TVE broadcast for two seasons a traditional comedy that has not found a successor afterwards
Most Spanish families do not live in residential areas, nor do they get up happily every day for all the members to have breakfast together. We learned that a long time ago, no matter how hard some series tried to transfer American stereotypes to our television. Despite the fact that Spanish audiovisuals increasingly try to be more realistic, these types of everyday portraits are not lavished.
One of those that will remain forever in the collective imagination is the one signed in 1995 by Manuel Iborra for Televisión Española and who starred in the brilliant Verónica Forqué, in a role as valuable as his other great film works. The claim of ‘Pepa y Pepe’ (Pepa was Forqué, Pepe, Tito Valverde) was apparently not too ambitious: to reflect the typically Spanish family. But never after has it been done in such a successful and natural way as then. There is much talk of the realistic tone of ‘Here is no one alive’, but that other production was a notable precedent.
Despite the grotesque touch that prevailed in its plots, how excessive some characters were, and how exaggerated certain reactions of the protagonists, this story transmitted truth from all sides. One saw a fight between the sisters (María Adánez and Silvia Abascal) or an argument with the parents and quickly recognized the scene and felt identified. By beasts that sometimes seem their approaches.
‘Pepa y Pepe’ was anything but politically correct. Perhaps today it would not have been possible, because we have more filters and we are more sensitive to some issues (that restricts creative freedom). This family was going through financial difficulties, they were constantly confronted by the control of the television, they lived in a house that was almost never tidy. And they loved each other, they loved each other very much, although sometimes they hid it well.
That mythical title drank from previous works on American television such as’ Roseanne ‘or’ Marriage with children ‘, but it knew how to adapt to the Spanish idiosyncrasy (not like other later attempts, such as’ The Golden Girls’ on TVE itself or’ Cheers ‘on Telecinco, who failed in the attempt). It lasted two seasons and had 34 episodes in total, which also enjoyed a good audience. He could have laid the foundations for later comedies of the same kind to be made in these parts (half an hour long and indigenous humor), but he did not. Since then no similar proposals have been lavished.
Available on RTVE Play
‘Pepa y Pepe’ is still alive thanks to RTVE Play, the video-on-demand section of the public corporation’s website,
where it is available in its entirety. And it makes itself look good today, even though it’s been 25 years since it was first aired. Valverde built a calzonazos of care, good-natured and basic to the limit, who had to deal every day with the whims and mood swings of his wife and the neglect of his offspring. And Forqué did the same with that mindless and selfish mother, who went out of her way despite everything for her own. She did not worry about her children’s balanced diet, nor did she care that they did not go to class from time to time (she even made excuses for them to be absent), but no one cared about that. They formed a fantastic couple, who broke stereotypes and conveyed an incredible harmony.
A promotional image for the series.
In addition to Adánez and Abascal, they were accompanied by other wonderful actors such as Isabel Ordaz, Gracia Olayo, Jesús Bonilla, Roberto Enríquez and a young Carlos Vilches, who were part of that crazy universe that risked playing all kinds of themes and forms, skipping the fourth wall even from time to time. Series were already being made in 1995, although it seems that now everything is being invented. And some were very good and it would be worth remembering to learn from them.
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