Save me says goodbye with a very emotional party

A declaration of intentions. With the premise already underpinned and the first chords of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ -the Stereo Star Band was enlivening the afternoon with live music and songs closely linked to the program-, Terelu Campos, Adela González and María Patiño, together with the collaborators and the team that carry out the program every day, all of them in immaculate white, entered a set decorated with camping tables, pennants and light bulbs, moving to the sound of the music.

Another video with a reference to the Titanic and the death of the program, perhaps not very accurate after the implosion of the Titan submarine, gave way to the first words of the presenters, in the absence of Jorge Javier Vázquez, on leave due to a health problem, who didn’t even come on the phone. «It is our last program, but we are not going to say goodbye. This is not going to be a funeral, it is going to be a party in style, celebrating the night of San Juan, “Campos said. “It will be the best afternoon in these fourteen years,” said González. “The most hooligan afternoon of ‘Sálvame’ begins!” shouted Patiño.

The San Juan thing made sense because it was the common thread of the space produced by La Fábrica de la Tele, which celebrated a ritual that ended with a large bonfire in the Mediaset parking lot in which significant objects of the format and the scenery of the set. There were concepts like ‘Chuminero’, the dance with which Lydia Lozano woke up the audience when the public fell asleep and that she did for the last time; Nacho Polo’s hat, which his ex Víctor Sandoval diligently transferred to the pyre, or the deer’s head that was given, of course, to Marta López, the star of ‘Merlos Place’. With each trip, the production divided the plane to show what was happening on the set while the protagonist on duty also transferred some of the great secrets of the program to the bonfire. A bonfire that Antonio Rebollo lit with an arrow around nine o’clock at night, replicating the feat that the athlete carried out during the inauguration of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992.

The Tele Factory also took advantage of the space to confirm the rumors of the last week. Eight of the program’s collaborators, including Belén Esteban, Terelu Campos, Kiko Matamoros and Lydia Lozano, already have a new destiny: they will star in a reality show on Netflix in which they will look for work in America. The director of the project, developed by the same production company, will be David Valldeperas and the agreement with Netflix seems to open the door to other content based on the ‘Save Me’ universe.

Perhaps that is why this afternoon six of the collaborators wanted to show their worth as reporters. Thus Kiko Matamoros began the program at the house of Charito, councilor for Patones de Arriba, in Madrid, who is 99 years old and never misses the program. «She entertained me, and instead of constantly falling asleep on the couch, she encouraged me to listen to you. You do a lot for the elderly », she said. The surprise that would be revealed later is that the mother of Lydia Lozano lives in the same building, a collaborator with whom Matamoros has had tremendous fights in these fourteen years. Faithful to her commitment to the creation of plots, they tried to get the collaborator’s mother to greet Matamoros, but she was not at home.

Lozano is another of those who traveled. Specifically to Pantoja, a town in Toledo whose mayor is called Julián. And he’s done, that was the joke. Chelo García Cortés, on the other hand, moved to the Tetuán neighborhood. The influencer Alexsinos, famous for his memes about the program, opened the doors of his house. At his side, three friends of the content creator assured that the space “has helped the group so much that we are going to miss it a lot.”

Alonso Caparrós also wanted to underline the idea that space is a program that keeps different generations of viewers company, so he went to a house where everyone sees him, from grandfather Pepín to Daniela, a fourteen-year-old girl who He was born precisely on April 27, 2009 at four in the afternoon, when ‘Save me’ started walking. Pipi Estrada was also a reporter, at the Montepríncipe hospital because he wanted to welcome the first baby into the world after the ‘Save me’ era. And even Belén Esteban went to a nursing home. The co-host of ‘Save me’, who was especially excited, approached Giorgina, one of the residents, who assured that they did not miss a single chapter and that when the collaborators argued and got angry, the program “is even better.”

The owner of the farm

But before the bonfire began to burn, with ‘Caruso’ played by Luciano Pavarotti playing in the background and a good part of the team crying and clapping, there were two equally special moments. One, when the space released the video where the “dictator” Jorge Javier Vázquez was honored, with many of his colleagues on the verge of tears. «Jorge Javier takes the reins of the cortijo and he is the owner of this crazy universe, without him absolutely nothing would have been the same. ‘Save me’ is Jorge Javier and Jorge Javier is and will always be ‘Save me’”, said the narrator. His absence was not the only one that was lamented. Also that of Mila Ximénez, who died in 2021, was very present. The other, when Germán González, the voice-over of a large part of the ‘Sálvame’ videos, read the letter that the collaborators of the format have written and that will remain in a time capsule protected in a bank vault for one hundred years.

The twists and turns of advertising were crowned with positive assessments of the space from people like Maribel Verdú, Alaska, Alessandro Lequio or Jaime Cantizano, who even came to compete with the format when it was on Antena 3, which he came to nickname ‘Sálvame’ like the sad chain -there was a nod to this in the final coda- with ‘Where are you, my heart’. And they did not forget those characters who in recent years have not wanted to know anything about the heart program, with a video in which they invited Raquel Bollo, Anabel Pantoja, Rosa Benito, María Jesús Ruiz, Jesulín de Ubrique, Olvido by phone Ants, Isabel Gemio or María José Campanario to attend the last program. Needless to say, many hung up the phone and all rejected the proposal, but Campanario’s response, for example, was very surprising. «You have not treated me well at all, but do not think that I am glad that it is over. I feel sorry for the people who lose their jobs, “he said to his interlocutor.

After singing a rigorous lip-syncing for the first and last time ‘Borrón y cuenta nueva’, the fun and also foolish hymn that Alejandro Abad has composed for the program, the team paraded for the last time through the corridors of Mediaset on the way to the bonfire and there they met Pedro Piqueras. The connections between the program and Piqueras’ space were often surreal, especially when the set of the heart program turned into a party and Piqueras opened his newscast with a tragedy. “What an afternoon we have given you,” Terelu Campos told him. “It was like a Russian roulette, let’s see what happened,” Piqueras acknowledged. «Good luck to you. I think you are wonderful people and I will remember you all my life », he wished them.