07 February 2022
Charlene Thabisile Mguni
Remember the animated comedy series “The BYO SHOW” which was once a popular and followed animation in Bulawayo?
Well, it has disappeared and the producers gone quiet.
The BYO SHOW featured cartoon characters who performed funny comedy skits in IsiNdebele.
The Show was found in 2012 by Thabani Lunga also known as Brucik who was the brainchild of the show.
The show/cartoons consisted of three main characters, Sox , Ntuthu and Ratu. who happened to be the Lunga Brothers (Brothers of Thabani) Xolani and Mxolisi.
Thabani Lunga would write the scripts most of the times providing the comedy and fun of it, while Xolani would write the funny songs as well and Mxolisi would pitch in to fine tune the production.
Zenzele Ndebele, the Bulawayo news producer appealed to Ingwe Studios to sponsor and produce the cartoon, thus the spread in popularity of the strip.
In 2014 the first clip was released on YouTube and it took Bulawayo by storm, but however it drew some negative critic as it was regarded as tribalistic.
Xolani Lunga aka Floppy X who was part of the production team said that the show did not promote tribalism but people just took it the wrong way.
“As for tribalism we was never tribalistic but we took simple day to day things we come across and put them to life through art but everyone has his own opinion.”
For many years the show continued to make a lot of noise with people using their jokes as part of everyday life.
The phrase “wena uyisgwadi mampara”, was one that many followers of the cartoon strip took a liking to.
The show grew bigger and bigger to even attract advertisements from such big companies such as Clarion, for making GBV awareness shows amongst others.
But after a while the show just went quiet.
The jokes died.
However Xolani disputed this claiming that the show was still alive just with no more funnier jokes.
“The show is live and well just that we branched to the business side of it only. We have been doing a lot of adverts and short clips for companies, just no more time for funny jokes that make people laugh and not bring the show up to a better life”, he said.
Will the Comical show that had drew a wide following ever return again?
“…Maybe one day we will come to think of doing more jokes but not now.”, explained Xolani.
Seemingly producing jokes for people online did not put food on the table hence the producers moved to the business side of animation.
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