9 Indian reality TV series inspired by foreign shows as Big Boss OTT is set to return with Anil Kapoor as host ( Photo Credit – Facebook )
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Big Boss OTT Season 3 is making a grand comeback on the digital platform on June 21 with Anil Kapoor as the host. To the delight of many TV-aholics, the Indian adaptation of the Dutch show Big Brother debuted in India in 2006 amid much fanfare. Since then, we have only fallen deeper in love with the show.
However, if you think Big Boss is the only foreign-origin reality show to be able to capture the Indian audience’s collective imagination, you might be in for a surprise. Scroll below to look at the shows with similar origin stories.
1. Kaun Banega Crorepati
Since its inception in 2000, Kaun Banega Crorepati has been an unmissable part of our television viewing experiences. Not only has the show been a dispenser of vast amounts of knowledge, but it has also solidified Amitabh Bachchan’s position as a star on the small screen. But, did you know that Kaun Banega Crorepati, or KBC as it is popularly known, actually owes its origin to the British game show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’. The quiz show’s British counterpart premiered on 4th September 1998 in the UK.
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India’s Got Talent has provided great exposure for talented individuals to showcase their craft since its launch in June 2009. The show has seen a plethora of luminaries gracing the judges’ seats, including Kirron Kher, Malaika Arora, and Karan Johar, among others. However, the popular reality series for showcasing your talents has also originated outside India. We have to thank the popular ‘Got Talent’ series for coming up with the idea of such a reality show. The first version was ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, premiered in 2005.
Renowned filmmaker Karan Johar arrives at the IGT stage to crown a team as the champion! 👑
You might be surprised that BBC One’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ inspire the popular dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. JDJ has used the same format as its foreign counterparts to pair celebrities with professional dancers. Throughout the years, the show has welcomed a host of eminent personalities, including Farah Khan, Remo D’Souza, and Madhuri Dixit, to judge the performers.
4. Indian Idol
Like ‘India’s Got Talent’ and ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa’, Indian idols are British-born. Originally inspired by Simon Fuller’s helmed ‘Pop Idol’, the singing reality show premiered in India in 2004. Since then, there has been no looking back, as Indian Idol has completed 14 seasons in the Hindi language. The show has also branched out and had regional versions in Telugu and Marathi.
The Indian stunts-based show Khatron Ke Khiladi is a direct adaptation of the American TV show Fear Factor. On the other hand, Fear Factor was adapted from the original Dutch show Now or Neverland. Khatron Ke Khiladi, as the name suggests, urges contestants to perform dangerous stunts to win the grand prize at the end. While Akshay Kumar hosted the first two seasons, the baton has been passed to stars, including Priyanka Chopra and Arjun Kapoor. Currently, Rohit Shetty is hosting the reality series.
6. Shark Tank India
Shark Tank India is a reality show that provides opportunities for budding entrepreneurs as they can gain funding for their businesses by impressing the sharks or the well-established business personalities. Shark Tank India is the official franchise of the American business reality show of the same format, ‘Shark Tank’, which in turn has been inspired by the Japanese show ‘Dragon’s Den’.
7. Sach Ka Samna
Sach Ka Samna created ripples among television viewers when it was first launched in 2009. With Rajeev Khandelwal gracing the host’s seat, the reality show introduced a novel concept in Indian television. Before going live, the contestants were asked 50 questions while connected to a polygraph machine. Using biological indicators obtained from the test, the organizers used to determine whether the answers were correct. The results were, however, hidden from the contestant. During the show, the participant was asked 21 of the same questions, and based on their answers, the prize was determined. While the show played a huge part in making polygraph tests common knowledge, little did we know Sach Ka Samna was originally inspired by the American game show ‘The Moment of Truth’!
8. Aap Ki Kachehri
The late 2000s saw the peak of reality shows, and we cannot deny that. One such show presented to the Indian audience in 2009 was ‘Aap Ki Kachehri… Kiran Ke Saath,’ in which retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi used to settle real-life disputes of the participants. However, we could not guess that this unique show was partially inspired by the American show ‘Judge Judy’.
9. The Kapil Sharma Show
Well, it might come as a surprise as the humorous sketch-comedy, The Kapil Sharma Show, too, had British inspiration behind its inception. Kapil Sharma-helmed comedy show has paid ample tributes to British sketch-comedy ‘The Kumars at No. 42’. The parallelism between Meera Syal’s show and the recurring characters of Kapil’s show can just not be missed.
