job, but when asked if he knew a writer, put my name in for recommendation. I was called in for an interview along with other writers and we were all given this outline on which were to fashion a story. The outline (in summary) was that there are these extremists who are going to threaten a girl's school. There must be kids, there must be side-kicks, funny little characters and menacing villains.

ME: Is that the one that became the first episode? 

ADI ADBURAB: Sadly no, my first draft was rejected because I introduced 20 characters in there and the production pipeline was not ready for that many assets. But they liked where I was going with it and hired me. Then after a few meeting with the other writers, we whittled down the story to what you saw on TV.

ME: Ah. Yeah, 20 characters in an animation cartoon, that can be a bit much. 

ADI ADBURAB: At the time, I just had ideas for stories; I didn't even know the technical aspects of writing a script. But, some reading and research, I picked up on all that and I nailed it by the 4th draft. After two episodes, they liked my work; the made me the head of writing. They tried out a few people for sound direction, then they trained me in heading up pre-production and here we are.

ME: Oh wow, you do a lot on the show. 

ADI ADBURAB: I'd like to look at it as doing everything I can.

ME: That's a great way of putting it. How many writers does the show have, and how many episodes have you written? 

ADI ADBURAB: The show has 1 other writer and one consultant. The other writer is primarily responsible for gags, you can look him up, he's famous on Facebook "Comics by Arsian", the consultant was a part-time writer, she used to fine tune some of our scripts, such as going overboard with comedy or action. She'd remind us that we're not making "Simpsons" or "Legend of Korra" (who was an inspiration for some of out characters), and helped steer us back...-

COMICS BY ARSIAN LINKS ARE BELOW:
http://www.comicsbyarslan.com/ (BLOG/HOMEPAGE)
https://www.facebook.com/comics.by.arslan (FACEBOOK PAGE)

ME: You've practically beaten me to my next question here; so since this is Pakistan's first superhero, does "Burka Avenger" have any superhero influences, and in Pakistan in general, just how popular are superheroes/heroines with the public, or is this a very new concept there? 

ADI ADBURAB: Yes, "Legend of Korra" had just come out when we started work and saw it as our benchmark of a strong female lead. We also looked at the darked themes of "Batman" to design some of our shots. Our head of animation, a huge Batman, TAS, and Justice League fan, used to watch their action sequences all day before coming up with a storyboard. It is a bunch of ideas assembled from similar shows. So super heroes in Pakistan aren't exactly a new thing. There is a Commander Safeguard, who is basically a mascot for a soap, but they created some very interesting animated shorts featuring the adventures of Commanders Safeguard. We also used to get cartoon regularly, so the audience had been well educated since the days of "Voltron", "Thundercats", "Silver Hawks", etc. We didn't have such an uphill battle with the idea of a superhero.

ME: Wow, "Voltron", that brings me back.

ADI ADBURAB: It does us all. The ones with the cars was ridiculous; I remember laughing about the gags they made on "Robot Chicken" about that "Voltron".

ME: I never liked the one with the cars either. I'll have to look up the "Robot Chicken" one through, I haven't seen that one yet. I've seen others, but not the "Voltron" one. 

ADI ADBURAB: Do check it out, you might like it.

(Adi sent me the link to the "Robot Chicken" "Voltron" parody, and I watched it as we continued talking; it was pretty funny. The link is below.)
http://www.adultswim.com/videos/robot-chicken/voltron-force-assemble

ME: Moving on, the show's creator is Haroon, a very famous pop star in Pakistan, how hands-on is he with the show and what's he like to work with? 

ADI ADBURAB: He is very hands on, sometimes, short of taking the computer from you and doing it himself, he does it all. Sometimes it presents a challenge to fully create, but at other times, it makes things easy. Having been a pop star, he had some great ideas for soundtrack and that still happens to be one of the show's highlights. He is a very understanding person; I've seen people storm off after huge fights, but he never made it personal. "Mixed feelings" is the most apt phrase to describe that relationship. Being Head of Writing, most of my job involves going back and forth between him almost all the time. 

ME: I see. Well, the music for the show, is very prevalent, it's also very catchy and iconic already, so it's definitely impressive. 

ADI ADBURAB: Yes, the music is definitely the highlight; it's lead into the launch of another Black Unicorn project called Taazi.com, a platform to hear music legally for free. It's picking up nicely in Pakistan. 

ME: Oh, very cool. You talked a bit about the education aspects; it's a core theme of the show. It's obviously very important for you and the show, why is that, and just how prevalent a message is that on Pakistani television, especially compared with other animated/children shows? 

ADI ADBURAB: There is a mentality common to the Southeast Asian Sub-Continent that still holds on to the notion that women are inferior being. This is limited to the underdeveloped areas of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. To counteract that, we that "Burka Avenger" would present an opportunity to influence these minds both directly and tangentially, and hopefully it will help the cause of making education available to everyone. Other shows speak of generic issues of empowering women, which is great, but we felt that, with this, we need a new approach and we realized that there is no greater asset to a nation than literacy. I hope that answers the question. I feel like I may have repeated myself a few times there. 

ME: You probably have, but it does bare repeating. Especially is Pakistan, just looking up the statistics on literacy, especially among women; it's a bit startling for a westerner, so it's a very big message you're sending out. 

ADI ADBURAB: It is heart-wrenching for us as well. 

ME: I can kinda imagine, but not quite. Just a couple more questions, how long does it take to produce an episode? 

ADI ADBURAB: It depends on a few things, such as number of assets, the locations and backlog. Sometimes it takes 3 weeks, sometimes 6. The quickest we have done an episode was 2 weeks, which was basically a recap episode. 

ME: You also mentioned wanting the show to spread across the globe, in a way it's done that already, but are there any prospects/chances that "Burka Avenger" will start airing on U.S. television soon? 

ADI ADBURAB: Yes, there are definite wheels in motion to bring the series stateside. Insh-Allah, we will solidify a plan and announce the big news,... soon. 

ME: Hmm. Very interesting. We will keep an eye out for that. 

ADI ADBURAB: I'll be sure to let you know as soon as something solidifies. 

ME: I'll be waiting. Well, that's all the questions I had, thank you very much for doing this with me.

ADI ADBURAB: Not a problem, I'm happy to talk about "Burka Avenger". 

ME: And congratulation, on the many awards and accommodations the show has received, especially the Peabody, big congratulations on that. 

ADI ADBURAB: Thank you very much, it was a surprise for us, as well as a humbling reminder that anything can happen to anyone. 

ME: Thanks again for granting me this time.