I’ve had a lot about the outright insane gameshows and talk shows on Mexican TV (even though I don’t speak much spanish), and now that my Tivo is working I feel I must seek enlightenment on the all-Spanish channel. I’m sure there are some dopers on this board who like the shows I’m talking about, so can anyone give me a few show names to watch?
That first ‘had’ should be ‘heard’.
El Sabado Gigante is pretty damn amusing. I really miss it–haven’t had a channel that carries it for about 5 or 6 years…
Sábado Gigante is shot in Miami.
You can see the talk shows, some of them are funny. Cristina, Mayte, Laura en América (although I dislike Ms. Laura…).
Ellas y ellos (or something like that) a Venezuelan game show in which groups of men and women compete against each other.
You can check out the soap operas, too.
If by any chance you’re seeing early morning Spanish TV, it is possible that you might come across some old TV series by Chespirito (Chespirito, El chavo del ocho, El chapulín colorado, etc.).
I was going to start a new thread but a search turned up this one. I hadn’t known about Sabado Gigante until now, which answers the question I was about to ask. That question being, “Could someone please 'splain Super Sabado Sensacional to me?” Given the similar nature of the two shows it would seem one prompted the other to be created, or are these the same show but with different names? I’ve only seen bits and pieces of SSC but they definately some weird stuff going on. Some guy dressed up in a fat suit, looking like a large Hispanic Oopma-Loompa, and from behind a curtain this sexy woman emerges then starts doing all sorts of stuff evidently with the goal of seeing how high the guy’s pulse rate will go.
I used to live close to the Mexican border, where you could get honest-to-goodness Mexican broadcast television, not just Univision, Telemundo and other American Spanish-language broadcasters. Some things that stuck in my memory …
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The lack of variety in programming. About 90% of all programming consisted of variety shows, soap operas, pop musician performances, soccer (the Mexican futbol season apparently runs all year), bullfighting, and reruns of old Spanish language action movies. There were a few US shows translated into Spanish, and some very sensationalistic news shows.
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Narration of cast members at the start of a show. Even for translated American programming like The Simpsons, the cast members would be introduced by a baritone voice. “La Familia Simpson … con Homer Simpson … y Bart Simpson … y Leesa Simpson …”
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When American football first became popular in Mexico, team names were translated into Spanish, instead of being left alone. If the name couldn’t be translated, the word “Caballeros” was substituted; thus, you’d see scores between “Los Caballeros de Bufalo y Los Caballeros de Oakland.” Later on, the English team names were used.
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Another US-football-on-Mexican-TV quirk; announcers used to be calm and relaxed when a team scored a touchdown, but they’d go ballistic when field goals and extra points were kicked.
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Unlike the style of NPR when pronouncing Spanish names in US broadcasts (“Elections in Nee-kah-lah-goo-wah are being held …”), there was absolutely no attempt to pronounce English names properly. Place names were translated into Spanish (Nueva York, Cuidad Kansas) or pronounced as if they were Spanish words (Esyracuse, Eseattle).
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TV commercials for hard liquor.
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The sheer number of TV commercials narrated by shouting kids.
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The requirement that the words “todo la familia” must be used in most commercials.
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Lots of public service announcements … about 25% of all commercials.
Pretty much, I thought the programming in Mexico was aimed at a lower lowest common denominator than that of mainstream programming in the US, Canada or the UK.
elmwood, were there any Mexican or other Latin American produced science fiction programs?
Sabado shows represent everything that’s crappy in latin variety shows. I despise Don Francisco (sabado’s host). And soccer has two seasons a year(winter and summer), with a break in december-january and june-july. They air on weekends only. Soap operas dominate evening programmung. Although they’re corny and re-hashed, they’re better than most american soaps that i’ve watched for 2 seconds. Some game shows are copies of american ones, “atinale al precio” was a copy of The price is right, etc. Sitcoms are largely non-existent, but they air transalated american shows on secondary channels.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen something along the lines of Balblazoo and Super Balblazoo or something like that. I probably butchered the names, but man, that show is weird. Where I live , I get all three American Spanish-language broadcasters over the air, but I’m not so close to the border (try like 300 miles) to get Mexican networks.
Just give me a El Santo movie marathon and a 12 pack of Dos Equis and you can call it a weekend for this hombre.
There is simply not enough Luchadore wrestling movies nowdays IMHO
Never saw any, although I saw STNG translated into Spanish. No sitcoms, no action-adventure shows, no cop shows, no doctor shows, no lawyer shows. Most regular prime time series were either variety shows or soap operas.
Actually, different countries have stand-up comedies, sitcoms/comedies, and other shows.
Venezuela (or is it Colombia) has one comedy show that’s broadcasted to different parts of Latinamerica.
Puerto Rico (which has its own Spanish channels…most of the non-cable channels, actually), has comedy shows, newscasts, variety shows, interview shows (not just talkshows like Oprah’s, but serious interviews with different people), etc. It also has the occasional unsolved crime program. One of the main problems in making more and different types of TV programming is lack of money to support local talent.