It is ironic how during our childhood, adults, teachers and majority of the media would term television as the ‘idiot box’ when it was actually creating some actually good and creative content.
However now, when we have naagins flying, pishachini’s doing weird hoverboard moves, and more such dumb stuff spewed all over the TVs, no one wants to call them anymore.
One such place which was a haven for us 90s kids during our childhood was Channel V.
Channel V and MTV allowed us to transport to another place where everything was fun, and let us experience a bit of that ‘American’ teenaged lifestyle.
So it was extremely sad to hear that Channel V India was shutting down and being replaced with a sports channel.
It was officially shut down on 15th September 2018 and Star Sports 3 took its place.
On one hand, the demise was not really surprising, the channel had been doing on a downward descent for quite a few years now and their incorrect attempt to become like MTV only further pushed away the few fans they had left.
But then on the other hand, Channel V gave us some pretty good memories, during its golden period, some of which I take a look at down below:
#1. Simpu Singh
Simpu Singh, the hilarious and stereotypical Sardar teacher to a school classroom was one of the best things to come out of Channel V.
His iconic way of saying Pankaj as ‘Pankass’ is something we millennials till date use during jokes.
#2. Lola Kutty
Lola Kutty is perhaps one of the most famous things to come out of Channel V where her iconic curly hair with mallipoo in it, her thick glasses and Kanjeevaram saree along with a thick Malayali accent are till date popular.
Her skits and sketches on her show were hilarious and actually showed us that females can also do comedy, a prejudice that was quite heavy back in the day.
Although now, Anuradha Menon, the real woman behind the alter ego is coming out with Wonder Menon, an hour-long standup special, on Amazon Prime Video that is going to explore her side as a comedian beyond Lola Kutty.
Read More: From Super Mario To Pacman, We Relive The Video Games Of The 90s
#3. Popstars Reality Show
Popstars, was Indian Idol’s mother and the one that gave us millennials our own dreams of being in a band.
Titled Coke [V] Popstars, the musical reality show of creating an all original Indian band only ran for 2 seasons from 2002 to 2003, but it gave us a buttload of material to get nostalgic over.
With VIVA, they gave us Neha Bhasin and Anushka Manchanda, while with Aasma, they brought Neeti Mohan and Sangeet Haldipur.
VIVA was perhaps the first Indian pop girl group that really got a lot of mainstream success. Built as a desi Spice Girls or Destiny’s Child, they certainly managed to create buzz among the younger crowd.
Their song Jaago Zara is still among my playlist and I remember how in school we’d gather around to listen to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3jBsRAy8aM
So while it is certainly sad to know that the channel is no longer there, we have our YouTube now to look up whatever we missed most from that era.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: YouTube, Livemint, Mashable India
Find the blogger @chirali_08
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