Supposedly the tv show Dallas defeated the Soviet Union.

In Romania, “Dallas” was the last Western show allowed during the nightmare 1980s because President Nicolae Ceausescu was persuaded that it was sufficiently anti-capitalistic. By the time he changed his mind, it was already too late — he had paid for the full run in precious hard currency. Meanwhile, the show provided a luxuriant alternative to a communism that was forcing people to wait more than a decade to buy the most rattletrap Romanian car.

After the dictator and his wife were shot on Christmas Eve 1989, the pilot episode of “Dallas” — with a previously censored sex scene edited back in — was one of the first foreign shows broadcast on the liberated Romanian TV. Over the next few years, Hagman became a ubiquitous pitchman in the country for firms such as the Russian petroleum company Lukoil (“The Choice of a True Texan”).

To this day, you can visit an ersatz “SouthForkscu” ranch in the nowheresville Romanian town of Slobozia (yes, that’s its real name). Or simply visit the original set in Plano, Tex., which draws around as many visitors as the former Texas School Book Depository in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, where Lee Harvey Oswald hid to shoot President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Supposedly.  It’s always a spurious game to credit this or that pop cultural artifact for bringing down a regime.   For instance, do you believe that the tv show “Tropical Heat” brought down Milosevic?  Never heard of Tropical Heat?  It was a cheaply produced crime show which aired late nights on CBS before they signed Letterman, and then went on to the USA cable Network.  AND

The series was particularly popular in Serbia, where it gained cult status. In a tumultuous social environment – with UN trade embargo imposed on the country and civil war raging nearby – Nick Slaughter’s character became, jokingly, a tongue-in-cheek role model and eventually even a symbol of oppositional politics, particularly among the urban youth. It was broadcast on four Serbian television stations — TV Politika, NS+, RTS 3K, and RTV Pink — during the 1990s and rerun numerous times. Aside from its dry humor and exciting plot, the show was extremely well received because its idyllic tropical island atmosphere was an absolute contrast to mid-1990s Serbia. The reruns in the then-isolated country made the show immensely popular, turning it into a minor national cultural phenomenon.

The “movement” to establish Nick Slaughter as a symbolic national hero probably began in the Belgrade suburb of Žarkovo where, brilliantly posted by unknown idle-minded author, the first now-legendary graffiti “Sloteru Niče, Žarkovo ti kliče” (“Nick Slaughter, Žarkovo hails to you”, which rhymes in Serbian) appeared on walls. Soon afterward during the massive months-long protests throughout winter 1996/1997 against the election fraud perpetrated by Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević and his party at the November 1996 local elections, the slogan “Slotera Nika, za predsednika” (“Nick Slaughter for President”, also rhymes in Serbian) became popular on banners and badges as a symbol of opposition to the regime. Another popular slogan was “Svakoj majci treba da je dika, koja ima sina k’o Slotera Nika” (“Every mother should be proud to have a son like Nick Slaughter”). Serbian punk band Atheist Rap paid a tribute to the series’ protagonist in the song “Slaughteru Nietzsche” with its graffiti-based chorus “Sloteru Niče, Srbija ti kliče” (“Nick Slaughter, Serbia hails to you”) on their 1998 album Druga liga Zapad.

Many local bars, taverns, and summer patios in Serbia got named “Tropical Heat”, in honour of Nick Slaughter and the popular TV show. They were usually located along the rivers, to resemble “The Key Mariah Spirit”.

Apparently, nobody associated with the show was aware of its extraordinary popularity in Serbia until December 2008 when Canadian actor Rob Stewart who played Nick Slaughter in the series accidentally discovered it by stumbling upon a Facebook fan group named “Tropical Heat/Nick Slaughter” with some 17,000 (mostly Serbian) followers. After familiarizing himself with the cause and the circumstances of his Serbian fame, now mostly unemployed 48-year-old Stewart, along with a filmmaker friend Marc Vespi and his sister Liza, decided to attempt to make a documentary on the subject titled Slaughter Nick for President.^[2] To that end, they contacted the band Atheist Rap and it was soon arranged for Rob to appear on stage as their guest at the To Be Punk Festival in Novi Sad on June 6.

By late March 2009 the news got leaked to Serbian press and several media outlets carried items that Rob Stewart will be coming to Serbia in May or early June as guest of Atheist Rap in order to film a documentary on his character’s popularity in the country during the 1990s.^[3][4][5] In the meantime, Stewart and his partners also got in touch with SrÄ‘a Popović, former activist of Otpor!, the Serbian student movement that played a significant role in eventually bringing down MiloÅ¡ević. On June 3, 2009, Stewart/Slaughter arrived in Belgrade to a hero’s welcome with enormous media attention afforded to his visit.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} With Atheist Rap and Popović as their hosts and guides through Serbia, and in between the documentary shooting schedule, Stewart made the media rounds, appearing on talk shows (Piramida^[12] and Fajront Republika^[13]), giving interviews, and making public appearances such as planting of the maple trees in Žarkovo with John Morrison, Canadian ambassador to Serbia.

As a result of their June 2009 stay in Belgrade and Novi Sad, a 6-minute documentary promo was put together and entered in the Roma Fiction Fest in Rome, Italy on July 8, 2009 under the “work in progress” section.^[14]

Who knew?

What shows export outside of the United States?  Someone claims Herman’s Head was Big in Russia. A good show — if a type of show Fox would never touch again after it signed the NFL and became a real network.  It would probably make a modest profit in a dvd collection.  But it mostly reverberates as a couple of Simpsons references.  Big anywhere?  Can’t say.

Meanwhile, America imported “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” — and ran it straight into the ground — and picked up the template for “American Idol”.  And every stupid British sitcom gets an American following of some sort.  Don’t know if we can credit any of this with bringing about an end to any disgusting political reign, though.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 9:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.