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Old Man Țepușe

Actualitatea în imagini Nr. 1/1957, Subject c
Loc: Bucharest, Popești-Leordeni, the communes of Gorneni, Curcani and C.A Rosetti
Tag: agriculture, television, public
b/w

News from agriculture was a periodical produced on a monthly basis, later bi-monthly, for educational purposes, starting from the early 1950s. It circulated exclusively in Romania’s rural communities and included topics of interest to their residents, programmed according to their seasonal activities.

Old Man Țepușe, the central character of this story, was initially a fictional character introduced by the radio shows of the 1950s, who stuck around in other forms of media until around the 1970s, becoming particularly famous among audiences from rural communities. Apart from featuring in radio programmes and hosting the annual “Little Plough” (Plugușorul – a much cherished custom for New Year’s Eve in Romania), he was often mentioned in the printed press, on satirical notice boards put up by factories to mobilize their workers, and generally anywhere else where dysfunctionalities of the rural economic system were becoming apparent.

 

For its first issue in 1957, the agricultural newsreel borrowed Old Man Țepușe for a set of satirical reportages. We see the character (actor unknown) crossing Bucharest on horseback, arriving at the Sahia studio, and demanding to be filmed because his radio fans allegedly wanted to see, rather than only listen to his radio programme. This intro is followed by a series of mini news reports filmed in several rural locations- including the State Agricultural Farms at Popești-Leordeni, and the communes of Gorneni, Curcani and C.A. Rosetti.

 

Our character’s transition from radio to cinema through this first issue of the Agricultural Journal from 1957, that is, immediately after the launch of television in December 1956, is significant as an example of intermediality that is worth being noted. Both in Romania and elsewhere, television appropriated the field previously covered by the newsreels. The Sahia studio had introduced an agricultural newsreel since the early years of its inception in the 1950s. At the start of the 1960s, TVR in turn came out with a new and improved programme for the villages which was significantly longer than the agricultural newwreel (90’) and was broadcast weekly, on Sunday mornings. Also during this time, Tv produced a special News programme aimed particularly at the rural communities which not only further took up the educational space previously covered by Sahia’s agricultural newsreel, but even included occasionally films on agricultural themes produced by the studio.

 

TVR’s rural broadcast editorial team also created a character named “All-Seeing Ilie” (Ilie Vedetot), that was based on the model provided by Old Man Țepuse and similarly praised the successes and criticised the shortfalls of various institutions based in rural Romania. An internal report of TVR from the ’60s mentioned that “the character already lives in the consciousness of the viewers”, and that his absence from the program inevitably attracted letters of disappointment from the public. The amount of correspondence received by the editorial office on behalf of “All-Seeing Ilie” was steadily increasing, to the point where TVR created a new character – “Old Man Pârvu” (Moș Pârvu) – whose role was to respond live to the letters sent in by TVR’s rural viewers. That decision lead to an even greater increase in public engagement, as we learn from the same archival documents. In 1962, we find both Ilie and Pârvu mentioned in the press as “characters beloved by rural viewers”. Old Man Țepuse is being mentioned in the  written press, as a radio character, up until around 1970. (AB)

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