Ask any ordinary teenager from my generation as to what dubbed series they watched and in five or six cases out of 10 they will say, “Pissu Poosa!” Part of the reason for this is that Pissu Poosa is still being telecast on local television (Rupavahini), just like that other lovable series which my generation grew through, Dosthara Hondahitha. Closer to our time, I think we’ll probably also quote Koombichchi (who can forget the title song, set to the tune of Clarence Wijewardena’s “Kurulu Gamey”?), Naana Katha Malliya (Ang Pang Man in South Korea), and for good measure, Inguru Pan Malliya. All of them, incidentally, were relatively “low cost”, lacking proper copyrights, if they had copyrights in the first place, and targeted at a generation which preferred stories about inanimate and unfeeling objects and creatures that were brought to life by our actors. But then there were other series, other titles, and other names.
Two years ago on Facebook, I came across a poll that ranked the best dubbed cartoon series from the last 20 years, in the form of a video. There were the usual suspects, many of them overseen by Titus Thotawatte (like Ha Ha Hari Hawa and Walas Mama, the latter of which was created by the same person who gave us Woody Woodpecker, Walter Lantz). One title was missing, though, which I waited impatiently for given that it had, more than the other series, taught me the value of emotional authenticity when it came to dubbing a foreign television series. Well, TV Show Number Two, Dosthara Honda Hitha, came and went. I waited for TV Show Number One.
I sighed. With relief. It was as I had expected. Tintin. Yes, Tintin.
Long before I took to Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton and long, long before I caught up with Harry Potter and Hogwarts and Voldemort, I started reading Herge and Tintin. This was, I feel, a direct consequence of reading our history as comics and newspaper columns, particularly in the Funday Times, which continues its series on our kings and queens and people to date. I grew to love these comics because they had speech bubbles which conveyed what the characters were thinking even if the other characters didn’t hear them. But long before I even read Tintin, I watched him.
The Adventures of Tintin, made in the early 1990s, was a coproduction between France and Canada and was telecast on HBO. It was a moderate success, but it caught on with audiences in Asia, so with time it was gradually dubbed into other languages: Persian, Japanese, Hindi, even Vietnamese. Sri Lanka had a sizeable audience that had grown up on the character. It made sense, as it still does, to bring him here. When he did come here, the Rupavahini dubbing unit was no longer flanked by Thotawatte. It was being handed over to another, as formidable person: Athula Ransirilal, who would later give us Koombichchi. But there was a problem, one which those who had “overseen” Dosthara Honda Hitha and Pissu Poosa hadn’t really encountered. The Adventures of Tintin was technically superior to anything we had dubbed in the eighties. For it to be popular, two things had to be perfect: the cast and the dubbing.
I’d like to think that Rupavahini tackled both these issues well because to this day, and I am speaking frankly here, I can remember the dubbed Tintin more than the original Tintin. But then, my memories of Herge were in the first place predicated on this series. Not the books. At one level that can be quite blasphemous (after all Herge had passed away by the time of the HBO series, and his most memorable character was supposed to linger with us through his books), but at another it isn’t, since this meant that those in charge of dubbing at Rupavahini had succeeded in disseminating his lovable protagonist, the most loved fictional journalist to be ever conceived, among local audiences. Not surprisingly, then, the show won with both cast and translation.
First, the cast. By default, Tintin needed to be voiced by an actor who could convey youth and courage, and Sangeeth Kalubowila, who has since conceived a career of his own as an announcer and a journalist, met this requirement by his ability to articulate both naïveté and resolve. As much as Kalubowila helped, however, the show would have been nothing were it not for the supporting voice players. Who can look at Captain Haddock, for instance, and not think of Parakrama Perera? Who can look at Bianca Castafiore, particularly in my favourite Tintin adventure, The Castafiore Emerald (which never goes beyond Marlinspike Hall), and not think of the late Mercy Edirisinghe? What of the Thom(p)son twins and Gemunu Wijesuriya, and what of half a dozen supporting characters and Wijeratne Warakagoda (whose name, perhaps because of seniority, was always at the top of the opening credits)?
It wasn’t merely the cast, though. It was also the language, to be specific the translation. This was important, particularly for me, because Tintin’s world operated on unforgettable villains who needed catchy phrases which could help me remember them even I wasn’t watching the series. Haddock’s two memorable oaths (being Tintin-philes, you ought to know what they are) had been dubbed excellently in my mother tongue, but more than them, it was the conversations and dialogues which kept up my interest. To a considerable extent, that helped make the Rupavahini version superior to the English original: by spicing up those conversations.
There are so many examples I can quote here. For the time being, I’ll pick on two.
The first. Flight 714. The scene? Rastapopulous, the villain, leaves Tintin and his friends inside a volcano (after inadvertently activating it with a detonator). Tintin escapes with the rest, but in an unlikely way: a UFO (the story was written at a time when the West was “haunted” by the counterculture and the American fascination with aliens had spilt over to Europe). The UFO comes across Rastapopulous and his troupe, on a small boat aimlessly wandering along the sea, and awakens them. Rastopopulous looks up, asks the others as to what it is, and gets a reply from Alan.
The HBO version has Alan say, “Looks like a UFO.” To which Rastapopulous replies, “I don't care what it is, shoot it!” Or something like that, I can’t really remember. The Rupavahini version, on the other hand, has Alan say, “බොස් ඒක පියාබින පීරිසයක් වගේ.” Rastapopulous’s reply? “මට පියාබින කෝප්පයත් එකයි මිනිහෝ, වෙඩි තියපල්ලා!” Neater, because of the wordplay involved (there's no real word for UFO, only the literal translation of “flying saucer”) which the original in English couldn't make use of. Yes, this had to be the most memorable dialogue in the story.
The second. The Calculus Affair. The scene? Tintin and Haddock are on their way to the train station to meet Professor Calculus, whom they’ve just missed at his hotel by minutes. Two Bordurian agents, hell bent on killing our heroes and kidnapping the Professor, delay them by tripping the Captain, who seethes when one of the two remarks that he is as blind as a wombat. The argument is terse, but nothing stands out. Until you get to the dubbed version: “ඇස් නොපෙනෙන රැවුලා!” the agent snaps at him, to which we get the reply, “උඹ රෑටත් ඇස් පේන්නෙ නැති වවුලා!” Again you sense the superiority of the dubbing: the wordplay between ravula and wawula, which in English doesn’t have the same sting, the same power.
It's no surprise, to me at least, that after more than 10 years I remember the dubbed more than the English version and this despite the fact that I still watch the latter on and off. And I'm not the only one: ask anyone who was fortunate enough to watch Rupavahini back then and I'm sure you'll come across others who say they prefer that to the original. I could write more on this, but words are not enough.
Tintin was frequently telecast by Rupavahini. Sadly, however, not for the last 10 or 15 years. For reasons of copyright, I suppose (both Dosthara Honda Hitha and Pissu Poosa, while popular here, were relatively nondescript in their countries), although that's not a good enough excuse. Yes, audiences are different now, but children (thankfully) are still alert to nuance and subtlety. I am sure they'd still love it.
I watched Tintin before I read him. I watched him as he fought Rastapopulous, Müller, and Müsstler with his friends. I caught on what they did. In the end (I like to believe) they shaped me, as they shaped every other kid. Rupavahini helped. And one of these days, I'd like to watch him again. In Sinhala.
Sangeeth Kalubowila sent me the following message after reading this article: "Well, this Rupavahini version of Tintin was not produced at the SLRC, while the dubbing was done at a private TV production house. Although the original script was done by Mr. Thotawatte, it was directed and supervised by the late Mr Ajith Dahanayake who was a talented person in many fields. I must say that there were lots of tweaks to the original dialogues. Having said that, I don't underestimate the creativity and the capability of SLRC's dubbing unit which was later headed by Mr Athula Ransirilal, whom I have worked with many times."
Written for: Daily Mirror, January 27 2018
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