Tell it to the misdaad squad

THE first sitcom I got hooked on was Good Times, a spin-off of the sitcom Maude, starring Beatrice Arthur. Good Times was based on Maude’s African-American maid, Florida Evans, and her family. Of course, back in 1982 the show had been dubbed into isiZulu for ease of access. Listening to the twang-laden “beeg English” on MetroFM and YFM nowadays, you wouldn’t believe there was a time when we perpetually sunburnt lot needed “ulimi lukaMjoji” (as King Shaka described King George’s language) translated for us.

A good 20 years on, I was flipping through TV channels when I came across a rerun of Good Times —in its original English. Back when I used to watch it, the dubbed-intoZulu sitcom had been called Kumnand’ Ekhaya, and the favourite line of my favourite character, JJ Evans, was “Yimina uLaduma!”. In the English version, the same line was “I’m Kid Dynamite!”. It was a mind job of colossal proportions. I quickly changed channels to something more familiar, like Noot vir Noot.

I think the SAUK (SABC), in their infinite wisdom, did provide the original audio of Good Times on Radio 2000, their perennial “dump stuff we’re forced to broadcast” radio station. It was called a simulcast. You know, simultaneous broadcast. At the time, I wasn’t aware of this wonderful invention.

I wish I had known about this simulcast thingamabob before I met a pair of American exchange students at The Durban Expo as a horny teenager back in ’86. Girls with curves in all the right places and supernaturally pearly white teeth to boot. Naturally, I go into mating mode and start impressing them with my knowledge of “American culture” by quoting from the popular TV series Misdaad in Miami. Blank stares. It’s probably my thick Zulu-accented English, I think.

I’m talking about Misdaad in Miami, starring Philip Michael Thomas and Don Johnson. I’d happily have my left arm amputated in exchange for Thomas’s perm, a fact I don’t share with my new-found American friends. They exclaim in unison, “Oh! You mean Miami Vice? Don Johnson is so totally hot, right?” I’m not aware of Don Johnson’s problem with fever but I nod enthusiastically because they don’t seem so perturbed by his elevated temperature. Encouraged by their enthusiasm, I start telling them about my favourite American series, Die Man van Staal, with Steve Austin played by Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man), the only American I know who speaks perfect Afrikaans.

Soon after that there’s another American series with the perfect Bapsfontein Afrikaans, Buck Rogers in die 25de Eeu (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century). This is followed by a proliferation of American series dubbed into indigenous languages (or as my people like to call them, “vanecoolar”). Go to any spot in the kasie and talk about Spider-Man, and no one gives a hoot. But invoke Rabobi and everyone’s eyes light up in reminiscence. For the culturally challenged, Rabobi is the seTswana version of Spider-Man. And to be quite frank, Rabobi is “badder” and more dangerous. This is quite a statement, seeing as seTswana is not quite as “badass” a language as Afrikaans, isiZulu and isiXhosa in the South African context.

I don’t have the stats to back up my assertion, but I suspect that roughly 83.46% of South Africans have been mugged in Afrikaans, isiZulu and isiXhosa in the past five years. You seem surprised that I included isiXhosa on that list. That’s because, unlike me, you’ve never been walking in King William’s Town en route to the Fort Beaufort taxi rank and then heard, “Mnqundu wakho zisa apha lo wallet xa ungafuni ndikuhlabe unye.” (“Please hand over your wallet to avoid a fatal stabbing.”) Even though I’d been mugged twice before, when the King William’s Town isiXhosa incident occurred, I can neither deny nor confirm that I discovered a brown stain of shame in my drawers on the next Laundry Tuesday.

I’ve been a talk-radio addict since. While searching for Radio Bop on the medium-wave frequency (MW 540), I accidentally tuned into Radio 702 all the way from Durban in the ’90s. This was the first time I heard people with my skin colour argue vociferously with each other about their respective proficiency in the Queen of Hats’ language. My mind was blown. It seems so daft now but maybe there was an ingenious method to the old SAUK’s madness in dubbing the African-American sitcom Sanford and Son into Zulu. Heck, every time I go to France, Turkey, etc, I’m confronted with a Turkish-speaking Fred Sanford on television. There’s something inexplicably sensual about watching Jennifer Lopez stripping down to her drawers in Swahili. The problem is that I’ve only ever seen that scene in my dreams.

I dabbled in radio presenting for a good six years. It breaks my heart how many times I had awesome guests with brilliant stories who refused to go on air because, despite my hollow assurances, they thought their English was not up to scratch. I totally identify. If I had to share with you the number of folks who have lived in this country for the past 70 years without once feeling a tinge of guilt about not being able to string together five words of isiXhosa, isiZulu, seSotho or any other indigenous language, I would need roughly 120 457 columns.

And while I, hopefully, have some people red in the face with shame, let me declare this: the first sentence in my next column will be: “Ish dade, kwaze kwamnandi bo ukuba yinina.” Look it up if it means nothing to you. LS E-mail lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za On Twitter @NdumisoNgcobo