Humour was the only missing link in our otherwise complete programming lineup: Prashant Bhatt, Fiction Head, Colors

Colors is all set to air its brand new comedy show Mrs Pammi Pyarelal tonight and the channel is pulling out all stops to make this man (Gaurav Gera) masquerading as a sexy woman show a hit. Tellychakkar.com caught up with Colors’ Fiction Head Prashant Bhatt at the launch press conference of the show and got him into a candid conversation. Excerpts: “Since the last year and a half, I wanted to do a comedy. Since I for one like this genre, wanted to make a crazy laugh riot. But, how crazy could I be in environment where there are several such shows around? We have GECs (General Entertainment Channels) only dedicated to make people laugh; while there are slots dedicated to stand up comedy. So I needed to think out of the box, for it is very difficult for us to be another me too,” Prashant avers. How is Pammi different from the rest? “It is different because my heroine is a man. If you call it an inspiration, we have borrowed from Tootsie, Mrs Doubtfire and even Chachi 420; these were superbly entertaining plots. But again, they were single stories told in a start to finish format but out here, we need to relate it on a day-to-day basis which will be a task but we are up to it ,” he answers. “You can find out just how kicked we are with this project for which we spent four months only in its pre-production. It took about two months to style Pammi for the right look as she was to be pammi-li-cious. Here, she needed to be a woman who deserves a second look and above all appear believable,” Prashant adds. Since this theme of a man doubling up us a woman can easily become vulgar, what was your brief to the production house (Hemal Thakkar’s Playtime Creations) given that you are a family channel? “The show has no double meaning and doesn’t go below the belt; it had to be a clean comedy that could be watched by people of all age groups. I sincerely believe that you don’t need to poke fun at someone to make people laugh” the fiction head maintains. At this juncture, he makes a frank admission. “Humour was the only missing link in our otherwise complete programming lineup. We already have a mix of melodrama, action and romance, so the idea was to warm up the audiences with a khatta meetha offering for a proper TV viewing session that starts from 7.30 to 11 pm. Having said that even the 7 pm slot is very important for research shows that people do tune in early evenings as well, ” Prashant informs. But the last two shows of yours on this early evening slot (Havan and Maa Durga) did not click? “Conceded! So the challenge was to make this time band work by being refreshingly different rather than sticking to the tried and tested saas bahu format. And the answer to this was Mrs Pammi Pyarelal,” he concludes. Last but the not least, when we asked “why Gaurav” Prashant quipped, “He was the only choice. I had thought of this concept a year and half ago. When I met him a year ago I found him to be busy then, hence I told him that we would start shooting only when he was on board.” We wish the show all the luck and success!!!