In the seventies, Spain spent Sunday afternoons dozing in front of the television. There was only one channel: if Amestoy was on, you swallowed it; if they showed The keyyou swallowed that conversation in a fog of tobacco; and if the man with the Schweppes tonic or the man with the Tulipán helicopter burst in, well, you swallowed them too. José María Íñigo had a pedestal in this Spain radiotelevisionsSpanishAddict. He was carrying Fantastica variety show with interviews, musical performances, more interviews, songs—some in strict playback—, contests, some more interviews…
One of those Sundays, Íñigo said that they were starting a new section, which would be called And what do you know how to do? “If you know how to do strange, curious things, something that most people don’t know how to do, write a postcard to the post office box…” I knew how to do strange things. Some of them were very strange. It was clear that my time had come. I sent that postcard. I spent a few weeks feeling very tired (I imagine: unbearable…) until Prado del Rey contacted me to invite me to participate in the program. They paid me 5,000 pesetas (one of those purple bills, equivalent to the Christmas bonus for five years…) and two plane tickets to Madrid (my first trip by plane!).
After a dress rehearsal on Saturday, in which I displayed my entire repertoire of abnormalities, Iñigo decided that my star act would be to stick out my shoulder blades and not the worm (my real star act: moving my belly as if it were a worm). The burping speech (perhaps my most select specialty) didn’t work out either, of course.
On Sunday, the day of the programme, in a thrilling live performance from Studio 1 in Prado del Rey, I took cover behind the scenes while the circus colleagues who preceded me displayed their skills in full view of all of Spain. When it was my turn, I stood in the centre of the set, shirtless, skinny, but like a hero, and I stuck out my shoulder blades, turned to the right, stood up, moved those bony wings, turned to the left, insisted on the movement, and did it again, with my back turned. I bowed as I had been taught and disappeared.
All of Spain was watching TV. That now equates to 100% of share“Ana Rosa Quintana would eat out of my hand!”
Back to normal, at school, on my football team, in the neighbourhood… I felt like a star, although it hurt me that my teacher didn’t make any comment. Didn’t he see me? Didn’t he realise that he had a famous child in class? Did he not care? All of Spain had seen me. Because, I insist, that Sunday afternoon, like every Sunday afternoon, all the homes had the TV on and the first channel tuned in (I swear that the second, UHF, didn’t broadcast on weekends). That’s equivalent to 100% of the time. shareas they say today. Ana Rosa Quintana or Jorge Javier Vázquez would eat out of my hand!
I never saw myself. We didn’t have a video at home (few houses in Spain would have one). That’s why my imagination was turning my time on the small screen into an epic. I tried to find the video of that program, in vain. Until one day I saw the RTVE Archive page on Facebook (it was 2017, we didn’t even watch TV anymore: we were browsing social networks). There were classics from our national television: Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with his Iberian wolf, Alaska in The crystal ballMayra Gómez Kemp and Kiko Ledgard, María Luisa Seco, the Telerín family… My glamorous performance had to be there. I contacted them. I could only tell them that it was in the first half of 1979 and that the Baccara Duo performed that day (Yes Sir, I Can Boogie… Sorry, I’m a Lady… big words!). Two months later he was found hanged he Fantastic February 4, 1979. Mine. My whole body shook. I was going to see myself on TV 38 years later. I was going to teleport back to my childhood. I was going to relive that mythologized moment of my life of which, in reality (as I was able to verify), I remembered almost nothing.
I was going to teleport myself back to my childhood, to relive a mythologized moment of my life of which, in reality, I remembered almost nothing.
And I came face to face with that Spain. A country that, seen through today’s eyes, was grey, shabby, tacky… Fantasticas before Very directwas a step forward in that television, but now it grates on us, of course, just as in 40 years my grandchildren will find the television that is made now grating. Lolita, Lolita herself, at 20 years old, opened the program with an interview and I don’t know how many songs; a show wrestling; games for viewers by telephone; the Baccara, indeed, giving it their all; a discussion about bulls; connections with sports information: the quiniela had achieved a record takings, 900 million pesetas; and Español (then, still with ñ) was drawing 0-0 at the Molinón.
And finally, when 1 hour and 16 minutes had passed, Fantasticjust after a housewife from Escalona de Alberche, province of Toledo, made the sound of the zambomba with her mouth, José María Íñigo said: “Guest number five, Antonio Polo, nine years old. Move your shoulder blades.” It was 15 seconds until I disappeared from the screen, leaving my place to guest number six, a 25-year-old law graduate, who made the sound of a bombing. Next came a first corporal from the Torrejón air base who “moves his hair and ears”; a 20-year-old employee of Telefónica who “makes the sound of the trumpet”; a 49-year-old businessman who “imitates a chimpanzee”; or the last guest, number eight, who “inflates a bellows with her ear.” It was a Spain now far away in time, but, as Serrat says, “they are my [temps] and they have been the only ones(It was my time, and it has been the only one).
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#seconds #glory #Fantástico #José #María #Íñigo
