I’m not always out and about in Paris. I’m often back at my apartment by late afternoon. I read, write, clean up the place, do a load of wash, and watch TV. My apartment is hooked up to cable, so I get lots of channels. But only five of them are in English. I can enjoy watching “Law and Order” in French . . . for a few minutes anyway. With French voiceovers, I have also watched “That ’70s Show,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “The Simpsons,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “Without a Trace,” “Bewitched,” “American Chopper,” “Dirty Jobs,” “Parental Control,” “South Park,” “Happy Days,” Bob L’Esponge (Sponge Bob), “Tom and Jerry,” “The O.C.,” “Dharma and Greg,” “Friends,” “Smallville,” and “Pimp My Ride.” I’ve seen the original American “Pimp” shows here with Xzibit and the International versions with Fat Joe.
The channels I get in English are France Anglais, CNN, BBC World News, BBC Prime (so I can get a fix of the brilliant British soap EastEnders), CNBC (to track how badly the dollar is doing), and Al Jazeera English. But those channels aren’t exactly veg-out viewing. They broadcast serious economic, political, environmental, and cultural stuff, plus specials on disturbing topics from child slavery in Benin to warriors for God to the missing monks in Myanmar. Al Jazeera English does particularly masterful programs about women around the world.
There’s the Mangas channel, Planete Juniors with French after-school stuff, Filles TV with teen soap operas, and Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Teletoon. I also get a bunch of sports channels plus Chasse et Peche (hunting and fishing). On the Cuisine Channel I watched a guy make a good-looking dish with beef and carrots, little translation needed. There are two gambling channels, Cast TV and Jet, and Fun TV had a French dating game. Trace TV is rap, MCM Top has recent music videos, and MCM Pop features French pop music.
Other channels that feature English-speaking shows with French voiceovers include Discovery (“Dirty Jobs”), Animaux (Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, etc.), Planete (including Craig “The Lion Man” Busch–shown below–doing gentle work with big cats), Odyssey, and National Geographic.
TeleSud has African music videos, and Mezzo features classical stuff. There’s also MTV, MTV Idol, MTV Pulse, MTV 2 (debut videos), and MTV Base (mostly rap). Telemelody has awful, violin-filled French music with dated production numbers.
Some of the non-English channels are also quite fascinating. There’s Dubai TV, Sharjah TV (from another emirate in the UAE), Kuwait TV, an Armenian channel, a Polish station, several German channels, and stations in Algerian, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. On the Saudi channel I watched had a guy talk about horses.
But my favorite TV experience so far was listening to Paul Teutul Sr. (above) ranting at his son Paul Jr. during the motorcycle customizing show “American Chopper.” In French.
Post a Comment