Raphaël Mezrahi resurrects the beginnings of comedy stars

The scent of alcohol, paper and dust, sometimes more than a century old, tickles the nose. A narrow winding path allows you to advance among piles of reels, magnetic tapes, video cassettes, video recorders, screens, scanners and enlargers of all kinds. A scalpel is lying on a keyboard. Behind the doors of this hangar in the Chevreuse valley lies a paradise for mystics of sound and image. « Jean Dujardin, his dream was to play Zorro, for me it’s Colombo », launches Raphaël Mezrahi.

The comedian has given himself the new mission of resurrecting, from damaged magnetic tapes, the first shows of great French comedians. « I have already saved around ten including those of Dany Boon, Elie Kakou Michel Boujenah and an issue of “Court of flagrant delusions” , the cult France Inter show with Pierre Desproges and Luis Rego, he reveals. You can see them on myCanal in the Les Trésors de Raphaël Mezrahi tab. »

The comedians and their heirs thank him

Dany Boon, the son of Alex Métayer, the daughter of Sylvie Joly as well as the sister of Élie Kakou are grateful to him. “ Raphaël Mezrahi does an extraordinary job », insists Brigitte Kakou. He gets out of it with a pirouette: “ I don’t like artists, I’m in love with them. My real name is public service. I live in the present, 40 years later. »

Famous for its quirky interviews with stars and its Night of Depression, where a crowd of stars rush to sing their saddest songs this chatterbox for whom « humor is a state of mind» has somewhat disappeared from memory. At 60 years old, it doesn’t move him that much. « I have no ego, I’m not looking for work, at my old age I’ve been around everything. » These days, our audiovisual Indiana Jones never leaves the wheel of his gray Toyota. When he is not at home in Aube taking care of his seventeen cats or in Normandy with the donkeys whose property he shares with Brigitte Bardot, he drives here. « I save tapes like I save animals»

he explains while giving some slack to a lurking feline.

Support from Rachida Dati At the start of 2025, nearly 500 magnetic tapes covered in white mold still retain their mystery. With his group of geeks including his friend Sylvain Dietrich in espadrilles « so as not to demagnetize the strips» Raphaël Mezrahi has a lot to do. If the archives of France Télévisions and Radio France are kept at the INA, those of private producers, notably those who worked for TF1 and LCI, have most often been thrown away and the servers crushed. « These bands are dying. We have to act quickly. Within fifteen years, their content will disappear forever, he alerts. It takes three months of restoration and 5000 at 20,000 euros before finding out what’s on it. Regardless of tape format and age, from tape heads to enlargers, I have all the logistics. I have a crazy approach, I am capable of doing 1000 terminals to collect equipment in an industrial zone. I do this work in my corner without any public assistance. The Comedy Channel ! was the first to help me with the restoration. Fortunately, François Bayrou kept Rachida Dati as Minister of Culture. She knows everything I do by heart. She is as convinced as I am of the importance of saving this heritage. These bands represent an entire era. At the start of the school year, she will introduce me to the right people, if I can help in my smallest way, I am happy to do so.

 

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My real job is an acoustician

Raphaël Mezrahi, comedian He who advises against his “ attendance » as it is “ a sponge for all the misery in the world » proves to be a sound magician. « I am known for my interviews but they represent 5 % of my time. I still do it. That of Jean-Claude Van Hamme remains to be broadcast. My real job is an acoustician »,

says the one who dreams of organizing the first philharmonic loudspeaker concert on Radio France. He will bring those that Jacques Dutronc offered him: 200 kg each.
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Rachida Dati launches the celebration of the bicentenary of photography He has had this passion for sound since he was very young. At the beginning of the 1970s, he installed an amplifier antenna on the roof of the family home in Troyes to receive the Reims network. « I was the only one in the region to watch Casimir and Children’s Island in color and to grab FIP in frequency modulation. I have all the Radio France cassettes from the time and thirty years of voice messages on my answering machine. Those who want to listen to their deceased loved ones again come to see me. I have the not at all #MeToo archive of Serge Gainsbourg that everyone is looking for. At Carbone’s microphone 14, he asks two girls to make love live. All this is my life.

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The “Stéphane Bern of audiovisual heritage” With this tropism,s e transforming into “Stéphane Bern of audiovisual heritage” was obvious. It all started during the pandemic, he received a message on his email address: wb9598reply@gmail (the coast guard code inFlip the dolphin) . He jumped into his Toyota, heading towards Belfort. There, in the cellar of the former President of the National Assembly, Raymond Forni, submerged under a meter of water, he discovered hundreds of reels. « They had been left there by his son who is a friend but no one knew what was on them. »,

explains Raphaël Mezrahi. Biologists then explain to him how to remove the dead mold by heating the strips. After three days in the oven and delicate cleaning with a scalpel, they are digitized. There he discovered hundreds of hours of artists in their beginnings: Alex Métayer, Popeck, the Knights of the Fiel, Yolande Moreau… « Shows that no one has ever seen ! »

enthuses Raphaël Mezrahi as he catches a new tape. This contains Jango Edwards’ first show. He had no equal in the 1980s and 1990s when it came to dousing spectators with all possible foam and liquids and stripping naked on stage. He would like all these curiosities to be visible on a channel.
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American clown Jango Edwards dies in Barcelona In the meantime, Raphaël Mezrahi also deserves to be honored. At the beginning of this year, the young generation will be able to discover their Groucho Marx state of mind thanks to their “cartoon strip”. An album of his own making where the boxes filled with bubbles are just waiting for the drawing. « I’m crazy »,

he repeats, closing the hangar door.( *) The eleventh edition of the Night of Depression will take place on the 6th^{October 2025 at the Folies-Bergère in Paris (9}e ).