Blistering barnacles! Tintin making a debut in India, now?

This is one adventure that would even befuddle Tintin. Officially, the famous Belgian reporter has visited India only thrice during his illustrious career.

The first was in Blue Lotus, where he makes a fleeting appearance in India as a guest of the Maharaja of Gaipajama. In Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin crash lands in a jungle, and knows he is in India, where his dog Snowy chases a sacred cow, gets caught, and is set up for an animal sacrifice.

Tintin's third trip (Tintin in Tibet) was a tad longer, where he actually landed up in Delhi en route Kathmandu. Even this time, he couldn't really spend time here as Chang, his Chinese friend, needed to be quickly rescued.

Tintin's first appearance in Indian television was as a guest of Cartoon Network. The channel premiered Tintin way back in August 2000, and continues to air his adventures.

So, when ZEE English went to town with the "Tintin in India" campaign, one couldn't help but think about exciting possibilities.

Is Tintin's animated version going to have a full-fledged adventure in India? If popular cartoon characters like Mickey and Donald can continue to have their share of new adventures - long after their creator Walt Disney's death, surely Tintin can do an encore.

Also, an Indian adventure will be not out of place as even Peter Parker of Spiderman fame is set to make a local debut as Pavitr Prabhakar.

So, is Tintin making an exclusive appearance with ZEE English?

Abhijit Saxena, business head, ZEE English, said: "Tintin is going to make his first appearance in Indian television through ZEE English". The statement didn't really make much sense as Cartoon Network has been airing Tintin adventures since August 2000 in English as well as in Hindi. And the programme continues even today.

So, agencyfaqs! persisted by asking: "Is ZEE planning to telecast a new adventure of Tintin, hitherto unseen in comic books?"

The reply was again in the negative. Saxena said, ZEE English is going to telecast various titles from Tintin's book series, and no fresh footage will be involved.

Tintin-lovers are not going to like this, but what the ZEE executive implied that the channel is using Tintin's visits to India (Tintin in Tibet and others) as a marketing pitch for the programme.

So, it's going to be a case of repeat programming for Tintin and ZEE English for the time being. Perhaps, a proper debut will happen at another time and in another channel. Amen. © 2004 agencyfaqs!