For a whole generation of television viewers, Doctor Cynoque is synonymous with that era of television. The era of Stéphane Collaro, of *Cocoricocoboy*, of those popular programmes of the 1980s where the sketches recurred like comic-book characters and eventually became part of family life.
Doctor Cynoque was played by Jacques Brière. Opposite him, Claire Nadeau played the indescribable Madame Foldingue. The concept was almost perfectly simple: to subvert the psychiatric consultation by gradually blurring the boundaries between the person supposed to be treating and the person supposed to be in need of treatment. Claire Nadeau could turn a mundane sentence into a logical disaster, whilst Jacques Brière maintained that medical seriousness essential to the gag’s effectiveness.
What is interesting today is precisely the apparent simplicity of the set-up. Two actors. One set. One situation. Words.
And it worked.
Because everything hinged on the writing, the rhythm and the actors.
Jacques Brière had, in fact, told me in 2014, when I interviewed him for *Le Mague*, how the character came about. As the programme consisted of various segments, they needed to come up with something related to medicine. Psychiatry offered particularly rich comic material. Brière then offered to write sketches featuring a psychiatrist and his patient, played by Claire Nadeau. The segment went on to become one of the programme’s most popular features.
This detail is important because it reminds us of something we sometimes forget when watching these old clips: behind their apparent light-heartedness, there were real writers and some brilliant actors.
Claire Nadeau was extraordinary in this role. She possessed that rather rare ability to say the most implausible thing in the world with the absolute confidence of someone who has just stated the obvious. Jacques Brière did exactly the opposite: the more absurd the situation became, the more Cynoque seemed determined to maintain a semblance of rationality.
It was precisely this contrast that provoked the laughter.
The character would, in fact, feature throughout the Collaro universe. Following *Cocoricocoboy* on TF1, we see Doctor Cynoque and Madame Foldingue again in the *Collaricocoshow*, broadcast on La Cinq in 1987–1988.
Naturally, when viewed nearly forty years later, this television programme bears the hallmarks of its era. The pace is different. Some of the comic devices have dated. Fortunately, psychiatry itself is no longer portrayed or viewed in quite the same way as it might have been in popular comedy of the 1980s.
But one thing has stood the test of time surprisingly well: the duo.
Because, deep down, Cynoque and Foldingue weren’t really about psychiatry. They were about our marvellous ability to construct perfectly coherent arguments from completely absurd premises.
And that, for better or worse, hasn’t aged a bit.
There’s also a certain melancholy in watching these clips again. Back then, they were watched and then forgotten. No instant replays, no social media slicing the sketch into fifteen clips, no view counters. Yet certain characters have left a much deeper imprint on the collective memory than a great deal of contemporary content viewed millions of times.
When I met Jacques Brière, he told me that, a quarter of a century on, people were still asking him about Doctor Cynoque and that some still recognised him in the street.
Perhaps that is the true measure of popularity.
The one for which no research organisation has the figures.
Forty years on, you only have to say ‘Docteur Cynoque’ in front of some of Collaro’s former viewers to see a smile appear immediately.
And for a moment, we’re back in front of the television of the 1980s.
Doctor, is it serious?
