Comedy through the decades of Telugu Cinema

Even during the days of silent movies, we had funny men like Kasturi Siva Rao, who were popular for their witty commentary to the moving images on screen.

Hyderabad: Humour is one of the significant aspects of human emotion, and has always been an integral part of cinema. With shifting backdrops of the stories, comedy writing has been evolving and our industry has left no stone unturned in experimenting with ways to include comic aspects into the fabric of cinema.

Even during the days of silent movies, we had funny men like Kasturi Siva Rao, who were popular for their witty commentary to the moving images on screen. The comedy writing in the mythological, folkloric and social drama films popular in the 1930s and 40s was done in such a way that the humour was built through the situations in the story plot. Often, the friend of the protagonist would portray the comedian.

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During the 1950s, screenwriter Pingali Nagendra Rao had experimented with various genres of comedy — a fantasy comedy like ‘Mayabazar’, romantic comedy like ‘Missamma’, and comedy dramas like ‘Gundamma Katha’, ‘Appu Chesi Pappu Koodu’ and many more films. The trend of heroes generating humour with dialogues and mannerisms was also popularised during the time.

“Along with the duo Relangi and Ramana Reddy, which was a block-buster pair in the 50s, Suryakantam, Girija, Ramprabha, Allu Ramalingaiah and Padmanabham, with their unique brand of comedy, were the stalwarts of the time. The popularity of these comedians was such that it became mandatory to have them in every hit movie of that time,” said Mamidi Harikrishna, Director of the Department of Language and Culture.

“There was a time when there would be songs designed for these comedians — the track ‘Sundari Neevanti’ between Relangi and Savitri from ‘Mayabazar’ is the most famous one. Raja Babu and Padmanabham even played hero roles in many films,” Harikrishna added.
The ’70s saw the trend of comedy villains — Allu Ramalingaiah, Nagabhushanam, Rao Gopal Rao, and Kota Srinivasa Rao — where the actors would play villains and the dialogues between them would generate comedy.

The emergence of director Jandhyala Subramanya Sastry in the ’80s had changed the face of comedy and comedians in Telugu cinema, said Harikrishna. He termed the ’80s and the ’90s as the “golden era for comedy in Telugu industry”. “Jandhyala created comedy using the extremities of traits in human beings. Many subjects of comedy have been explored during this era,” he said.

During this time, full-length comedy films were produced, and Rajendra Prasad rose to prominence as a comedy hero. Actors such as Naresh, Mohan Babu, and Chandramohan have also had success as leads in such films. Comedy actors such as Sutti Velu, Veerabhadra Rao, Srilakshmi, Brahmanandam, Ali, Babu Mohan, and Kota Srinivas Rao have made their mark during this era.

However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a rise in vulgarity and abuse in the guise of comedy. Songs and forced comedy tracks that had nothing to do with the plot of the movie were included. That era, thankfully, did not continue long.

A new genre, action comedy, came into the trend with Sreenu Vaitla’s ‘Dhee’ in 2007. Mahesh Babu’s ‘Dookudu’, ‘Aagadu’, ‘Khaleja’; Ram Pothineni’s ‘Ready’; Ravi Teja’s ‘Kick’; Allu Arjun’s ‘Race Gurram’; NTR’s ‘Adhurs,’ and Nani’s ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoy’ have explored the genre further. Another genre widely explored in this era was the horror comedy.

“The comedy which worked then, might not work today because the backdrops and audiences have changed. A film like ‘Kitakitalu’, if released today would be severely bashed. Audiences have evolved and dislike the double-meaning, cross-dressing and gender jokes,” Harikrishna explains.

Calling today’s comedy as “stylised and urbanised metro comedy”, Harikrishna shared that the comedy writing is changing for the good. “For instance, there’s no obscenity in ‘Jaatiratnalu’ or ‘Pellichupulu’. Be it Rahul Ramakrishna’s realistic comedy or Vennala Kishore’s dialogue-oriented one, even this era has some fine artistes and experimentations. Let’s see what the future holds for us,” Harikrishna concludes.