28 Years of Andaz Apna Apna: Looking back at Aamir Khan-Salman Khan's perennially popular comedy

Looking at Siddharth Chaturvedi and Ishaan Khatter trying so hard to emulate Aamir Khan and Salman Khan from Andaz Andaz Apna, it is evident that the 1994 comedy’s reach appeal and impact have gone beyond anything expected.

It started when the producer Vinay Sinha visited director Rajkumar Santoshi with the idea of doing a film with Aamir Khan. Sinha used to look after Aamir’s work. He convinced Santoshi to do the film with delicious food. A  diehard foodie, Santoshi immediately agreed to make a film for Sinha after tasting his food.

Sinha suggested they do something different with Aamir. Santoshi had just done two back-to-back serious films Ghayal and Damini. They decided, why not a comedy? Little did they know that AAA would turn out to be such a laugh riot during shooting and after release.

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It was decided that Santoshi would script a laughathon about two warring buddies, human avatars of _Tom & Jerry._ After Aamir came on board, Santoshi brought Salman into the picture. Both were very big stars by then. They had no problems working together. And during the shooting, they became even better friends.

There would be constant laughter on the sets. The entire crew would be rolling with laughter on the sets. Santoshi says there was so much laughter that the cameraman would be quivering with hilarity while shooting the scenes. The camera would shake along with the cameraman. They had to stop the shooting and let the laughter subside.

Santoshi cleared the misconception about a lot of the humour in AAA being improvised. “Not at all! I don’t work that way. I direct my actors very closely. I work out all the scenes along with dialogues well in advance. There is very little room for improvisation. And AAA was no exception. All the jokes and gags were worked out beforehand.”

It is believed that Aamir and Salman decided to call themselves Amar and Prem to celebrate the movie Amar Prem. But their names had nothing to do with Shakti Samanta’s film. And Aamir exclamations ‘Aila!’ and Salman’s ‘Oui Maa!’ were also Santoshi’s idea.

Santoshi says he used to give cues to the actors from behind the camera. Even during that sequence where Salman is fed julaab (laxative) and his love-confessions are repeatedly interrupted by his rumbling stomach, that ‘gud-gud-gud’ sound to Salman’s dialogues was being given by Santoshi from behind the camera. Salman didn’t know when and where the ‘gud-gud-gud’ would be put by me. That added to the scene’s unpredictability.

There were many firsts in AAA. Santoshi was doing comedy for the first time. Salman and Aamir came together for the first and so far only time. Paresh Rawal was a screen villain before AAA. This film  gave him a comic image. AAA revived the ‘Ajit-Robert’ jokes with Ajit’s son Shahzad Khan  playing Ajit’s carbon-copy.

Raveena Tandon and Karisma Kapoor were brought together. They exchanged screen names. Raveena was named Karisma in AAA and Karisma was Raveena. How were they to know the jokes would work so well? Comic writing depends on how much humour the writer can generate from the given situations.

Curiously, AAA got a lukewarm response from the audience when it was released. It was very badly marketed and distributed. Nobody knew the film was coming. The film got a below-average opening. But over the years, the film has acquired a cult status. People remember each and every dialogue of AAA.

Santoshi at one time planned a sequel to AAA, but strictly by public demand. Santoshi had two ideas for two sequels. One of them was about Amar and Prem married and their life thereafter.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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