While Vivek caters to the urban youth, mostly appearing as a friend of the city-bred hero, Vadivelu appeals to the semi-urban and rural areas donning various roles ranging from a teamaster to an autodriver. Popular comedians of this generation are Vivek and Vadivelu - they both have a strong demarcation in their fans' tastes.
But Senthil didn't shine when he stood alone - he always added value as a parasite getting kicked in the ass by Goundamani. Senthil added value when with Goundamani with his innocent looks and a decevingly 'enquiring mind' to which the latter would always fall.
Be it 'Vaidehi Kathirundhal' or 'Karagattakaran' they literally had the theatres in B and C centres rolling in laughter. In his peak in the eighties and early nineties, he entertained everyone with his partner Senthil. In the past five or six years, his health has deteriorated and with that his voice and thespian skills and now he rarely appears on the screen. My favourite sketch of his is with Rajini in 'Mannan' and with Kamal in 'Indian'. He is probably the only artiste who proudly exhibited his trademark irreverence - be it the villain or the hero or his mother or his neighbour or an old man, he treated them all equally - with a sharp disrespect. In a span of one or two years, I began enjoying him and turned from a despiser to an ardent fan. I didn't particularly like him until I was 15 or 16 when I thought of him as a sound actor - whatever it was, he just yelled using an inventive curse word like 'kadal panni' or 'nandu thalaiya' and people laughed for it. My comedy star is Goundar Mani (or Gounda Mani). But we had our own style in making people laugh - and this time it was the artistes themselves who shouldered a big chunk of the responsibility of entertaining the audience and the smaller piece of pie lay with the comedy script writers. What makes an American laugh cannot be applicable to a Tamilian.
Starting with camera movements, lighting arrangements, story narration, plot structures, stunts - our experiments here seemed to follow a success at Hollywood or else where.
Of course, with the passage of time, our writers, technicians and directors progressed in all aspects of movie-making, but the differences can be directly traced to American or European trends. Movies in colour feature comedy sketches that are far more evolved than the ones in black & white.
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