The renowned Russian linguist Vladibear, a Black Grisly Bear living in the Amur region of Russia, has taken on a new role of voice coach for meerkats auditioning for parts in the comparethemarket.com adverts.
Rumours continue to abound that the film team behind the adverts wants to use real meerkats instead of CGI ones, but they haven’t been able to find any meerkats with the Russian accent needed for the part.
Meerkats have taken to watching Russian news channels available at some safari lodges, but found people often changed the channel before they had chance to really absorb the Russian accent. They tried stealing the remote controllers, but that just led to the TVs being switched off.
One young meerkat had heard of Vladibear and got in touch to ask if he would help, promising him a cut of any earnings he made if he got a part in the advert.
Vladibear was very touched to be asked and so waived his usual fee. He told us, “It was lovely to be contacted by the meerkat, I liked his message very much. I am happy to provide lessons to all meerkats to help with their Russian, no fee required, I love to spread the joy of Mother Russia to the world.”
The lessons proved so popular that Vladibear’s website crashed and he has had to switch to livestreaming on Youtube since then.
The lessons have gone down a treat with meerkats in Africa, and the Meerkat stream on Tik Tok is now filled with videos imitating the insurance adverts.
It seems only a matter of time until they are picked up and the dream of real meerkats in the adverts is realised.