I figured I would subtitle a great skit from a functionally now-defunct, but beloved French satirical show. It’s from 2003, on the brink of the Iraq War.
After 30 years on the airwaves, this show has died yesterday, for good this time. A billionnaire took over the channel a few years back and had tried to axe the show back then, but everyone went up in arms about it, including our president.
So instead, he did a death by slow suffocation : cutting budgets, firing the old writers, until the result was unwatchable.
Here’s a loosely translated bit of a report by Les Jours:
In recent weeks, the atmosphere was akin to “The Walking Dead” in the staff. Shootings canceled left and right: three weeks in May, two in June. And the teams are warned at the last moment. “We are not even given audience figures anymore but only views on Facebook,” an employee recently told us. For weeks, there were not even any official voices of the Guignols on the sets, Yves Lecoq (the 200-voice man) was injured and no longer worked. Same panade among the puppeteers who left little by little : a dozen recently. On some recordings, there were not enough puppeteers to manipulate latex figures. Solution ? “Corporate told us that we would do a shot / counter-shot, said a team member, disappointed, with the same person who operates two puppets. The employees also describe filming “in impossible security conditions, in a very small office, with electrical equipment that blocks the door”.
Plume de Lynx 