Masyanya Season 2, Episode 34: Language Barrier

33

TV Intro

The release of this episode marked a huge turning point in Masyanya's fate. The show made its way onto television screens via NTV — a channel that was still very good at the time. This move was received quite ambiguously by the audience; to put it plainly, people criticized it left and right. But for us, it was simply incredibly exciting — getting onto TV for such an alternative project was pure adventure, and at the same time it allowed us to set up a real studio. Looking back from today, I can see that everything was done right. Otherwise, nobody would even remember these cartoons now.

34

Language Barrier

A sweet little episode about a German guy who ended up hanging around Saint Petersburg. The second episode to air on TV.

35

Pink Sweater

A dumb episode. In reality, it's just a scene lifted straight from real life, down to the last detail. With the only difference being that the money never got fully drunk away in reality. And getting home was often impossible simply because back then he lived on Vasilievsky district, and as everyone knows, the bridges in St. Petersburg are raised at night. Well, if you know their schedule, you can figure out how to cross at some point — but that requires being somewhat reasonable to calculate... not everyone has that going for them, alas.. :))) And what else is there to do late at night on the streets of St. Petersburg? Nothing much, just fool around and waste time...

36

Pushkin's Button

An episode about getting the giggles. For a while I just took storylines from the previous night's hangouts and turned them into cartoons. This doesn't always work, because the viewer isn't necessarily in the same "loosened-up" mood as the author was last night with his crew. Most people just won't get it — but on the other hand, this method immortalizes those pleasant moments for yourself.. :)

37

Two Bridges

Purely St. Petersburg humor, basically. Originally the script had around 7 bridge stories. By airtime, three bridges remained. In the end only two made it — the third simply didn't get finished in time. Airtime is a brutal thing. The stories are real.

38

The Rat

A sort of tragic episode. About how a small, seemingly insignificant tragedy — like the death of a rat — can stick with you more deeply than serious drama. And if you dig deeper, it's almost a "misanthropic" theme, since human suffering is supposedly more important, but.. But "personal drama" is always stronger than "public drama" and that's normal, that's how it should be. Let's stay human.

39

Cataclysm

I really love the ending of this episode. I've heard this joke a thousand times — and it cracks me up every single time. The plot, so to speak, is familiar to every resident of any reasonably large city. Doesn't matter where. I don't like football, you know, may its fans forgive me. I mean, kicking a ball around in the park is fine, but as a mass spectacle — no thanks, no thanks...

40

Pills on Blyukhera street

"Two hundred bucks a month." Yeah, those times weren't so long ago, when people somehow managed to actually live on that. The theme of this cartoon is summed up in one punchy word: "styob." This word, alas, has no equivalent in literary language. But who needs that "literary" language anyway. That's what it's there for — writing smart books — but we talk a different language.

41

Out There

A sad and melancholy episode. Though it still ends on an optimistic note. The episode aired on NTV during a dark time — right after the Dubrovka terrorist attack, when releasing anything cheerful was simply impossible, and nobody was in a cheerful mood anyway. Back then (as strange as it sounds now) there was virtually no censorship on NTV. So Parfyonov called several times, worried about what we were planning to put on air. He was satisfied with my assurances that there'd be nothing fun and jolly. And it really was a bleak period — apart from the terrorist attack, a good friend of mine had actually gotten hit over the head with a bottle right in her own courtyard. In short, the mood was downright gallows-like. And yet Masyanya somehow manages to pull out life-affirming notes even in a situation like that. I don't even understand how myself..

42

Pogo

The episode is also known as "Pogo Dance, or Counterculture." In reality, the cartoon is about how no such thing as "counterculture" exists. As everyone knows, St. Petersburg is the cultural capital. Which is, essentially, nonsense. That is, there is culture there, but no more genuine culture than in any other Russian city. What there's plenty of, though, is pseudo-cultural pretense. Because culture isn't in ossified dead matter — it's in human behavior. The carrier of culture is first and foremost a person, and only then a museum. By that logic, pogo dance is a perfectly wonderful culture. :) For those who may not know — "pogo dance" is when everyone in front of the stage shoves and slams into each other like mad. Especially enjoyable in a tiny cramped smoky basement club under some brutal punk riffage, a proper good time... :)

43

Hamster

The cartoon starts exactly the way it starts because literally a couple of weeks before this, an episode called "The Rat" had come out. And now here's "Hamster". We joked around in the studio for a long time about just shamelessly releasing another episode in "Namedni" that was identical to "The Rat," with the only difference being that the main character would be a hamster... :))) And then every week, one after another, episodes would follow: "Beaver," "Chinchilla," "Bunny," "Muskrat," "Opossum," and even "Skunk".. :)))) But again, I see it needs explaining what it's actually about. The cultural layer of "hamsters" (Home page websites) vanished instantly with the arrival of social networks and blogs in general. A shame, it was fun. Many people remember all those animated GIFs in headers, spinning 3D letters, enormous fonts, ridiculous colors, star-covered backgrounds, MySpace, and all that junk. Actually quite a layer of culture, in its own way... How quickly it all died, though...

44

Cinema Avant-Garde

This episode actually predicted the emergence of such a phenomenon as "trolling." Only from its "artistic" side — as art provocation. At that point the concept of "trolling" didn't yet exist. There was only "flood" and "flame". But that's still something a bit different. Trolling appeared later, together with blogs. And in its worst form. No "art" anywhere near it anymore. I myself once started out with an uncontrollable desire to make films, but back then you needed a ton of equipment and gear, film stock, chemicals, editing studios... And people still shot anyway, somehow on a shoestring, but they shot. It was called "parallel cinema." Now though — powerful computers, video right in your phone, editing at the drop of a hat — "shoot to your heart's content," as they say.. And somehow nobody particularly wants to... :) Too many possibilities kill the desire.. :))

45

Prince Albert

What "Prince Albert" is, I won't be explaining here. We're all adults and not new to the internet. In any case, this episode is an innocent gag about piercing. I have nothing against piercings and tattoos, but I myself don't have a single tattoo. Not one. The idea of something "for life" just isn't really my thing. One single earring in the ear. Though back then the guys at the studio had very diverse options going on. Well, in general this falls into the category of "everyone goes crazy in their own way" :))

46

Pop Trash

This cartoon didn't help, alas. Pop Trash has completely taken over Russian TV and the entire Russian show business. Popular, mass-market music exists everywhere, of course, but in Russia it's particularly revolting because it requires absolutely no talent whatsoever. It's pure business without a shadow of art. You understand — Madonna is also pop, but some group called "Nogi Vniz" couldn't reach Madonna's level even if they tried. In short, nasty stuff. And the most nightmarish part is that the mass audience, which isn't particularly sharp to begin with, is deliberately trained to consume this garbage so that money can then be squeezed out of them. The drug dealer principle. A real disaster. For those who remember Masyanya's history, Pop Trash got its cruel revenge on Masyanya for this attitude later — by creating its own pirated version of Masyanya on "MuzTV," voiced by a certain well-known guy named Pavel Volya, who was peddling his own pop trash under the Masyanya name.

47

The Woodpecker Effect

Honestly, God help me, I have absolutely no idea of what was going on in my head when I came up with this episode's title. :) Let's consider it mysterious. Though the cartoon itself is not mysterious at all. A real situation with my friends. They, actually, weren't filming — they bought an apartment. Something like 20 grand, can you imagine. Not so long ago you could actually buy an apartment in St. Petersburg for that kind of money. The apartment, however, did turn out to have a little surprise.

48

Health

A gag. The number of times I've personally quit unhealthy habits — I've lost count. I envy people with strong willpower, but none of us is an angel, and saying "ah, to hell with it" is a very naturally human thing to do. Nobody wants to be or can be a "tin woodman." Though in the end, you do have to quit eventually.

49

Fairy Tale 2003

This New Year's episode, made for the new year of 2003, is quite simply the peak of my idealism. Having access to the pre-New Year's airtime on a leading channel, I was desperately overcome by the desire to make something truly fairy-tale-like and very kind. Something that would make people kinder, warmer toward one another... if only for New Year's.

50

Post-New Year's Delirium

The title of this jubilee, fiftieth episode is very accurate. Pure delirium. This is a one-hundred-percent hangover episode — made with a hangover, about a hangover, by hungover artists, aired by a hungover television channel at a hungover hour for viewers who had just gotten over their hangover. :)))) And that, essentially, is what makes it great. My favorite line from it: "...and I want something sweet and a smoke" :))

51

Habibi

The plot of this episode has also faded into history by now. What came after New Year's? Right — long holidays. And what did people do during the holidays in the late 90s and early 2000s? Right — they headed off to Egypt.

52

Carousel

Originally called "The Carousel Operator," but plain "Carousel" is better in my opinion. More global and mysterious-sounding. I always really loved this episode. It really "hits home." The thing is, during my time working with TV I was constantly under enormous pressure. And not just the purely work-related kind — work pressure, whatever, we can handle that. Mostly moral pressure. From all sides there was very strong pressure from people wanting to cash in on Masyanya's popularity one way or another, and there were countless such people. Among them were even friends and family, and generally decent people. All kinds. Many.

53

Groundhog Dayed

At one point I had a paranoid fixation on the film "Groundhog Day." It worked on me in such a way that I decided "why the hell watch all kinds of different movies anyway? Suffer through choosing? They're all basically the same when you think about it. I'll just watch the same one." As a result, I watched "Groundhog Day" approximately 235 times. In different languages, with different voice tracks, in different prints, and on different devices.

54

Society for the Struggle Against Jerks

A cartoon about how Masyanya and company decided to create a society for fighting jerks and ended up becoming its victims themselves. Writing this brief summary because some people don't quite get it. At the end both of them have signs on their backs. Seemingly, what's not to understand? And yet for some reason people kept missing the point.

55

Sex

Despite such a sweeping title, the cartoon is not about sex... but about something greater. I myself didn't used to like this episode, but now, rewatching it while editing, I realized it's actually a great one. It's about everything and nothing at the same time. Absolutely, one hundred percent natural. A small fragment pulled from life and described quite accurately.

56

Okolobakha

The character's name "Okolobakha" is a play on words between "Kolobakha" (a real nickname of a real guy whose real story the cartoon is based on) and "Okolo Bakha" — meaning "Near Bach." The details in reality were different, of course, but the essence of the story is barely fictionalized

57

Triangles

The cartoon ended up consisting of 15 fragments. It's hard to give this one a precise description. The thing is, it's a collection of scattered "shards" or "fragments" of Masyanya's life — and really not only Masyanya's. The cartoon resembles a palette on which an artist mixes colors. That's exactly what the cartoon was called in the draft — "Palette." There are complete episodes here, like pure paint, and there's muddy mixing, and what might seem like "unfinished bits" and "half-baked ideas."