'The Ity and Fancy Cat Show' moves to Sunday

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Early in the launch of the third season of The Ity and Fancy Cat Show, Owen 'Blakka' Ellis said that the upcoming season "is going to take what we did last season up a notch or two". Part of that upward movement for the comedy show is a change in its slot, from Fridays to Sundays at 9:30 p.m.

The season begins on June 6.

TVJ's general manager Kay Osbourne, the final corporate representative to speak to the audience at the Knutsford Court Hotel, New Kingston, last Thursday evening, made two links with the new placement. She said, "Not only is it on a Sunday night, so the entire family can watch it," but also pointed out the importance of doing a show after a big show, so you deliver an audience into it.

Rising Stars audience

And in this slot, The Ity and Fancy Cat Show comes right after Digicel Rising Stars. "We are delivering the Rising Stars audience, which is about one million people, into The Ity and Fancy Cat Show," Osbourne said. She did not skirt the obvious risk of the jokes causing offence, saying that since Ity and Fancy have been doing the show, they have gone right up to the edge but have not gone over. And, with this placing, which Osbourne said was a "smart decision" by the programmes manager, "we expect them to go right up to the edge, but not jump over".

Ellis announced another change for the show as well, the new venue being the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts. And he gave a hint of what is to come in some of the episodes, with Bob Marley meeting Michael Jackson in the afterlife in one skit.

The launch was not short on humour, including a running joke about height, Dr Michael Abrahams' Tiger Woods tickler (which also included some serious observations on race), Rosa Rosa taking a poke at a few popular songs ("Too much for pound a rice," he crooned) and Ity and Fancy Cat's report on Reneto Adams' new occupation as a photographer specialising in visa pictures (taking only headshots).

But there was talk about the business side of humour as well, with sponsors' representatives giving jocular testimony to the effectiveness of The Ity and Fancy Cat Show as a commercial vehicle. Julian Walker of Supreme Ventures said, "I think when there is a brand you really want to get out to the people, comedy is the way to go. These guys have taken it to another level, taking it to the crevices and corners of Jamaica".

Suzette Campbell-Tenant of Courts spoke to the duo's long-standing relationship with the company and, in a consumer survey done by Courts, how respondents spoke about Ity and Fancy Cat even though they had not been asked about them. Omar Spence of Grace said while Ity and Fancy Cat can find numerous ways to put a humorous spin on the Grace Cock Soup product, "it is very serious business, that is why we are sponsoring".

Sponsorship

Guest speaker Dr Donna Hope Marquis, lecturer in Reggae Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, included the crucial issue of sponsorship - or, rather, 'sponsorers' - in her address. Hope Marquis, giving the synopsis "from a germ of an idea to a seed planted, to the first few drops of belief water from Money Mike and then plenty more sweat water from pounding pavements in 2007 seeking sponsors, to plenty disappointment 'yeye' water, nearly give up and turn back cause long road draw sweat water and blood water too, to the watershed moment when a sponsor arises from the waves to spread some joy".

She also spoke to the reason why the show was so successful.

"Indeed, I believe that the true success of The Ity and Fancy Cat Show as a celebration of Jamaican life and culture remains this stated fact - its raw material emanates from the belly of Jamaican people. It is a humorous take on who we are ... whether or not we like it. And it is because of this very 'Jamaicanness' and its showcasing of the many facets of who we are that many individuals like myself have been intrigued and spellbound by The Ity and Fancy Cat Show from season one," Hope Marquis said.

There is another factor as well, Hope Marquis saying " … the recipe for the success of this show must also be credited to the innovation and tenacity of the Ellis International group, which never ever gave up, even when few believed in the value of this show at its early stages".