TV Italian Style

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Sarà capitato anche a voi
di avere una musica in testa,
sentire una specie di orchestra
suonare suonare suonare suonare
Zum zum zum zum zum,
Zum zum zum zum...

Well, has it ever happened to you? Have you found yourself humming or singing a song that's got stuck in your head? And how many times has that song been from a television show you were watching?

Television theme songs are the focus for this final episode of the TV Italian Style podcast series, and we're talking about 'Da-da-un-pa', 'Tutta la gente del mondo', 'Stasera mi butto', 'Quelli belli come noi', 'Ma che musica maestro', 'Tiritera', and 'Zum zum zum'. We're exploring how theme songs act as miniature representations of the programme they feature in, and become the 'soundtracks of our lives - thereby giving us another angle from which to think about the importance of Italian television during this golden age of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. I'm really pleased in this concluding episode to be joined with my co-hosts from the series, who have each proposed a theme song to talk about. Thank you to Cecilia Brioni, Jessica Harris, Giancarlo Lombardi, Matteo Marinello, and Nicolò Salmaso for coming back to the podcast and for contributing throughout the series - I could not have done it without you! Thank you also to the British Academy for providing the funding to support the creation of the podcast and the research I have undertaken to produce the contents. I hope you have enjoyed the series!     

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In this penultimate episode of the podcast, we're talking about young people and Italian variety television. How were young people portrayed on Italian television screens? Were there variety television shows that were aimed specifically at an audience of young people? Did young people appear on Italian television in this period? How were the 1950s different to the 1960s and again to the 1970s from the point of view of i giovani on television? I'm really pleased to be joined once again by historian Cecilia Brioni to answer some of these questions in this episode. In particular, we're talking about young people's music on Italian television in the 1950s, Alta pressione with Rita Pavone and Gianni Morandi, the ways that i giovani are included (or not) on Studio Uno in the 1960s, the importance of Rita Pavone on the show Stasera Rita, Settevoci, Diamoci del tu, Speciale per voi, and Tutto è pop. 

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Across the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Italian television played host to a series of popular and well-loved stars that hailed from outside of Italy. On the podcast, we've already talked about how stars like the Kessler twins, Henri Salvador, and Lola Falana brought something new and different to Italian television screens, a difference that was, in the case of the Kesslers and Lola, sexy but accepted thanks to the fact that they were not Italian. But there were many stars who featured on Italian television screens in this period and brought something new to Italian audiences. Researcher Alessandro Pontremoli suggests that there is 'una tendenza tipica della TV dei primi anni, quella cioè di una presenza significativa sui nostri teleschermi di artisti stranieri, da leggersi certamente anche come una forte reazione all’autarchia culturale e al provincialismo proprio del ventennio fascista'. Whatever the reason, it's important to acknowledge these stars and the impact they had on the Italian small screen. In this episode of the podcast, I'm pleased to be joined again by research Nicolò Salmaso to talk about just a selection of the many international stars who in different ways were influential for varietà and television more broadly: Xavier Cugat and Abbe Lane, Romina Power, Sylvie Vartan, and Catherine Spaak. 

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Signore, signori, today's episode focuses on

'il primo ragazzo della porta accanto dello spettacolo italiano [che] irruppe con quel ciuffo un po’ malandrino, con quell’aria gioviale, simpatico, di amico con cui tirar mattina, nel cinema e nel varietà made in Italy del dopoguerra [...]. Fu una rivoluzione nel varietà, non era un comico buffo, non aveva trucchi visibili sul viso, non portava costumi per far ridere, giacche troppo grandi o troppo piccole, non faceva le facce, non parlava a doppi sensi, insomma non era né Macario né Dapporto, ma un tipo normale. È anche un bel ragazzo, novità per i comici, con cui la gente andava d’accordo e l’umorismo nasceva proprio dalla dialettica, dal modo di conversare, come fossimo in un salotto con tanti inviti, un migliaio a sera e più' (Corriere della sera film critic Maurizio Porro).

A staple of Italian variety television of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as review theatre and comedy cinema of the same period, something of a ladies man, and not immune to personal scandals, I'm pleased to introduce our special virtual guest star for this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Walter Chiari!

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In this episode, we're talking about ‘la coppia piu amata della tv’. Ten years after their deaths, the Corriere della sera newspaper ran a feature article to mark the fifty years our two stars were together and the impact they had on television. Here’s how the article opened:

'«Se mi guardo indietro non ho pentimenti. Dovessi ricominciare, farei esattamente tutto quello che ho fatto. Tutto. Mi risposerei anche. Con un’altra, naturalmente». Ironia, battibecchi e risate sono gli ingredienti che hanno alimentato per oltre cinquant’anni l’amore tra Raimondo Vianello e Sandra Mondaini. Insieme nella vita ma anche sul palcoscenico tra scenette, battute sagaci e calci sotto le coperte diventati cult, hanno raccontato attraverso la lente del piccolo schermo - sempre con garbo ed educazione - gli alti e bassi della vita di coppia, estremizzando quel tanto che bastava per ottenere il ricercato effetto comico. Ma, una volta messo via il copione, non potevano fare a meno l’uno dell’altra. Sono stati così inseparabili che quando l’attore il 15 aprile 2010 ha chiuso gli occhi per sempre la sua Sandrina (come la chiamava lui), inconsolabile, lo ha raggiunto soltanto cinque mesi dopo (il 21 settembre)'.

As I’m sure you’ve realised, the couple we’re focusing on is none other than comedians Raimondo Vianello and Sandra Mondaini. And in this episode, I’m really pleased to be joined once again by researcher Matteo Marinello, expert on Italian television comedy. 

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In this episode, we're going back to the 1950s and to a series that played an important role in establishing the nature of variety television in this period, and the expectations of Italian television more broadly. That series is Un, due, tre. Hosted for the majority of episodes by comedians Ugo Tognazzi and Raimondo Vianello, the show appealed to audiences thanks to its regular focus in each episode on the nature of television itself. Popular programmes and television stars were satirized and parodied each week, and through this humour, Italian audiences also learned more about Italian television. Television historian Aldo Grasso explains 'Il titolo è denotativo, tecnicistico, autoreferenziale: rimanda, infatti, alle tre telecamere presenti in studio e ai tre numeri che compongono lo spettacolo. Ed è ricercatamente banale, per poter ruotare con libertà attorno a un unico oggetto: il televisore. [...] Tv è anche l'acronimo della coppia Tognazzi e Vianello: sanguigno, espressivo e contadinesco il primo (che iscrive alla leggenda televisiva i personaggi di Gregorio il gregario, della cantante della mala, più credibile di Ornella Vanoni in persona, di Juliette Gréco, del fabbricante di stuzzicadenti, delle varie «donne lavorano»); misurato, civile ed etereo come un nobile decaduto il secondo (memorabile la sua imitazione di Mario Soldati, preso dalle sue inchieste). Entrambi interpretano il ruolo di ragazzacci, di provocatori della quiete televisiva, irriverenti verso tutto e tutti, suscitando spesso e volentieri le ire censorie'. As hosts of the series and well-known stars of comedy on stage and screen, Ugo Tognazzi and Raimondo Vianello play important roles on the show in educating viewers all about television through their humour. So, signore, signori, join me as we revisit... Un, due, tre.

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In this episode, my virtual guest star is one of the four so-called founding fathers of Italian entertainment television: Enzo Tortora. He was an important star right from the start of the varietà, hosting series like Primo applauso in 1956, Telematch in 1957, and Voci e volti della fortuna again in 1957. In 1965, Enzo would become host of La Domenica sportiva and Giochi senza frontiere. And in 1977, he would reach the peak of his fame as host of yet another new series, Portobello. But his career was also marked by scandal. In June 1983, Enzo was arrested and charged with being a member of the camorra and with drug-trafficking. Sentenced to ten years in prison, he was finally acquitted of all charges in 1987, four years after his arrest. The caso Tortora remains one of the most prominent examples of a miscarriage of justice in the Italian legal system.

Enzo would return to television screens in 1988, to once again host Portobello - much to audience's delight. And when Enzo died prematurely of cancer in 1989, historian Bob Lumley points out that ‘Tortora wanted to make his death a public act to dissipate the slightest doubt as to his innocence: Enzo Biagi wrote 'È morto, praticamente, in diretta: ma non per sbigottire, per porsi ancora una volta al centro, sotto la luce dei riflettori, ma perchè voleva dissipare ogni dubbio sulla pulizia, sulla onestà dei suoi propositi. Continuava ad offenderlo anche l'ombra del sospetto; voleva dire: "Vedete come me ne vado, come una sentenza mal costruita può distruggere una esistenza"'. In fact few deaths can have made such a profound impact on Italian public opinion'.

Signore, signori, ecco a voi Enzo Tortora!

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In this episode, we’re celebrating a show that, in the words of television critic G in the Corriere della sera newspaper, ‘mostra uno standard superiore alla media della trasmissioni del genere’. It’s another one of my favourites but it's also one of the cornerstones of the varietà televisivo and a series that is responsible for establishing a certain successful variety show format that would shape subsequent Italian series for many years. The title? Well, apparently, that took a little while to be decided upon – according to the radio and television listings magazine Radiocorriere anyway. In an article from October 1961, the show is introduced as follows:

Il titolo del nuovo show di Guido Sacerdote e Antonello Falqui, che la televisione presenterà a partire da sabato 21 ottobre, è stato scelto pochi giorni fa. Si era parlato di Giardino d’autunno, poi di Parata di stelle e di Sabato notte. Alla fine, la scelta è caduta su Studio Uno, in omaggio appunto allo studio del Centro di produzione TV di via Teulada, in cui sono stati realizzati programmi di grande successo come Il musichiere, le varie edizioni di Canzonissima e quel Giardino d’inverno degli stessi Sacerdote e Falqui che la scorsa primavera ottenne il secondo premio al Festival internazionale di Montreux per varietà televisivi.

So ladies and gentlemen, please join me as we delve into the wonderful world of Studio Uno. 

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On this episode of the podcast, I'm really pleased to be joined by researcher and historian Jessica L. Harris to talk about a really interesting aspect of Italian variety television during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: the representation of race on the small screen. And whilst television in this period in Italy was multicultural, and we’ve seen that already on the podcast as we’ve talked about the fame and success of figures like the German Kessler twins, Italian American Don Lurio, and Guadeloupean Henri Salvador, our focus in particular in this episode is on the representation of blackness on variety television in Italy. Taking stars like Don Marino Barreto Junior, Rocky Roberts, Lola Falana, Grace Jones, and Calimero, il pulcino nero, we examine how blackness is presented on television and and explore some of the debates around blackness that were circulating in Italy during this golden age of television.

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Lucia Mannucci. Virgilio Savona. Giovanni "Tata" Giacobetti. Felice Chiusano. The Quartetto Cetra, so much more than just an 'Italian jazz vocal quartet' as they're often described online. The Quartetto's success covers the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s, and spans radio, theatre, and, of course, television.

But what is at the heart of the Quartetto's appeal? According to journalist Marco Di Tillo, 

È facile a dirsi. Piacevano perché, non solo erano bravi cantanti e musicisti, ma soprattutto erano sempre non solo al passo con i tempi, ma addirittura qualche metro più in là, pronti ad anticipare mode e correnti ancora da venire. Erano simpatici a tutti, modesti, umili, spiritosissimi. Prendevano in giro tutti e anche sé stessi. Così sono andati avanti per anni, quasi senza abbassare la propria popolarità, perfino nei periodi della contestazione giovanile, quando molti loro colleghi caddero nel dimenticatoio più assoluto. E invece loro sempre lì, nella varie edizioni dei varietà del sabato sera, inamovibili e amati, superando a testa alta gli anni Sessanta, i Settanta, gli Ottanta.

In this episode, we'll look at how modern the Quartetto Cetra were by exploring in particular their humour and the parodies that they brought to Italian television screens. The focus is La Biblioteca di Studio Uno from 1964 and its musical-literary parodies of Il conte di Montecristo, Il fornaretto di Venezia, I tre moschettieri, Il dottor Jekyll e Mister Hyde, La storia di Rossella O’Hara, La primula rossa, Al grand Hotel and L’Odissea. So, signore, signori, for your listening pleasure: the Quartetto Cetra.