January 27, 2022 • 27 mins
This week on 4 From the South, Steve and Fab explore the TV of the South. Fab talks about his memories of growing up with the Chilean version of Sesame Street and the influence of American television on the rest of the world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's what's up all, everybody? How are you doing? This
is Steve Healey and we're back here on four from
(00:22):
the South. I'm here with my good friend Fabrizio Capano.
Fab How are you doing? But hello everyone. I remember
like the first time we started this podcast, I think
someone from the company that owned these these audios said,
feel free to speak Spanish. And I didn't do it
in any episode, and you just did it. I think
you were speaking more Spanish than me in this show. Yes, well,
(00:44):
that's about the extent of my Spanish as a speaker. Unfortunately.
I feel like I know enough to order a beer
or get directions. But that's about as far as I got. Actually,
I think I've got pretty good. When I was traveling
around in South America, I felt like I was okay.
In fact, some even complimented my Spanish when I got
to the end of the journey in Chile, and so
that was about as high as I can go. I've
(01:05):
been working on translating a book from Spanish, your friend's
book else Seer the South. Um. I think I might
translate it as Tales from the South or a memoir
of the South or something, or Deep South. Maybe this
is a book your friend wrote about the South of Chile,
which is sort of like a weird crazy like David Lynch.
(01:26):
His yeah, in his book is like a David Lynch nightmare.
Well that's a good animal, because David Lynch is you know,
he's from the Pacific northwest Montana, you know, where the
weather is kind of weird and strange, and Twin Peaks
is up in the weird weather part of the world,
you know, rainy and mysterious, and no one wants to
go there on purpose. May be similar. Yeah, there's something
there about those kind of places. I think it's easy
(01:47):
to murder. It's easy to kill someone and hide. There's
a lot of space for hiding. Yes, Um, okay, But
fab today and the usually on the show we do
you do fo um stories of what's going on in
the news in South America. A lot of people depend
on us for that. However, today we're gonna have a
special theme episode because I was noticing, you know, um,
(02:09):
a couple of icons of my youth in television. First,
we had Elmo sort of appeared as a meme, Elmo
fighting with one of the other muppets on Sesame Street.
It was making people. People were reacting to Elmo as
a character. Elmo wasn't It wasn't really that much a
part of Sesame Street when I was a kid. I
feel like Sesame He's a sign of the degeneration of
(02:31):
Sesame Street. But there you go. And also we lost
the great comedian Bob Sagett, who was such a crucial
part of television when I was a kid. He played
the dad on UM full House, which was a popular
actually scom that was the name three by three. That's
a better name, honestly, um. And then he hosted America's
(02:54):
Funniest Home Videos, which was just a phenomenon people. You know,
there wasn't YouTube at the time. If you want to
see a funny video, you had to tune into America's
Funniest Home Videos. And Bob Sagett his his persona as
a comedian. He was kind of a filthy, wild guy.
He like prostitutes and and living a pretty losh life.
But he was also extremely nice as a person. I
(03:17):
encountered him a few times, and the tributes to him
that have been pouring out have been showering him with praise.
The kindness is that he gave to younger comedians and
so on. Anyway, that's a roundabout way of getting that.
We were thinking about TV icons of our youth, and
it occurred to me, you know, everybody, most American television
reaches the whole world. But I was curious, fab if
(03:38):
we could talk through what you were watching as a
child in Chile, what what the TV landscape was in
South America, because I think that um Americans they sometimes
have seen like Saboto Gigante or something and the bumblebee
man stereotype. This is gonna be a special themed EPISO
(04:00):
on TV from the South, and what was going on?
What what the formation formative TV experiences you were having
as a kid were. What was going on? So we
can have a broader picture of how we formed the
Latin America of today. So that's what we're gonna be
talking about today, the TV of the South. So fable
talk to me, you're eight years Let's start. Yeah, let's
(04:20):
start with invasion. Let's start with the American invasion of
Latin America. And I think that one of the few
good things that I remember from my childhood, and it
was clearly in an American TV show, but it was
a different version. Was sesame street that in Latin America
is called Plasta. I don't know why they changed it
to a square. You know, it's not a street there,
(04:44):
it's at Yeah, okay, so blasta s uh. It's the
same show. It's the same idea, the same concept, but
here a big bird is abbe ladder them that. If
you guys can google right now, there's a different big
bird bye bye. I mean by language, I would say,
because there's a Brazilian one, there's a very different one.
(05:07):
But this this one a lot of this a Mexican
big bird. Uh. He's green. He's more of a parrot.
Uh In in his face you can see more of
a parrot in it. Uh. He he was the the
the yicon of the show. There was no Elmo at
(05:27):
the time, and I think it's the same time that
in the US Elmo was still not relevant. Um okay,
last name Montoya and he has a red face but
a green his feathers are green and his face is red. Yeah.
Kind of confusing, kind of confusing for a child. But
I mean, great, great show. We in in my family
(05:50):
right now, my son is watching Sineme Street again and
now it's so different like now it's all about multicultural characters,
this big Spanish back on for blah blah blah. And
when I was growing up, that was just the beginning
of that. There was like door explorer was trying to
there was exploring exploring that. Uh, but we would have
a lot of Brazilian kids show and this is like
(06:13):
an interesting interjection because we had Chocha. Do you guys
ever heard about Chocha? No, what's with x u x a?
If you google it was a beautiful woman from Brazil,
from so Paolo that have I mean, I don't know
even the US was this kind of kids show that
(06:35):
you can see it was borderline like there was this
this beautiful women with with short skirts and uh it
was it was like for kids, it's fun, they're dancing
and clearly was made for the dads too also watch
and be like, you know, like having a beer in
There was a lot of there was a lot of dancing,
(06:57):
a lot of kind of like sexual innu and those
but no nothing nothing of course very graphic or anything
like that. And she was the number one because she
was beautiful. I think after she made there's a lot
of myths around this woman. Um one of them is
that she did porn after that. I mean, it's like
a classic thing. That always the story, that's always the
(07:20):
myth about TV actresses. If you look at Juto by
the way she looks like if you, if I had
to get it, you just show me a picture and
asked guests who this person is. I would be like
German pop star because she's like like eighties kind of look.
If you told me Brazilian TV host, I would be surprised.
She she's she was number one for decades and her
(07:43):
cultural relevance still today. There was a famous um, I mean,
this is not a meme because it's like way before that,
but there was like this whole theory that she had
a satanic messages in her songs. This happened also in
the US. There would often be stories about that. Yeah, yeah,
there'd be like little miss about if you played this
(08:03):
record backward to tell the doorship Satan or whatever. That
was definitely a panic that was going on in the Yeah,
and the way they wait, if they did that, what's
the port I mean, if someone's if you hear like backwards,
if he decided to do that job of like trying
to hear these backwards and they say, like the devil
is magnificent. It's not like it's going to change your
(08:25):
mind about your your opinion about the devil. I remember
like the concept of subliminal messages that was a hugely
like people were always on the lookout for, like you know,
there's this and that and the coke ad and there's
like you know, Joe Camill's face like a penis or whatever.
But it's actually like you don't need to look that far.
Society is full of kind of twisted nearly a Satanic
(08:47):
messenger the front of you. It's he's there. You know,
he's not hiding, he's Satan. Why he'd be like you know,
pulling tricks. Yeah, like the President's confidence sneak guy um
And And this is a story that I was part of.
(09:09):
Chicha went to Chile in uh. I think it's like
late nineties and she was part of Vilmar, this big
festival family show watched for the whole country. Uh. And
it's just like this kind of it's very similar to
the Hollywood Bowl venue, but this broadcast on TV and
(09:31):
the whole country a big summer festival nationwide. Everybody's tuning in.
It's an annual event and she opened it. She opened
the first night, Chocha opening the night and she started
it must be like ninety eight nineties seven, and she
started with one of her classics, Laddie Laddie. That is
(09:52):
a song that said like oh la, and then there
are and start replying to her, uh, suck it because
oh it sounds like chupalo. That is a way to
say suck it. But it's more like sexual than than that,
(10:13):
you know, so I'm hearing you. Yeah, she starts singing
Lady Lay. The audience started screaming back up, and she
was like, sorry, what what? What? What? You guys are
saying something? And she goes to a kid. She's like,
what are these they say? She stopped her performance to
(10:34):
be like what exactly? She stopped The suckers like what
is this? And and she's like what where are they saying?
And the kids just like they're saying, suck it? The
horrible nightmare? What are the world if you were constructing
a nightmare? Being a singer? Is? Wait? What are you? Guys?
(10:54):
Stops the whole show and goes to you to ask
you to explain the disgusting thing that they're the cameras
of your face said that, and this woman started crying,
and she did. She started crying on TV. Everybody's like,
oh my god. The host came back from backstage and
(11:16):
he's like, we're so sorry. They're just it's playful, We're
going and the audience was like, We're so sorry. Oh
my gosh. She got upset. She cried, got upset, and
she's like, I'm never coming back to this country. What
a moment. And this was witnessed live by half the
population of the country. I was in the audience that night.
(11:41):
Were you one of the ones saying suck it, fab
I probably was. I don't remember. I was a kid too,
but maybe I said it. We don't even know what
it means. Um how old you were? You were a
young man? I was like, yeah, I was a kid
probably in uh so, I don't. I just have vague
memberis of that night. I've just seen this on repeated
(12:04):
TV every year. They took a little classic TV Chile
and TV moment from moment of shame for the whole
nation and it was there sort of a reckoning afterwards
in Chile where people were like, maybe we shouldn't have
been doing that. This is wrong. Debate was happening to us,
(12:24):
this contry. We used to be a good, clean dictatorship
and now look at us. It's called that guy backing
away on stage. Yeah, that was one of my childhoods memories.
(12:48):
What were the were there sitcoms that were popular? What
were the big hits in uh, South America at the time,
all day classic American sitcoms. I am mostly like, Yeah, well,
when I was growing up, there was this is like
Nickelodeon wave of shows like uh, I think Waverley Plays.
(13:11):
I never watched any of those because I didn't like
TV shows with humans. I was against that. I was
I felt like, if I want to watch something and
my kid, I don't watch a cartoon not humans, don't
give me you were you're a wise child. You're like
adult actors not for not, which I think it is
kind of there's so much um destruction and creepiness that
(13:33):
comes from the shows with actors uh four young adults
that it just seems like the cost of getting young
people to be in TV shows is pretty high and
maybe it should just be for kids. It should just
be cartoons. And when you're eighteen, then you immediately switched
to watching real humans. Their lives are ruined. All these
(13:54):
child actors, and I mean all these cartoons are fine.
They grow up to be a normal cartoons and they
they what I remember, well, got me back to second.
I just typed in a child child actor into into
Google to see what would come up, and it's child
actors who died. So there you go, a good hint
(14:14):
of where you're at. Um. I well, uh, that's um,
what's the name of that show that is? It's not
Three Way Treating, it's not Full House. It was like
Three Trees Company. It's what's called someone was big at
the time. Uh. Married with Children also, everyone was watching
(14:40):
that at some point. Um. That that was when Married
with Children came to the US. It was on Fox TV,
which was kind of like, um, pushing the limits a
little bit and like sort of outrageous. Yeah yeah yeah,
and Married with Children. I felt a little scandalized myself
when I would watch it, because here was a show
that was basically the wife was always dressing really sexy,
and she always to have sex that was open, and
(15:01):
for some reason Ald never wanted to, uh, even though
he didn't have much else going on in his life.
I guess he was just kind of lazy and tired,
and then the daughter was sort of a trampy. It
was a little bit scary. I was scandalized by it
when I used to tune in as a child. Well,
they did Chilean version and it was very popular. Then
they did and Argentina version also massive. I think those
(15:22):
characters are in every country. I mean, those people, you
can find them in every single country. That's one shows. Yeah,
it's one of the few shows that translate to many
regions of Latin America. Yeah, they're not that many. There
are not that many. All the sitcoms were actually like
(15:43):
um noon, it was like noon that the childs didn't
know what but Brogo was cheap to have a full house,
you know, Monday uh. And of course they were dubbed.
All these shows were dubbed got TV TV four kids.
Morning shows were still around. Like when I was growing up,
(16:06):
there was like the teenage media, Ninja Turtles, there was
Power Rangers first generation was the thing the other time,
and I have to say Power Rangers weren't huge in
Latin America. They did great in Latin America. Um still
part of the thing, part of the genesis of power Rangers.
I think the guy who came up with that, remembering
(16:26):
this right, was like an Israeli guy and he was like,
if we just have a show where the characters of
Helmets dubbed it to every language, easily sell it internationally,
no problem. Sort of how they came up with that, Yeah, brilliant, Yeah, yeah,
I just put helmets helmets and everyone. Uh. And the
shows were so bad that that show was so bad.
It was just the simplest premise, every episode, the same
(16:47):
story over and over. You can do thousands of episodes
of this and nothing change. Uh. But there was one
show that I think is is people Should You Know About?
And this is actually a chileane show. Uh. It's called
thirty one Minute. It was a parody of the news
(17:09):
um and he's like the Mumpets mixed it up with
the with the local news. So this is a TV
show that the puppets have a news show. And the
main characters is egomaniac. Ah that it's called Tulio and
he just she's like crazy egomaniac that he everything is
(17:32):
about him. His best friend he's into horse races. Is
the Red Bunny, uh called gambling Addicted Red bunny okay. Cool?
Uh And all all the segments of the news were
like funny things. You know. It's like, I don't know
(17:54):
the there was like one story of like they were
following what happened with poop? You know when you threw
the one for kids, It's like, of course you want
to know what happened after you flushed the toilet? Like what,
Oh my god. It was like a passion of mine
when I was a kid, you know, It's like a mystery. Yeah,
And they put all these little funny pieces of reports.
(18:18):
So that was that was a great idea. I'm just
going to read you from the Wikipedia. The summary of
the main character H thirty one minutos is conducted by
Tulio Trevnio tu Filo, a millionaire great chimpanzee who is
self centered, but ignorant and short on understanding. That's exactly
why the show was about. And the show was great
and then super funny. The booty bohemian, witty and occasional poet,
(18:42):
a womanizer, but above all a great gambler addicted to
horse raising and betting at the hippodroom. Cool. Yeah, that's
that's okay. And once again the show is Mexico is huge.
Like they do concerts now they don't do this TV
show anymore. They just do the songs live. Uh because
in the news they have like a segment of music.
(19:03):
And once again, great, great show, super funny for adults.
I don't know if all the jokes translate. I know
they did a pilot in English once. Uh there isn't
your in YouTube you can find you can find it. Um,
but I don't know. I think it's it's it's a
it's kind of like our Muppets or like the show
(19:24):
that you're watching have fun, and like it seems a
little darker than the Muppets. I mean, the Muppets never
had anyone who was a gambling addict or a womanizer
or anything like that. Yeah, you're right, they never went
that far. But uh, once again, this show is like you.
I think if you're an adult, you understand, like horse
phracing is the thing, But if you're a child, he's
like he loved horses. So I think that's why it's
(19:52):
so so good. It's so relevant until today. Um, Okay,
that's a that's a that's a good one. What would
have been like the breakthrough programs when you were like
(20:14):
a teenager. I don't mean North American imports, but indigenous,
homegrown Latin American content. What was really popping as you
were becoming a little older. Well most of this shows
then I when I grew up, I found that they
were rip off because in the nineties, eighties, seventies in
Latin America, you can just steal and no one cares.
(20:36):
There was no Internet to hold you accountable. There's no
one saying like, hey, that's a copy from no And
there was no way to know if you were from
from any country of Latin America that that that was
a rep off of something. And I don't know Scandinavia,
there's no way they will ever find you. If someone
traveled to Scandyinavian copy paste every single TV show to
(20:59):
your country, what do a few decades to have that information? Um?
So there was there was a like a Mr Rogers
kin ripping off. Mr Rogers, God, the punishment that awaits you,
and now it is harsh. I got a sleezy Chilean
(21:22):
goes to the US sees Mr Rogers was like, I'm
gonna take this act back home and make a killing
and just do this exactly the same and the same
mellow energy that it was called pimp On. The cool
thing about Pimpon it was the main actor that Mr
Rogers in real life was like a communist that was
(21:43):
persecuted by the government. Wow, okay, his best friend was
a piano player called to Hill and also like leftist.
So there has something going on more than okay. They
were genuine leftist communist sympathizers in real life exactly exactly.
(22:10):
And what else was was important back there? Well, there
was there was another show that I think this is
a very interesting one because not because how they used
to be, is because what are they doing now? Um.
There's a show called, uh, Professor Rossa that is like
The Pink Teacher. Uh maybe we spoken about this before,
(22:31):
uh not in a podcast in real life. The Pink Teacher.
It's a TV show about a guy who have a
pink week that teach you about the world, you know,
teaching about animals and countries and whatever. And he have
a best friend who is a is a big parade.
(22:52):
I think and and and and and a. Maleman's three guys.
They're friends. They have something of Mr. One of Mr
rogers favorite friends was the mail man. Maybe that's just
an important character to a kid. You're right, the mailman
was important back back then. Non existence, moore the mailman
back then, you know, for you younger people, the mailman,
(23:14):
he's that was like your way of getting stuff. He'd
bring you the catalog whatever like and there fascinating man
to the child mind. Yeah, where does he come from?
What's his life? Does he get mail? Yeah? It's a
So this was called this is the thing during one
(23:34):
of the shootings of this show is a kid show
run for twenty years or ten years on, like the
Catholic TV show the Catholic Station. They did for one anniversary,
the internally did a video of all the bloopers. And
all the bloopers were they saying horrible things to each other.
(23:57):
There was one video of the bird peeing on on
the shoes of the other one don't don't carte. The
mailment was always saying like flirty jokes and you know,
the whole show backstage was three dudes just having fun
and digusting gros and be like, no one will never
(24:20):
know this. And this video when the it was the
first vital video. It was so the first vital video
that it was. It was do you have to watch
it through cassae or people were selling um uh city
rooms with it. There's no way to share this because
the video was so big and it was everyone was
(24:41):
sharing it because like your heroes, actually they're like dirty
man's Yes, so they disappear, they went down, but then
they came back with that show for adults, a smart
smart pivot, Smart Pivot, and they came back the same show,
same outfits, dirty jokes, uh and kind of like, yeah,
(25:07):
now this three this kid show was like, I show
about three guys who I don't know are into prostitutes
and oh my wait? Was that a hit or was that?
It was sort of like the Magic Gone because it
all depended on sort of the vibe electricity of no
secretly knowing that these guys are kind of dirt bags,
but they were doing a kid show. I could see
that being the key tension. Yeah, that was the key
(25:29):
tension of that particular video. But then they were great.
They were super funny. They have great timing because they
were like, you know, these old people really know how
to tell a joke. Yes, they're not ethically the most
you know, they're not going to follow their guidance in life.
It's like that uncle in a in a barbecue that
(25:50):
has given horrible advice, but when he tells the joke,
he knows exactly how to tell a dirty joke. He'll
take his time with it, he'll savor the details, turning
it over, and you're with him the whole journey. Yeah.
He these ore three masters of that art. So they
(26:13):
just did a show when the three of them you
still jokes to each other and say horrible things. Uh.
Classic classic TV from Latin America beautiful. Okay, So well,
this was a round up here on four from the
South of some classic TV where our minds had turned
to classic TV with the loss of Bob sag And
(26:33):
so we had a little review of Chocha thirty one
minutes The Pink Teacher. What was the last show called
fab the one you mentioned? Well that the the the
new version of the Pink Teacher, like the Lane Night
version of The Pink Teacher. It was called the Adult Mansion,
now the Pink Pink mansione. So the Pink Man. Cool. Well,
(26:54):
there you go. That's a roundup of Latin American television
as it was in the nineties. I've enjoyed this trip
to on your memory lane with you, fab so thanks
for joining us here and f from the South. Hit
us up on Twitter and Gmail and uh we'll talk
to you soon Byeye. Four from the South is hosted
by Me, Steve Healey, and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is
our producer. Original theme song by Amy Stolzenbach. Four from
(27:18):
the South is a production of Exile Content Studio in
partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael Toura podcast Network. For
more podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
It's what's up all, everybody? How are you doing? This
is Steve Healey and we're back here on four from
(00:22):
the South. I'm here with my good friend Fabrizio Capano.
Fab How are you doing? But hello everyone. I remember
like the first time we started this podcast, I think
someone from the company that owned these these audios said,
feel free to speak Spanish. And I didn't do it
in any episode, and you just did it. I think
you were speaking more Spanish than me in this show. Yes, well,
(00:44):
that's about the extent of my Spanish as a speaker. Unfortunately.
I feel like I know enough to order a beer
or get directions. But that's about as far as I got. Actually,
I think I've got pretty good. When I was traveling
around in South America, I felt like I was okay.
In fact, some even complimented my Spanish when I got
to the end of the journey in Chile, and so
that was about as high as I can go. I've
(01:05):
been working on translating a book from Spanish, your friend's
book else Seer the South. Um. I think I might
translate it as Tales from the South or a memoir
of the South or something, or Deep South. Maybe this
is a book your friend wrote about the South of Chile,
which is sort of like a weird crazy like David Lynch.
(01:26):
His yeah, in his book is like a David Lynch nightmare.
Well that's a good animal, because David Lynch is you know,
he's from the Pacific northwest Montana, you know, where the
weather is kind of weird and strange, and Twin Peaks
is up in the weird weather part of the world,
you know, rainy and mysterious, and no one wants to
go there on purpose. May be similar. Yeah, there's something
there about those kind of places. I think it's easy
(01:47):
to murder. It's easy to kill someone and hide. There's
a lot of space for hiding. Yes, Um, okay, But
fab today and the usually on the show we do
you do fo um stories of what's going on in
the news in South America. A lot of people depend
on us for that. However, today we're gonna have a
special theme episode because I was noticing, you know, um,
(02:09):
a couple of icons of my youth in television. First,
we had Elmo sort of appeared as a meme, Elmo
fighting with one of the other muppets on Sesame Street.
It was making people. People were reacting to Elmo as
a character. Elmo wasn't It wasn't really that much a
part of Sesame Street when I was a kid. I
feel like Sesame He's a sign of the degeneration of
(02:31):
Sesame Street. But there you go. And also we lost
the great comedian Bob Sagett, who was such a crucial
part of television when I was a kid. He played
the dad on UM full House, which was a popular
actually scom that was the name three by three. That's
a better name, honestly, um. And then he hosted America's
(02:54):
Funniest Home Videos, which was just a phenomenon people. You know,
there wasn't YouTube at the time. If you want to
see a funny video, you had to tune into America's
Funniest Home Videos. And Bob Sagett his his persona as
a comedian. He was kind of a filthy, wild guy.
He like prostitutes and and living a pretty losh life.
But he was also extremely nice as a person. I
(03:17):
encountered him a few times, and the tributes to him
that have been pouring out have been showering him with praise.
The kindness is that he gave to younger comedians and
so on. Anyway, that's a roundabout way of getting that.
We were thinking about TV icons of our youth, and
it occurred to me, you know, everybody, most American television
reaches the whole world. But I was curious, fab if
(03:38):
we could talk through what you were watching as a
child in Chile, what what the TV landscape was in
South America, because I think that um Americans they sometimes
have seen like Saboto Gigante or something and the bumblebee
man stereotype. This is gonna be a special themed EPISO
(04:00):
on TV from the South, and what was going on?
What what the formation formative TV experiences you were having
as a kid were. What was going on? So we
can have a broader picture of how we formed the
Latin America of today. So that's what we're gonna be
talking about today, the TV of the South. So fable
talk to me, you're eight years Let's start. Yeah, let's
(04:20):
start with invasion. Let's start with the American invasion of
Latin America. And I think that one of the few
good things that I remember from my childhood, and it
was clearly in an American TV show, but it was
a different version. Was sesame street that in Latin America
is called Plasta. I don't know why they changed it
to a square. You know, it's not a street there,
(04:44):
it's at Yeah, okay, so blasta s uh. It's the
same show. It's the same idea, the same concept, but
here a big bird is abbe ladder them that. If
you guys can google right now, there's a different big
bird bye bye. I mean by language, I would say,
because there's a Brazilian one, there's a very different one.
(05:07):
But this this one a lot of this a Mexican
big bird. Uh. He's green. He's more of a parrot.
Uh In in his face you can see more of
a parrot in it. Uh. He he was the the
the yicon of the show. There was no Elmo at
(05:27):
the time, and I think it's the same time that
in the US Elmo was still not relevant. Um okay,
last name Montoya and he has a red face but
a green his feathers are green and his face is red. Yeah.
Kind of confusing, kind of confusing for a child. But
I mean, great, great show. We in in my family
(05:50):
right now, my son is watching Sineme Street again and
now it's so different like now it's all about multicultural characters,
this big Spanish back on for blah blah blah. And
when I was growing up, that was just the beginning
of that. There was like door explorer was trying to
there was exploring exploring that. Uh, but we would have
a lot of Brazilian kids show and this is like
(06:13):
an interesting interjection because we had Chocha. Do you guys
ever heard about Chocha? No, what's with x u x a?
If you google it was a beautiful woman from Brazil,
from so Paolo that have I mean, I don't know
even the US was this kind of kids show that
(06:35):
you can see it was borderline like there was this
this beautiful women with with short skirts and uh it
was it was like for kids, it's fun, they're dancing
and clearly was made for the dads too also watch
and be like, you know, like having a beer in
There was a lot of there was a lot of dancing,
(06:57):
a lot of kind of like sexual innu and those
but no nothing nothing of course very graphic or anything
like that. And she was the number one because she
was beautiful. I think after she made there's a lot
of myths around this woman. Um one of them is
that she did porn after that. I mean, it's like
a classic thing. That always the story, that's always the
(07:20):
myth about TV actresses. If you look at Juto by
the way she looks like if you, if I had
to get it, you just show me a picture and
asked guests who this person is. I would be like
German pop star because she's like like eighties kind of look.
If you told me Brazilian TV host, I would be surprised.
She she's she was number one for decades and her
(07:43):
cultural relevance still today. There was a famous um, I mean,
this is not a meme because it's like way before that,
but there was like this whole theory that she had
a satanic messages in her songs. This happened also in
the US. There would often be stories about that. Yeah, yeah,
there'd be like little miss about if you played this
(08:03):
record backward to tell the doorship Satan or whatever. That
was definitely a panic that was going on in the Yeah,
and the way they wait, if they did that, what's
the port I mean, if someone's if you hear like backwards,
if he decided to do that job of like trying
to hear these backwards and they say, like the devil
is magnificent. It's not like it's going to change your
(08:25):
mind about your your opinion about the devil. I remember
like the concept of subliminal messages that was a hugely
like people were always on the lookout for, like you know,
there's this and that and the coke ad and there's
like you know, Joe Camill's face like a penis or whatever.
But it's actually like you don't need to look that far.
Society is full of kind of twisted nearly a Satanic
(08:47):
messenger the front of you. It's he's there. You know,
he's not hiding, he's Satan. Why he'd be like you know,
pulling tricks. Yeah, like the President's confidence sneak guy um
And And this is a story that I was part of.
(09:09):
Chicha went to Chile in uh. I think it's like
late nineties and she was part of Vilmar, this big
festival family show watched for the whole country. Uh. And
it's just like this kind of it's very similar to
the Hollywood Bowl venue, but this broadcast on TV and
(09:31):
the whole country a big summer festival nationwide. Everybody's tuning in.
It's an annual event and she opened it. She opened
the first night, Chocha opening the night and she started
it must be like ninety eight nineties seven, and she
started with one of her classics, Laddie Laddie. That is
(09:52):
a song that said like oh la, and then there
are and start replying to her, uh, suck it because
oh it sounds like chupalo. That is a way to
say suck it. But it's more like sexual than than that,
(10:13):
you know, so I'm hearing you. Yeah, she starts singing
Lady Lay. The audience started screaming back up, and she
was like, sorry, what what? What? What? You guys are
saying something? And she goes to a kid. She's like,
what are these they say? She stopped her performance to
(10:34):
be like what exactly? She stopped The suckers like what
is this? And and she's like what where are they saying?
And the kids just like they're saying, suck it? The
horrible nightmare? What are the world if you were constructing
a nightmare? Being a singer? Is? Wait? What are you? Guys?
(10:54):
Stops the whole show and goes to you to ask
you to explain the disgusting thing that they're the cameras
of your face said that, and this woman started crying,
and she did. She started crying on TV. Everybody's like,
oh my god. The host came back from backstage and
(11:16):
he's like, we're so sorry. They're just it's playful, We're
going and the audience was like, We're so sorry. Oh
my gosh. She got upset. She cried, got upset, and
she's like, I'm never coming back to this country. What
a moment. And this was witnessed live by half the
population of the country. I was in the audience that night.
(11:41):
Were you one of the ones saying suck it, fab
I probably was. I don't remember. I was a kid too,
but maybe I said it. We don't even know what
it means. Um how old you were? You were a
young man? I was like, yeah, I was a kid
probably in uh so, I don't. I just have vague
memberis of that night. I've just seen this on repeated
(12:04):
TV every year. They took a little classic TV Chile
and TV moment from moment of shame for the whole
nation and it was there sort of a reckoning afterwards
in Chile where people were like, maybe we shouldn't have
been doing that. This is wrong. Debate was happening to us,
(12:24):
this contry. We used to be a good, clean dictatorship
and now look at us. It's called that guy backing
away on stage. Yeah, that was one of my childhoods memories.
(12:48):
What were the were there sitcoms that were popular? What
were the big hits in uh, South America at the time,
all day classic American sitcoms. I am mostly like, Yeah, well,
when I was growing up, there was this is like
Nickelodeon wave of shows like uh, I think Waverley Plays.
(13:11):
I never watched any of those because I didn't like
TV shows with humans. I was against that. I was
I felt like, if I want to watch something and
my kid, I don't watch a cartoon not humans, don't
give me you were you're a wise child. You're like
adult actors not for not, which I think it is
kind of there's so much um destruction and creepiness that
(13:33):
comes from the shows with actors uh four young adults
that it just seems like the cost of getting young
people to be in TV shows is pretty high and
maybe it should just be for kids. It should just
be cartoons. And when you're eighteen, then you immediately switched
to watching real humans. Their lives are ruined. All these
(13:54):
child actors, and I mean all these cartoons are fine.
They grow up to be a normal cartoons and they
they what I remember, well, got me back to second.
I just typed in a child child actor into into
Google to see what would come up, and it's child
actors who died. So there you go, a good hint
(14:14):
of where you're at. Um. I well, uh, that's um,
what's the name of that show that is? It's not
Three Way Treating, it's not Full House. It was like
Three Trees Company. It's what's called someone was big at
the time. Uh. Married with Children also, everyone was watching
(14:40):
that at some point. Um. That that was when Married
with Children came to the US. It was on Fox TV,
which was kind of like, um, pushing the limits a
little bit and like sort of outrageous. Yeah yeah yeah,
and Married with Children. I felt a little scandalized myself
when I would watch it, because here was a show
that was basically the wife was always dressing really sexy,
and she always to have sex that was open, and
(15:01):
for some reason Ald never wanted to, uh, even though
he didn't have much else going on in his life.
I guess he was just kind of lazy and tired,
and then the daughter was sort of a trampy. It
was a little bit scary. I was scandalized by it
when I used to tune in as a child. Well,
they did Chilean version and it was very popular. Then
they did and Argentina version also massive. I think those
(15:22):
characters are in every country. I mean, those people, you
can find them in every single country. That's one shows. Yeah,
it's one of the few shows that translate to many
regions of Latin America. Yeah, they're not that many. There
are not that many. All the sitcoms were actually like
(15:43):
um noon, it was like noon that the childs didn't
know what but Brogo was cheap to have a full house,
you know, Monday uh. And of course they were dubbed.
All these shows were dubbed got TV TV four kids.
Morning shows were still around. Like when I was growing up,
(16:06):
there was like the teenage media, Ninja Turtles, there was
Power Rangers first generation was the thing the other time,
and I have to say Power Rangers weren't huge in
Latin America. They did great in Latin America. Um still
part of the thing, part of the genesis of power Rangers.
I think the guy who came up with that, remembering
(16:26):
this right, was like an Israeli guy and he was like,
if we just have a show where the characters of
Helmets dubbed it to every language, easily sell it internationally,
no problem. Sort of how they came up with that, Yeah, brilliant, Yeah, yeah,
I just put helmets helmets and everyone. Uh. And the
shows were so bad that that show was so bad.
It was just the simplest premise, every episode, the same
(16:47):
story over and over. You can do thousands of episodes
of this and nothing change. Uh. But there was one
show that I think is is people Should You Know About?
And this is actually a chileane show. Uh. It's called
thirty one Minute. It was a parody of the news
(17:09):
um and he's like the Mumpets mixed it up with
the with the local news. So this is a TV
show that the puppets have a news show. And the
main characters is egomaniac. Ah that it's called Tulio and
he just she's like crazy egomaniac that he everything is
(17:32):
about him. His best friend he's into horse races. Is
the Red Bunny, uh called gambling Addicted Red bunny okay. Cool?
Uh And all all the segments of the news were
like funny things. You know. It's like, I don't know
(17:54):
the there was like one story of like they were
following what happened with poop? You know when you threw
the one for kids, It's like, of course you want
to know what happened after you flushed the toilet? Like what,
Oh my god. It was like a passion of mine
when I was a kid, you know, It's like a mystery. Yeah,
And they put all these little funny pieces of reports.
(18:18):
So that was that was a great idea. I'm just
going to read you from the Wikipedia. The summary of
the main character H thirty one minutos is conducted by
Tulio Trevnio tu Filo, a millionaire great chimpanzee who is
self centered, but ignorant and short on understanding. That's exactly
why the show was about. And the show was great
and then super funny. The booty bohemian, witty and occasional poet,
(18:42):
a womanizer, but above all a great gambler addicted to
horse raising and betting at the hippodroom. Cool. Yeah, that's
that's okay. And once again the show is Mexico is huge.
Like they do concerts now they don't do this TV
show anymore. They just do the songs live. Uh because
in the news they have like a segment of music.
(19:03):
And once again, great, great show, super funny for adults.
I don't know if all the jokes translate. I know
they did a pilot in English once. Uh there isn't
your in YouTube you can find you can find it. Um,
but I don't know. I think it's it's it's a
it's kind of like our Muppets or like the show
(19:24):
that you're watching have fun, and like it seems a
little darker than the Muppets. I mean, the Muppets never
had anyone who was a gambling addict or a womanizer
or anything like that. Yeah, you're right, they never went
that far. But uh, once again, this show is like you.
I think if you're an adult, you understand, like horse
phracing is the thing, But if you're a child, he's
like he loved horses. So I think that's why it's
(19:52):
so so good. It's so relevant until today. Um, Okay,
that's a that's a that's a good one. What would
have been like the breakthrough programs when you were like
(20:14):
a teenager. I don't mean North American imports, but indigenous,
homegrown Latin American content. What was really popping as you
were becoming a little older. Well most of this shows
then I when I grew up, I found that they
were rip off because in the nineties, eighties, seventies in
Latin America, you can just steal and no one cares.
(20:36):
There was no Internet to hold you accountable. There's no
one saying like, hey, that's a copy from no And
there was no way to know if you were from
from any country of Latin America that that that was
a rep off of something. And I don't know Scandinavia,
there's no way they will ever find you. If someone
traveled to Scandyinavian copy paste every single TV show to
(20:59):
your country, what do a few decades to have that information? Um?
So there was there was a like a Mr Rogers
kin ripping off. Mr Rogers, God, the punishment that awaits you,
and now it is harsh. I got a sleezy Chilean
(21:22):
goes to the US sees Mr Rogers was like, I'm
gonna take this act back home and make a killing
and just do this exactly the same and the same
mellow energy that it was called pimp On. The cool
thing about Pimpon it was the main actor that Mr
Rogers in real life was like a communist that was
(21:43):
persecuted by the government. Wow, okay, his best friend was
a piano player called to Hill and also like leftist.
So there has something going on more than okay. They
were genuine leftist communist sympathizers in real life exactly exactly.
(22:10):
And what else was was important back there? Well, there
was there was another show that I think this is
a very interesting one because not because how they used
to be, is because what are they doing now? Um.
There's a show called, uh, Professor Rossa that is like
The Pink Teacher. Uh maybe we spoken about this before,
(22:31):
uh not in a podcast in real life. The Pink Teacher.
It's a TV show about a guy who have a
pink week that teach you about the world, you know,
teaching about animals and countries and whatever. And he have
a best friend who is a is a big parade.
(22:52):
I think and and and and and a. Maleman's three guys.
They're friends. They have something of Mr. One of Mr
rogers favorite friends was the mail man. Maybe that's just
an important character to a kid. You're right, the mailman
was important back back then. Non existence, moore the mailman
back then, you know, for you younger people, the mailman,
(23:14):
he's that was like your way of getting stuff. He'd
bring you the catalog whatever like and there fascinating man
to the child mind. Yeah, where does he come from?
What's his life? Does he get mail? Yeah? It's a
So this was called this is the thing during one
(23:34):
of the shootings of this show is a kid show
run for twenty years or ten years on, like the
Catholic TV show the Catholic Station. They did for one anniversary,
the internally did a video of all the bloopers. And
all the bloopers were they saying horrible things to each other.
(23:57):
There was one video of the bird peeing on on
the shoes of the other one don't don't carte. The
mailment was always saying like flirty jokes and you know,
the whole show backstage was three dudes just having fun
and digusting gros and be like, no one will never
(24:20):
know this. And this video when the it was the
first vital video. It was so the first vital video
that it was. It was do you have to watch
it through cassae or people were selling um uh city
rooms with it. There's no way to share this because
the video was so big and it was everyone was
(24:41):
sharing it because like your heroes, actually they're like dirty
man's Yes, so they disappear, they went down, but then
they came back with that show for adults, a smart
smart pivot, Smart Pivot, and they came back the same show,
same outfits, dirty jokes, uh and kind of like, yeah,
(25:07):
now this three this kid show was like, I show
about three guys who I don't know are into prostitutes
and oh my wait? Was that a hit or was that?
It was sort of like the Magic Gone because it
all depended on sort of the vibe electricity of no
secretly knowing that these guys are kind of dirt bags,
but they were doing a kid show. I could see
that being the key tension. Yeah, that was the key
(25:29):
tension of that particular video. But then they were great.
They were super funny. They have great timing because they
were like, you know, these old people really know how
to tell a joke. Yes, they're not ethically the most
you know, they're not going to follow their guidance in life.
It's like that uncle in a in a barbecue that
(25:50):
has given horrible advice, but when he tells the joke,
he knows exactly how to tell a dirty joke. He'll
take his time with it, he'll savor the details, turning
it over, and you're with him the whole journey. Yeah.
He these ore three masters of that art. So they
(26:13):
just did a show when the three of them you
still jokes to each other and say horrible things. Uh.
Classic classic TV from Latin America beautiful. Okay, So well,
this was a round up here on four from the
South of some classic TV where our minds had turned
to classic TV with the loss of Bob sag And
(26:33):
so we had a little review of Chocha thirty one
minutes The Pink Teacher. What was the last show called
fab the one you mentioned? Well that the the the
new version of the Pink Teacher, like the Lane Night
version of The Pink Teacher. It was called the Adult Mansion,
now the Pink Pink mansione. So the Pink Man. Cool. Well,
(26:54):
there you go. That's a roundup of Latin American television
as it was in the nineties. I've enjoyed this trip
to on your memory lane with you, fab so thanks
for joining us here and f from the South. Hit
us up on Twitter and Gmail and uh we'll talk
to you soon Byeye. Four from the South is hosted
by Me, Steve Healey, and Fabrizio Capano. Robert O'Shaughnessy is
our producer. Original theme song by Amy Stolzenbach. Four from
(27:18):
the South is a production of Exile Content Studio in
partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael Toura podcast Network. For
more podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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