As a common saying goes, ‘All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them’; dreams are the driving force for bigger achievements and milestones in life. But Choocha, Hunny and Laali of Fukrey Boyzzz have given a twist to make dreams a reality, which leads to a riot of fun, laughter and adventure. Audience will get to witness this madness and their ‘Friendship+Dosti=Fukrapanti’ from tomorrow, 12 October on Discovery Kids.
Nobody knows better the power of dreams better than these three friends. Every time Choocha has an outlandish dream, Hunny tries to make sense of it by putting together an equally outlandish ‘desi jugaad’. While Laali tries to warn them, Bholi Punjaban, their nemesis is always in fray to sabotage the whole plan. But somehow, these motley crew of misfits manage to weasel their way out of trouble and get some good laughs along the way. Fukrey Boyzzz is a rib-tickling production that captures the innocent and harmless masti/mischief of kids.
Inspired by the popular movie franchise, Fukrey, Fukrey Boyzzz is the second animated IP of Discovery Kids based on a Bollywood franchise, after the hugely successful Little Singham, which was based on the franchise Singham.
Talking to Animation Xpress about another Bolly-inspired-animated-IP, Discovery Kids head Uttam Pal Singh commented, “We’re happy to be kind of trend setters in this format. To get this trend going. Animation as an industry is definitely entertaining, and Bollywood is almost like a religion here. So, the two joining forces together is sure to gain more traction. So, that’s one part. From the audience point of view, the characters were so appealing, that we decided to take it a shot. We also had a lot of other things to look at too. More and more, we saw the Fukrey franchise, we saw great potential, wrapped into a setting and that’s the idea we pitched it to Excel and they loved it. Leveraging the brand’s strength is the popularity of the actors that would definitely attract more eyeballs. It was a very conscious decision to resemble the animated characters to the actors. We brought in the whole cast and I think their animated versions found their own space in the series by adding more layers. It’s like sitcom that you want to come back to everytime. I think Fukrey Boyzzz is going to lift the industry.”
For Fukrey Boyzzz, Discovery Kids has teamed-up with Excel Entertainment which marks the debut of the production company helmed by actor Farhan Akhtar and producer Ritesh Sidhwani in the animated and television space. Being asked about his experience on this collaboration and plans on making a film out of it, Sidhwani said, “The launch of Fukrey Boyzzz opens new horizons for us. We are making our foray into animation and are enamoured with how this series has shaped-up. I am extremely excited to have characters from Fukrey spread joy to everyone with their crazy antics at school. Honestly, if you’re asking me if I’d do an animated film on the same character experiences, yes I will. Because these characters are so iconic, the animation that Discovery Kids has created has the potential to grow further in terms of short form content for the targeted age groups. We would like to grow on that rather doing a theatrical, as now, we have the best of both live-action and animation with Fukrey and Fukrey Boyzzz respectively.
Fukrey has been a fan favourite since its release in the comedy space of Bollywood with the characters made so relatable and funny by the actors Pulkit Smarat, Varun Sharma, Manjot Singh and Richa Sharma. But re-mading it into an animated series that targets a whole new target audience, has surely been a challenging task for the Discovery kids team.
Asserts Discovery South Asia managing director Megha Tata, “When we did Little Singham, with the premise of a successful movie franchise, we thought that there’s a possibility to make it in animation and cater to the kids. With the success of Little Singham, we realised that there’s clearly a space out there. And that gave us a belief when Fukrey was out, the team at Discovery Kids saw an opportunity and worked with Excel, put a team of writers, content creators and animators to create this wonderful product. This makes us believe that it’s not about just creating animation of a successful movie franchise because if it was that easy then, lot many people would have done it. Also it’s about how you package it, write it, storytell it and how you make it relatable to kids is what makes the difference, without losing the essence of the original characters. All of us have a child in us and the idea was to bring it alive on screen within a school setting.”
Reiterating Tata, Pal Singh too stated, “The work done by the director and the writer, Excel team, they’ve put an amazing DNA to the franchise. That’s like half the work done. The point was that whatever we do with the characters or the franchise is that we don’t mess with the DNA. We want to appeal to the audience who are already familiar with the brand, and at the same time we want to introduce our brand Fukrey Boyzzz to a whole new audience, through kids series. I think we’re able to sync those two holes and that was a little challenging. So writing was the key and very crucial as it’s a character comedy show and not a slapstick comedy.”
The actors are equally excited and expectant of the animated series that already looks so promising and a clear win. Sharma exclaimed, “I’m very excited for Fukrey Boyzzz, it’s a great feeling for any actor to have an animated version of the character he played. Choocha is a special character as I debuted with it. The way the character is animated is very lovable and cute. I think people will get smiles on their faces by seeing the episodes, posters, trailers, and songs. I hope we can spread more happiness and laughter to parents and children alike.”
The Discovery team also has an extensive plan of marketing strategies in place, and have partnered with Black White Orange to take care of the licensing and merchandising deals. “We have plans for licensing and merchandising for the show. The actors have already endorsed it – from tshirts and all. Excel is behind it to get it out there and help us. We have some disruptive marketing in place. And more will be unveiled soon,” Pal Singh noted.
Releasing tomorrow, Fukrey Boyzzz looks quite promising and expectations are high, and as Tata concluded, “My expectation is that it will double up the performance which Little Singham did for us and take the ranking further to be in the top three position and hopefully have more engagement not only with the kids but with the parents.”
