Belgrade, Serbia

Why do “Only Fools And Horses” work so well in ex-Yu?

Published: April 13, 2007

If one of the reasons behind the success of Alan Ford comic book was that it depicted fight against the corrupted system, than the reason for the cult status of Brithis sitcom Only Fools And Horses is of similar nature – just like Ian said in a comment to the previous post:

...they’re all unemployed and flogging rubbish because its set in Thatchers Britain of the 1980’s.

I’m not sure how the Thatcher’s Britain of the eighties might have looked like, but the characters from the show and their shady behaviour really reminded me of Serbia and ex-Yu countries in the late eighties and early 90’s – with gray economy, black market, having barely enough money to make the ends meet, and living from one day to another without any financial security whatsoever – this was everyday life for oh so many people back in the turbulent nineties in Serbia.

The series, unlike Alan Ford was infact popular in other countries, and not just in GB and ex-Yu, but i doubt that it has achieved such a cult status anywhere else. Everybody, young and old, have heard of Del Boy and Rodney, and can quote most of the recurring jokes from the sitcom, such as Del Boys famous This time next year, we’ll be millionairs line. Get-rich-quick schemes always worked very well in these areas, with all the pyramid banking frauds, multi level marketing companies, TV-fortune tellers oil smuggling, racketeering, and other high-end and low profile illegal improvisations, but in the nineties things simply exploded.

OFAH heroes are small time crooks and swindlers, trying to get the most of the system without giving anything in return – paying taxes is an unknown term in Del Boys otherwise very rich vocabulary. His trademark slang words such as cushty, lovely jubbly, even though untranslatable to Serbian found a very good reception here, as well as his ideas to get the money – to sell bottled tap water, for instance (this reminded me of my cousin once tried selling the male equivalent of Coca-cola’s Fanta: Fantan – but he had to stop when Coke threatened to sue him).

OFAH went in a countless re-runs on many TV channels here and they always had a faithfull audience, until recently i think – it seems that the the younger generations found Orange County and other Spanish TV novellas more appealing. Times they-are-a changing…

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