Friends revolve around the story of its central characters Chandler Bing, Joey Tribani, Phoebe Buffay, Rachel Green and siblings Monica and Ross Geller. They are mostly together and discuss issues vital to young people like marriage, dating, children and relationship. The story moves along the years with some of them getting married and having family while trying to lead the life of carefree youth. Through all of it, they remain the best of friends.

It was an exceptional product of Hollywood with which people could identify themselves. Friends brought back the situation in sitcom. The humor wasn’t really from jokes. It was almost always from situations that the characters had to face. It never tried to make audience laugh.

Friends was created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and produced by the two creators together with Kevin S. Bright. Friends had won 56 awards including 6 Emmys in various categories together with 152 nominations. Friends was popular not only in United States but throughout the world and has been broadcasted in almost one hundred countries. So huge was its popularity, that an estimated 51.5 million U.S audience watched the final episode of friends. Except for the very first and the last episodes, the names of all the episodes have started with ‘The One…’ The first episode was titled ‘Pilot’ and the last ‘The Last One’. The actors even shared great relation behind the scenes. They always made conscious effort to keep the show’s group format and prevent it being dominated by one member.

Friends had been very popular. People all over the world liked it and it received great appreciation from everywhere.  So widespread was it popularity that the recent immigrants to United States from Arab said that after watching friends on cable satellite television, they learned American accent. Friends have contributed to several areas of culture, most notably fashion.

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I dream of Jeannie is an American fantasy sitcom (situational comedy). It was first aired in September 1965. The show was a massive hit and ran for five seasons till May 1970. It has been rerun several times after that. The series became a even bigger hit when it began to be rerun in syndication. A total of 139 episodes were produced during the five seasons. It was produced by Screen Gems. The 1st season consisted of thirty episodes and all of them were filmed in black and white. These episodes had only recently been colorized for a DVD edition and few broadcasts. The other 109 episodes from four seasons were all filmed in color. The series was created by Sidney Sheldon in reply to the huge success of the Bewitched series by the rival network ABC.

Starring Barbara Eden as the sexy female genie and Larry Hagman as the astronaut Tony Nelson, I dream of Jeannie revolve around the adventures that happen after Tony Nelson finds Jeannie in a bottle on a desert island during an aborted space assignment. Though he keeps Jeannie, he doesn’t want her to use her powers and tries hard to keep it hidden from his boss Dr Bellows and his friends. Only his best friend Roger Healy is able to find out about Jeannie in the beginning itself. The show was a laugh riot as Jeannie keeps on getting her master into one mess or the other. Initially they share only a platonic relationship but towards the end of the series they end up getting married. With a blink of her eyes and nod of her head, Jeannie takes us into her magical world. Two I dream of Jeannie movies have also been made which did great business.  I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later which was released in 1985 and I Still Dream of Jeannie which released in 1991.

The show was a great example of perfect comic timing. The characters never tried to make the audiences laugh through jokes or witted lines. It was the situation and the performances which made I Dream of Jeannie one of the most watched sitcoms worldwide.

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4. Byomkesh Bakshi

 

Byomkesh Bakshi is a fictional Bengali detective created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay in 1932. The character though inspired by Sherlock Holmes is completely adapted to Indian situation by the author. At that time detective writing was looked down upon in Bengali literature circles and Bandyopadhyay himself would not have expected that Byomkesh Bakshi will become such popular. 

There are fours set of stories, all of them set in Calcutta of the 1950s, which displays Byomkesh Babu’s remarkable skill to solve mysteries. The book titled “The Menagerie and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries” has “The Menagerie” in which the detective is trying to solve case which involves broken motor parts, a death which looks deceptively natural and strange people residing in Golap Colony who have a tainted past. The Menagerie was made into a movie by Satyajit Ray under the title of “Chiriakhana” (zoo) in 1967. “The Jewel Case” is a story of disappearance of an expensive necklace; “The Will That Vanished” has Byomkesh solving a case so that last wish of a close friend of his can be fulfilled. In “The Quills of the Porcupine” the detective foils the plans of a ruthless opportunist.

Byomkesh and his friend for life, Ajit, meet in “Satyanneshi” and later share a flat on Harrison Street. Ajit, who had ambitions to become a writer, narrates their cases. Ajit also taught Byomkesh how to play chess. They are shown getting most of their leads from “Dainik Kalketu”, their favorite newspaper. Byomkesh later marries a girl he met during solving a case. Through all their novels Puntiram is their faithful servant. 

The stories were made into television series by Basu Chatterjee featuring Rajit Kapoor as Byomkesh Bakshi.

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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is a very popular Hindi soap opera produced by Balaji Telefilms of India. The first episode of the soap opera was aired in 2000 around the same time as Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” i.e. “Kaun Banega Crorepati” was launched. The show was immediately liked by audience and the viewer ship was not just limited to India but was also watched and liked by viewers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, U.S.A., and U.K.

The plot revolves around the successful Virani family, hailing from Gujarat, which is now settled in Mumbai and has its own standing in the corporate world. Govardhan Virani is the head of the family who lives with his wife, three sons, daughter in laws and grandchildren in the house ironically named Shantiniketan. It is ironical as Shantiniketan means the home of peace in Hindi as the three daughters in law Savita, Daksha, and Gayatri are doing something or other to disrupt the tranquility and peace of the household. Mihir, who is the eldest son of the family, elopes with Tulsi, daughter of the family priest, and marries her. Tulsi is blamed for luring Mihir to marry her so that she could make the transition from a middle class family to a rich and respectable household. Tulsi is shown fighting the continuous injustice being done to her by her in-laws and trying to earn respect from her family members. Tulsi faces trouble not only from within the household but from outside too. Payal, who was Mihir’s fiancée at one time, wants to rock the marriage somehow so that she can marry Mihir. For this purpose she does not hesitate to instigate members of the Virani family.

In a major twist in the story it is shown that Mihir died and due to pressure by family members Tulsi is going to remarry. Mihir is resurrected and comes back to claim his wife at the altar, the reason behind his absence is that he had an accident which resulted in amnesia. The reason behind resurrection of Mihir might have been a marketing gimmick or maybe it was done in view of the popular public demand to bring Mihir back, but whatever the reason might have been it increased the ratings of the show.

Recently it was reported that Smriti Malhotra Irani who plays the main character of Tulsi gets paid around 1000 $ (50,000 INR) per episode which is a quite substantial sum in India. In April 2005, the show celebrated the completion of 5 years on the air as well as aired 1000th episode.
The serial is currently aired on STAR Plus, Monday to Friday at 10:00 P.M in the United Kingdom and Monday to Friday 10:30 P.M. in India.

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After seeing the huge success of Mr. Bean, an animated cartoon series was made in 2002 with the same title. In the animated series also very little actual dialogues are used. In the animated series the number of supporting characters is more than in the original television series and includes Mrs. Wicket, Mr. Bean’s landlady, and Mrs. Wicket’s one eyed cat, Scrapper. The voice for animated Bean was provided by Atkinson himself.

Mr. Bean’s first name is never revealed, when once asked for his first name Bean replies Mister! Mr. Bean is shown as a boy trapped in a grown man’s body who gets into hilarious situations due to his own actions. Mr. Bean is shown as living in London always wearing a tweed jacket and a red tie.

Mr. Bean is shown as an alien falling from the sky in the animated version.  Mr. Bean’s best friend is his teddy bear, simply named Teddy. The teddy is shown to be inanimate while Mr. Bean behaves as if the teddy were for real. In several episodes the bear with button eyes ends up being destroyed either partially only to be revived intact in later episodes.

In the first episode of Mr. Bean, he had an orange 1969 Morris Mini which was crashed at the end of first episode itself. From then on a 1977 model of Mini with lime green color is his car of choice. Irma Gobb is the girlfriend of Mr. Bean but Mr. Bean thinks of Irma more as a friend than his love interest.

“Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie” was released in 1997 and the movie became a commercial success by grossing more than $ 230 million globally. The movie was directed by Mel Smith. Unlike in the sitcom and the animated series where Mr. Bean occupies the centre stage and the plot revolves around him only, in the movie Mr. Bean is shown living with a family in California. On March 2007, second movie of Bean, “Mr. Bean’s Holiday”, was released in UK with Atkinson again in the lead role. It has been directed by Steve Bendelack.

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