- Adaptation Displacement: The 2012 adaptation is the more well-known one. It's actually the second animated adaptation of Lotpot's Motu Patlu comics; the first was released in either the 80's or 90's and is easily recognizable through its very limited CGI animation.
- Americans Hate Tingle: It's popular in India, but in America, people poke fun at it and very few like it or take it seriously.
- Archive Panic: Has over 300 episodes. Since all of the episodes are about 22 minutes long (two 11-minute stories in each episode), it would take around five days to watch the entire series, and there's still new episodes being produced and aired to make it harder to keep up. There's also a large amount of movies based on the show (one had a theatrical release while the others are made for TV) to add to all this.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Inspector Chingum has gained the hearts of many with his hammy, over-the-top personality and incompetence. It gets to the point that he got his own self-titled spin-off show in 2018.
- Even Better Sequel: The reboot is generally considered to have better animation and writing than the old series.
- Funny Moments:
- In one episode, Chingum tries to get his mom's jewelry. When he comes back out of the house without any jewelry, a pitch shifted crying baby plays in the background. It's so out-of-place that it's just funny.
- There's another episode where the characters are in a police station. Dr. Jhatka steals Chingum's gun and he shoots Motu, Patlu, and the ceiling. A coconut falls on Chingum's head from inside the police station and Chingum says, "Coconuts in the police station, impossible. Impossible! I mean it's impossible!" before another coconut hits him.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: If it means anything, it was the fourth most-searched show on Google in 2018 in China.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Motu and Patlu look like the titular duo of Apple & Onion if they were humans.
- Memetic Mutation: Boy, has this happened outside of India!
- A commercial for Nickelodeon India (in celebration of Teacher's Day) featuring characters from this show (along with Gattu Battu and Ninja Hattori-kun) learning how to dab has become a huge "but every time they say X, Y happens" meme. The line "present!" from this ad also quickly became a meme.
- It's also a huge meme to call this show "the best anime ever".
- Memetic Badass: Surprisingly enough, Motu has proven to be this. If he eats his Trademark Favorite Food Samosa, he becomes the most unstoppable and badass character in the show. Some people take this to an exaggerated level, saying he's more powerful than the likes of Goku.
- Older Than the Demographic: It's a cartoon aimed at the 10-and-under crowd but featuring grown men.
- Older Than They Think: A lot of people outside of India that only knew about this show from the memes it spawned are likely unaware that it's a property that has existed since the late '60s.
- Signature Scene:
- Many people know about the one commercial where Chotu teaches everyone how to dab and they can't name any other scenes related to the work.
- The episode "The Bulk", in which Motu becomes a muscular giant and fights against a similarly-powered-up John was once highly memetic due to comparisons to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Unfortunately, most meme videos of this seem to no longer be available.
- Special Effects Failure: In "Motu Banega Don", Motu and Patlu hide in one of the containers in a container yard to hide from John the Don's gang, who are chasing after them. Inspector Chingum notices John's gang entering the container and goes in as well. In the dark insides of the container, the characters can only be seen By the Lights of Their Eyes... but then they start to beat each other up, creating visible hit stars that light up the inside of the container just enough to make it noticeable that their eyes are actually the only part of their bodies that they animated for that scene, with the rest of their bodies nowhere to be seen.
- Superlative Dubbing: People tend to prefer the English dub over the original Hindi version. The dub translation is a lot better than the sub translation, and the English voice acting has a lot of personality.
- Values Dissonance: Despite being aimed at the same demographic as SpongeBob SquarePants, this show can be surprisingly violent at times, with some scenes featuring characters striking each other on-screen. This is likely one of the reasons why the show is so unpopular in the West, since it means it can't be shown to its intended demographic, while teenagers and adults can more easily see the show's flaws.
- Watch It for the Meme: The reason why people outside of India even know about this show is because of the "D Se Dab" video from Nickelodeon India.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Not the show itself, but Wow Kidz has their channel set up for community contributions. A few episodes have had subtitles submitted by fans and approved by Wow Kidz to be shown on the channel. The catch is that the fan subtitles are profanity-ridden Gag Subs that definitely aren't appropriate for children. While these were eventually removed except for "Khazana khazana", one still has to wonder why Wow Kidz approved the community contributions in the first place.
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you stole the words from my mouth toonfactory.. yakeenan 'adbhut post'.
jaheer bhai kitnee tarif kare ??? kamal hai dost ...har bar jadu..
i never knew that other than chacha choudhary and natkhat neetu other strips were part of Lotpot. the only thing you missed to mention is the amazing stories, small drama, published in lotpot. some of the stories are still in my memory. couple of stories i read were based on some students living in a hostel. in one story they helped the flood victims and other one they saved one poor man canteen.
really heart touching stories.
you know it that motu-patlu were accompanied by Ghaseeta ram, Papita ram, Dr jhatka, Nainsukh,chelaram,chatur ullu etc..
later when dimond was publishing motu patlu comics i never saw papita ram in any of the strip. some of the motu patlu in Lotpot were really funny.. i remember Patlu planning to make Tajmahal in his 'gali ka Nukkad' , motu as a shikari with a rifle but rifle barrel has a 's' bent.Patlu planned to pull car from his mouth and Dr jhatka gives him his special toothpaste with a broom as toothpaste..
all the stories where there is a tussle between motu patlu and ghaseeta ram were always funny. cannot forget the punch line .. " mujhe har kam me bees sal ka tajurba hai"
jaheer bhai ek bat jo mai sochta hoo ki ye sahi hai ki hum kaphi ache artist ko kho chuke hai jinhone hume itnee shandar racchnaye dee per aisa kyo ki naye log nahi aa rahe in rachnao me naye rang bharne ke liye. except anupam sinha i have not heard any good artist name since long.
ek request.. kyo ne is post ke sath Dimond motu patlu ya deewana motu patlu ki comics ka bhi ek tadka lag jaye..
Please..
What an incredible post, Zaheer Bhai. It shows in better limelight one of the earliest comic publishers and promoters in India, in the form of Lotpot.
Jagdishji illustration looks like he wanted to have a cartoonist brand to himself then the essence of comics way, which he later might have realised in due time.But they still seem to be good compared to what we see at present as comics :)
So much rare information of early forms of some of the cherished Indian comic characters, thanks for sharing all of them Zaheer Bhai.
As you rightly pointed out, Who knows if not for magazines, like Lotpot, may be we wouldn't have seen any of the legendary writers or artists who we have come to know of it later.
Thanks for a Lotpot comic too. Going to enjoy it in full.
Kuldeep Jain: Thanks Kuldeep Bhai for appreciation.its because of avid and keen readers like you which inspires me to dwell more into Indian comics and comic history.
Well,after going through the early issues of Lotpot i came to the conclusion that Lotpot have had a very bright past record of being associated with some of the finest and renowned illustrators and cartoonists.
Regarding Motu-Patlu,it certainly was a laughter hangama feature of those old times and all credit goes to K.S.Bhardwaj ji who created and developed such a hilarious characters.Dr.Jhatka and Ghasitaram were the main protagonists after Motu-Patlu.Ghasitram greedy nature and his actions were worthy of making laughing volcano erupt.
Yes,"Bees Saal ka Tajurba" was the punch line of Ghasitaram.
Motu-Patlu and Jagdish's Madhumuskan characters are the one which still brings smile whenever i go through them still now.
Kuldeep Bhai,its not so that there are not good writers or good illustrators as before but the problem is this no publication wishes to publish comics on the trend of old era,all tries to publish stories of unnatural super-heroes or of very cheap comedy.
Aunpam Sinha,Manu(Doga fame),Chandru(Pratap Mullick's disciple) are some of the names which are really talented but needs support of good scripts to shine of their way.
A whole Lotpot is posted along with this special post,i think you might have overlooked it.What can be more befitting than itself a vintage issue of Lotpot!
He is a clever and brave man. He wants to live a simple life in contrast to Motu, who wants to achieve and be well-known. Whenever they are doing something, Patlu usually tries to do the right thing in contrast to Motu who tends to think with his stomach instead of his mind. Paltu is loyal to his friends, especially Motu. They have an unbreakable bond he is very helpful to others and often gets in trouble because of motu's foolishness but still he is always loyal in friendship