frgdr.com Blog

Shosh Atari, an Israeli radio legend, had succumbed to life’s difficulties yesterday. During the 1980s an entire generation of my peers tuned in daily to the show ‘Hadash, Hadish, uMehudash‘ on Israeli radio channel Reshet Gimmel, to listen to Shosh Atari as she played the newest records from England and the US. The show, edited by Tony Fine, was the only source at that time for teenagers to find out what’s cool. It was common practice to listen in using headphones while recording the show to a cassette tape, praying that Shosh would not talk too much over the new Modern Talking or Samantha Fox hit. With no Internet or MTV at that time, and only two radio stations that played music that teenagers liked, the allure of that show is something that cannot be grasped by today’s audiences.

Enjoy some nostalgic snippets from over the years:

1982, opening theme:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

1983, random chatter:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

1984, in front of a live audience in Tel-Aviv:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

April 1, 2008, last minute of the last show:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Dolly Parton, the original Dumb Blond and the herald of this all-American cultural phenomena (preceding Paris Hilton by 40 years), will release her new Backwoods Barbie album this coming February 26th.
Not a big Dolly fan myself, I am however the biggest sucker for cover versions, and Dolly’s new album includes the craziest country rendition to Fine Young Cannibals’ 1989 hit She Drive Me Crazy.

Have a listen and take special notice to the funky fiddle riff:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hat tip to Perez.

Dolly Parton - Drives Me Crazy Lyrics

Oh, you drive me crazy!

I can’t stop
The way I feel,
Things you do
Don’t seem real,
Tell you what I got in mind
‘Cause we’re runnin’ out of time,
Just turn loose and set me free
This waitin’ ’round is killin’ me.

Chorus:
You drive me crazy
Like no one else,
You drive me crazy
And I can’t help myself.

I can’t get
Any rest,
People say
That I’m obsessed,
You’re everything I want in life
But to me that’s no surprise,
And what I have I’d give to you
I hope you feel the same way too.

Chorus

I won’t make it
On my own,
No one likes to
Be alone,
You drive me crazy
Yes, it’s true,
I’d give it all up
Just to be with you.

Chorus x3

Oh, you drive me crazy
Like nobody else,
You drive me crazy
Can’t help myself,
I’m gonna hold you
All night long,
And I’m gonna love you
Till the cows come home,
You drive me crazy
Like a rock in my shoe,
I can’t keep
My mind off you,
You drive me crazy
And that’s a fact,
You’re the one that make me
Feel like that.

You drive me crazy!

You drive me crazy
I’m lunatic,
I’d do anything
For your sweet kids,
You drive me crazy
Can’t help myself,
You drive me crazy
Like nobody else.

You drive me crazy!
Oh, you drive me crazy…

As a teenager during the 1980’s we went to the movies a lot. Before a movie came out there was no hype, no buzz, no trailers on YouTube, and no behind-the-scenes shown on TV, so picking what movie to see often boiled down to the single-colored text-only poster that each cinema in my hometown published on the public billboards.
I guess the Israeli film distributors were aware of these facts, and decided that if all they have to work with is the name of the film, then by golly they would make it work.

You see, I believe a movie is a work of art from beginning to end, including its title, and when distributing it in another country one should try to translate it with great respect and fervor. I guess the local distributors here do not share my ideas, as they pretty much translate the titles whichever way they see fit, or whichever way they think would make more money.

Sometimes these translations are far-fetched like ‘White Palace‘ (1990, Susan Sarandon, James Spader) that was translated to Hebrew as ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, preceding the movie ‘When a Man Loves a Woman‘ (1994, Andy Garcia, Meg Ryan) that then had to be translated to Hebrew as ‘The Love of a Man for a Woman’.

Other times it seems the distributor was on vacation, as the movies were just phonetically translated and so Big (1988, Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins), Heat (1995, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro) and Elephant (2003, by Gus Van Sant) remained the same words spelled phonetically in Hebrew: ביג, היט, אלפנט

But during the eighties the biggest film distributors’ shtick was riding the coattails of a successful film and naming an unrelated film in a way that would mislead a teenager to think this movie is a sequel to a movie he already saw.
The number one example for that is ‘Police Academy‘ (1984, Steve Guttenberg, Kim Cattrall), originally translated to Hebrew as ‘A Drill for Novice Policemen‘. After the movie became successful there were six sequels made, but in Israel all of a sudden many unrelated films became ‘A Drill for Novice Something-or-the-other’.

Here is a partial list:
Gotcha! (1985) – A Drill for A Novice Spy
Doin’ Time (1985) – A School for Novice Convicts
Bad Medicine (1985) – A School for Novice Doctors
Buy & Cell (1987) – A Drill for Gambling Convicts
UHF (1989) – A Station for Novice Anchormen
Beach Movie (1998) – A Drill for Novice Surfers
Miss Cast Away (2004) – A Drill for Novice Models
Gladiatress (2004) – A Drill for Novice Gladiatresses

The really sad part is that I actually fell for it and went to see most of these movies.

If you ever need to decypher the original name of a movie, you can check out Targumon, a website dedicated just for that purpose.