REMAKE, REMODEL
Youku is nurturing a big ambition to localize the world’s most popular television genres for online viewing. Wang Kaihao reports.
Perhaps, like US TV audiences over the past decades, Chinese netizens will be laughing aloud on Saturday nights.
After all, Saturday Night Live China, a Chinese adaptation of the long-running sketch comedy and variety show from NBC, is to be released next year via Youku, one of China’s major online video streaming platforms based in Beijing.
The US Emmy Award-winning original features comedy sketches that parody popular social and cultural topics. It is simply known as SNL in the United States, where it premiered in 1975.
The plan to screen SNL China online was released during a two-day conference in Shanghai on the development of Youku and the online video industry in China, which ended on Oct 25.
“SNL is the single most successful comedy variety show in TV history,” said Liu Liu, a producer of the new show, at the conference. “The programs have not only created chemistry between the public’s idols and comedy, but also nurtured unique perspectives on social issues and the sensibility of the times.”
According to Liu, the upcoming weekly show will select some of the hot topics discussed by young people during the preceding week and develop them into entertaining parodies. Nevertheless, the producer says it will not to be a carbon copy of the US show.
“Short video clips are easily spread in cyberspace,” he says. “Consequently, each episode of the show will make short video clips go viral online.”
Liu also expects the show to improve the status of comedians in China, saying they can become superstars. Celebrities will also have the chance to become comedians as they will be invited to reveal their opinions on some social issues.
“When comedy is closely connected with fashion icons, it will create a new direction for Chinese comedy shows,” Liu says.
More details about the show, such as the anchor, are yet to be revealed.
Language kings
Compared with xiaopin, which are short comedy skits, talk shows are a relatively late starter in China. However, Youku is producing another variety show called Yan Wang De Dan Sheng (which roughly translates as “Birth of a King in Language”), which will be screened online next year.
The show will bring together what Youku says are the top 10 professional talkers in China. Gao Xiaosong, a popular musician-turned online program anchor, and Feng Xiaogang, one of China’s top film directors, who is known for his outspoken remarks, will