Why were the ventriloquists successful in the 70’s and 80 ‘s
Because to the staff that dolls, with a childish appearance, seemed like a transgression. The dolls, like children and drunks, are uncontrollable and tell the truth. Although it will be noticed that behind the teeth-teeth the ventriloquist moved his lips camouflaged by the microphone.
When Monchito appeared, people believed that he was attending a luxury show. Also in TVE’s Circus there were numbers of obedient poodles and fire eaters that surprised the impressionable children who did not imagine that their children would speak through touch screens.
The cardboard dolls, so ugly and rudimentary, caricatures painted with titanlux,They were liked by all the generations of that time. Especially since there weren’t many alternatives in humor. In this context, Jose Luis Moreno appeared with a foul-mouthed child, Monchito. For half a century his uncles Felipe and Wenceslao had walked around the northern hemisphere with similar characters. But a pupil of Moreno’s own father (Talio Rodriguez), Mari Carmen, was the one who triumphed in those years when the dictatorship coexisted with miniskirts and an openness wanting to be unleashed like Houdini.
On the ventriloquism side, being a woman helped, which is why the student began to stand out. The Spanish admired the Austrian Herta Frankel since the postwar periodand her dog Marilyn (and Quique the parrot, watch out for loquacious birds). Another veteran, Rosi Baron, with her gypsy Curro (“cardboard face” was her catchphrase that Inigo’s audience adopted in the summer of ’77) and her son Pepito, was a fleeting third way against Moreno and Mari Carmen. For some thirty years, from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the two young ventriloquists enjoyed great popularity, aided by their appreciation of Frankel.
The rest of the comedians told jokes, there were no monologues, and among the duos of imitators these dialogues between the comedian and his hand were added. Mari Carmen always seemed to have more empathy with the public without the need for more effects or screams, like Moreno, who became a ululating master of ceremonies.
Monchito, with his wild eyes, competed with Daisy but Mari Carmen launched a cheeky duck, Nicol, who put her in the lead and a ladybug lion, wounded in her pride, which the staff of that time loved, Rodolfo, a doodle of mannerism .Moreno pushed for the side of the duck (a creature that his father already managed in the El Retiro theater in the 40s) and as an answering voice he pulled a sinister crow out of his sleeve.
Rockefeller looked like a censor and was always willing to bypass censorship. Dependent on alcohol and with his scrubby pelvis, he sounded strong for his time. It began as a symbol of protest when Spain began to change and ended up being a disbelieving reciter.
Jose Luis Moreno with Rockefeller talking about the corrupt
It was the subconscious of his handler (“tooma Moreno”) and as the popularity of the ventriloquist grew his cheekiness increased. He became a symbol of the oppressed in Italy, a Pablo Iglesias with his orange beak lopsided, regardless of whether Moreno moved his mouth. Both became close friends with Berlusconi.
In Spain, with its regional chains, there were more of Dona Rogelia, the last creature incorporated by Mari Carmen , a lady from the empty Meseta, from Orejilla del Sordete. An old woman from before the war, deaf and, like the raven and the duck, she said whatever came into her cellulose head. The rival, due to that rustic aspect, took out from Macario the doll that really gave Moreno popularity, because he had all the ingenuity and tenderness that his owner did not seem to have. The programAmong friends, in the first happiest, it was with the one that Moreno really got noticed. Mari Carmen would do something similar in the 90s on TVE, Ay, vida mia , in the epilogue of the puppets in prime time.
Macario with Jose Luis Moreno
Sympathy for Macario made Moreno take off as a successful businessman. A sweet alibi and cateta that together represented the opposite of what he felt and did in the offices.
Rockefeller told the truth, but the staff laughed it off. The ventriloquist had two faces and those three voices with which an audience with only two channels and little humor had a blast.
Monchito was swallowed by his brothers, the raven and the leg and Moreno, like Saturno, ended up devouring them greedily.