Oriental Network Zhongxiang news reporter Chen Chen Wang Pengchong
Because of participating in a variety show, Chen Peisi, who was rumored to have been "banned" for many years, returned to the CCTV stage. And his past with Zhu Shimao and CCTV was brought up again.
At the Spring Festival Gala in 1998, Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao performed the skit "Wang Ye and the Postman". This is the 11th time the two have participated in the Spring Festival Gala since 1984.
At that time, the audience in front of the TV set probably did not expect that the pair, who brought countless joys to the people, did not appear on the Spring Festival Gala stage for more than twenty years.
(Pictured: The 1998 Spring Festival Gala sketch "Wang Ye and the Postman")
A suspenseful case caused by a sketch
"The Prince and the Postman" is adapted from the play "All Nations Games" by the veteran artist Yan Su. Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao exhausted their efforts for this work. In 1991, the two performed the original version of the skit at the Beijing Radio Theater. Over the next few years, the work underwent several revisions, and it took seven years to be released.
Perhaps the 1998 Spring Festival Gala version of "Wang Ye and the Postman" is a laughing memory in many people's minds, but for Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao, it is a failed performance.
The sketch script was polished for seven years, and the costumes during the performance were made at their own expense, but there were many problems when performing on the stage. First, Zhu Shimao's microphone suddenly failed, and he had to approach Chen Peisi and borrow his microphone to speak lines. The sound effects that accompanied the performance also disappeared, and the starting gun and the cheering sound required by the plot did not appear, and the final performance effect was greatly reduced.
In fact, more problems have already been revealed in the preparatory stage. The two have been pursuing newer forms of artistic expression, hoping to adopt high technology in "Wang Ye and the Postman", but CCTV has not adopted it. This wasn't the first time they'd hit a wall, as they were turned away from using a movie montage when they performed "The Dog and the Black Chick" in 1988.
And the bigger controversy is taking place off the stage.
In 1999, Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao discovered that the China International Television Corporation, a subsidiary of China Central Television, had published a CD-ROM of ten sketches, including "Wang Ye and the Postman," without permission. This wasn't the first time they had found themselves in abuse, it happened once in 1994, when the two sides finally reached a settlement.
This time, the two were very angry, and the settlement of the door, telephone, letter and other means failed, so they finally filed a complaint against CCTV in court.
In a judgment rendered by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court on December 6, 2002, China International Television Corporation was required to stop the infringement, published an apology statement in China Television News, and paid Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao 333293 yuan in damages for copyright infringement and 3,174 yuan in reasonable expenses incurred as a result of the case.
The two comedians stood in the courtroom with a serious look, not knowing for a moment whether it was really a drama, joy or sorrow.
When the stage is a thing of the past
In the anecdotal audience, with the CCTV call, it means that the two basically bid farewell to the radio and television system. Not to mention the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the programs of local stations are also difficult.
But Zhu Shimao revealed in an interview that after the lawsuit was over, they had a meal with the leaders of CCTV, and the two sides said that the matter was over, and the two were invited to submit works for the 2002 Spring Festival Gala.
But the skit, titled "Doctor Jianghu", was not seen by the audience in the end. Three days before the Spring Festival Gala, they were suddenly asked by the crew to change programs. Zhu Shimao flew to the United States for the New Year in a huff. Afterwards, the two heard that it turned out that there was a medical school dean who called and complained that the sketch satirized the veterinary group and that the performance at the Spring Festival Gala had a bad impact.
Both were more artistic people, and after experiencing this experience, they were finally discouraged, and then the invitation to the Spring Festival Gala was also rejected.
"The opinions we put forward are always rejected, so the contradiction becomes tit-for-tat." Chen Peisi recalled.
No matter what the truth behind the "ban", "Wang Ye and the Postman" of the "98 Spring Festival Gala" has indeed become the final song of the pair's Spring Festival Gala. The days when the two were "tit-for-tat" with CCTV did not stop.
(Pictured: The two made a cameo appearance in "Big Trouble Tianzhu")
After the unpleasantness, Zhu Shimao initially chose to go to the sea to do business. Because his son Zhu Qingyang was weak and sick since childhood, he ran all over the big and small hospitals to seek medical advice, and finally sent his son to the United States for treatment and study.
Over the years, he has devoted himself to film, directing films for young audiences such as "Love Is Not NG", "Love That Is Far Away", "Hu Yang's Summer" and other films, cooperating with Zhu Yilong, Xin, Zhong Xintong, Park Hae-jin and other "traffic stars". Zhu Shimao has an outgoing personality, loves to make friends, and frequently appears in front of the public after becoming a director.
After leaving the Spring Festival Gala, Chen Peisi thought about his life for several years in the advanced mountains.
In the two years of the lawsuit, he had a hard time, there was no party invitation, his film company collapsed, and he was not willing to go to the cave or act in a TV series to make a living. Depressed, he and his wife Wang Yanling used all their savings to contract a mountain top to plant pomegranates on the outskirts of Beijing. After two years of patronizing, Chen Peisi found that he could not put down the stage. With his wife's encouragement, he used the money earned from the reclamation of the mountain to develop new works.
In 2001, the play, called Childcare, premiered at the Chang'an Grand Theatre. This became a new starting point for Chen Peisi's artistic career. "Childcare" has toured 120 times in nearly 50 cities across the country, creating a box office of 50 million. In the following years, Chen Peisi unleashed his artistic pursuits on the drama stage. "Relatives and Friends Good Accounting" and "Balcony" were acclaimed and acclaimed, and the latter was selected as a teaching case by the Shanghai Theater Academy.
After 10 years, we will cooperate with the sketch
Without the stage of the party, a turn to drama, a business film, the audience can hardly see this classic group appear together. They have very different personalities in private, but the relationship remains intimate. Until now, when interviewed, Zhu Shimao can still talk about the friendship between the two without hesitation:
"You pull him out now and ask, who's your best friend?" He must have said that it was Lao Mao. Later, the two of us did not cooperate again, and there were various reasons for this, and the relationship between the two of us was not in line. "
After "Wang Ye and the Postman" in 1998, Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao partnered on the TV screen again, already in 2008. They collaborated on the Spring Evening of Beijing Television Station to perform the sketch "Chen Xiao'er multiplied by two", returning to the sketch stage after many years of absence. In 2012, the two collaborated on "New Police and Thieves" on the Spring Evening of Shanghai Oriental Satellite TV. On the evening of The Spring Festival in Beijing in 2019, Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao's "second generation" Chen Dayu and Zhu Qingyang reproduced their father's classic work "Eating Noodles".
The two comedians who have been pursuing pioneering technology in those years naturally cannot be left behind in the short video era.
At the beginning of the year, Zhu Shimao's early film masterpiece "Wrangler" suddenly "turned red", and the classic line "Lao Xu, you want a wife, as long as you open the golden mouth, I will send you immediately" was made into a short video spread on various platforms, becoming a "popular meme" among young netizens. Zhu Shimao moved his mind to make a sequel: "I can play the father, and the son can grow up." "
Chen Peisi and his son Chen Dayu, who is also a drama actor, opened a video account "Chen Peisi Father and Son", which is a small section of life carefully choreographed by the father and son. It is difficult for some age-old audiences not to think of the classic old film "Father and Son" cooperated by Chen Peisi's previous father Chen Qiang.
After leaving the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, every year there are rumors that Chen Peisi Zhu Shimao wants to return to the Spring Festival Gala hand in hand. Because Of Chen Peisi and CCTV's "ice release of previous suspicions", this year's rumors sound more true.
The "front waves" are reminiscing about the past, chen Peisi has no physical performance of eating noodles, accompanied by himself swallowing spit in front of the snowflake TV screen;
After the wave" discovered the past, "I can't imagine that your thick eyebrows and big eyes will also defect" These golden sentences seem to be some kind of mysterious treasure handed down from the pre-Internet era.
The Spring Festival Gala will not disappear so quickly, and the sketches will continue to be rehearsed, with generational changes, the cycle of life and death, and only art will last forever.