This Thursday arrives on OCS “Toutouyoutou”, an offbeat and atypical series, created by Maxime Donzel and Géraldine de Margerie, which mixes aerobics, industrial espionage and aeronautics. An entire program…
When the aerobics of the 80s meets aeronautics and industrial espionage, it gives doggie, the new original creation of OCS which arrives on the channel this Thursday, September 8 at 9 p.m. Created by Maxime Donzel and Geraldine de Margeriethe brains behind the humorous pastille of Arte Tutotal, the series, composed of 10 episodes of 26 minutes, transports us directly to the Toulouse region, the cradle of aeronautics, at the time of the golden age of Véronique and Davina .
The series follows Karine (Claire Dumas) is an uneventful mother who sees her life turned upside down by the arrival of a new neighbor, Jane (Alexia Barlier), straight from the United States. She brings a wind of modernity that will upset the lives of Karine and her friends.
But behind her smiles and her fluorescent leotard, Jane seems to be very interested in project 37, a top secret file for which Didier, Karine’s husband, is in charge. What if Jane wasn’t who she claimed to be?
A chronicle of France in the 80s
For Maxime Donzel, talking about the arrival of American culture in France in the 80s was the starting point when creating Toutouyoutou. “This is a time when we were dealing with a real paradigm shift.”
“The 1980s marked a liberal turning point“, he explained during a press briefing on the occasion of the Series Mania festival. “We wanted to show the encounter between post-Giscard France, which was brown-beige, and colorful America.”
And if at first glance aerobics and industrial espionage are not necessarily the most obvious script combination, for its creator, it was precisely a way of being closer to reality. “Spies are often not where you expect them.“
“When you think about it, James Bond is not a very good spy because we can guess his profession by his attitude. On the other hand, a spy disguised as an aerobics teacher, that’s a very good idea.”
Maxime Donzel even admitted to having researched the history of spies before embarking on writing the series. And he discovered that industrial espionage is much more developed than we might think. “Spies position themselves in places where we do not expect them, and where they can create strong bonds with people. So it seemed very relevant to me to talk about espionage in the context of aerobics.”
Empowering women through aerobics
But besides talking about the 80s, the two creators had in mind above all to make a feminine and feminist series. Toutouyoutou thus follows the destiny of four women, who will see their lives turned upside down by the arrival of a new neighbor straight from the United States.
This single and independent woman, a thousand miles from the people they are used to rubbing shoulders with, will gradually push them to regain control of their lives and above all to emancipate themselves from the shackles of the society of the time.
With Toutouyoutou, Maxime Donzel also had in mind to tell us the story of these ordinary women who lived before the pioneers. “In the 80s there were the first female pilots and the first female engineers” he thus explained.
“But I kept thinking about those who couldn’t go to school because they were born a year too early. I told myself that these women were no less heroic. This is where the idea for the character of Karine came to me. I wanted to talk about the women to whom we closed the door but who nevertheless managed to have extraordinary destinies.”
An idea shared by Claire Dumas, his interpreter. “It was interesting to approach this from the perspective of someone who missed the mark. This woman helped her husband prepare for his studies. She could have done her job just as much as he did. And yet, she realizes at the time of her 40 years that she really missed something.”
Through the destiny of these four atypical women, Maxime Donzel and Géraldine de Margerie offer us an offbeat and original series with biting humour. If the first episodes struggle to captivate us, we are however very quickly carried away in this singular spy plot against the backdrop of the 80s. A true UFO, Toutouyoutou is a series that can be consumed without moderation.
Find season 1 of Toutouyoutou from this Thursday, September 8 at 9 p.m. on OCS Max. The 10 episodes are already available in full on OCS on demand.