It is a 3 1/2-hour marathon of music, interviews, snazzy gals, cute kids and contests. More than 55 million people from Bolivia to Venezuela tune in each Saturday night-with almost 7 million of those viewers in the United States alone.
It is early ’60s television at its most offbeat, most unpretentious, most energetic, kitschy best. It is called “Sabado Gigante.”
At the center of all this mirth and mayhem is “Don Francisco,” a genial grandfatherly sort with inch-deep dimples and a cheerleader’s enthusiasm. He is a 53-year-old entertainer, a powerhouse named Mario Kreutzberger, who created “Sabado Gigante” almost 30 years ago in his native Chile.
Aired by the Univision network in 18 Latin American countries, and on 29 broadcast affiliates and more than 600 cable affiliates just in the United States-including WCIU-Ch. 26 in Chicago-“Sabado Gigante” is “the world’s most popular television program.”
At least that’s what the network will tell you. And until ratings folks start tracking couch potatoes in Paraguay, the show’s U.S. numbers will have to suffice.
So consider that when Nielsen Media Research began tracking the viewing habits of the 22,354,000 Hispanics in the U.S. this past fall, “Sabado” was there in the top five, with a 14.7 share. (That’s the kind of numbers a show like “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper” or “20/20” enjoyed.)
The Miami-based Strategy Research Corp., which has tracked Hispanic viewing habits for 15 years, notes that “Sabado” consistently draws audiences of 6,997,000 across the U.S., according to Terry D’Angona, a senior vice president of media marketing. In the Chicago area, some 323,000 viewers tune in at 6 p.m. each Saturday.
Those numbers just count Hispanic viewers and do not include the non-Spanish speaking folks who have accidentally been hooked by the show, mesmerized by the zaniness of “Don Francisco’s” world.
Ruling that world is Kreutzberger, the heart and soul of “Sabado Gigante.”
“The show is a personification of Mario,” says Ray Rodriguez, Univision Television Network president. “He can be the funniest man in the world one minute and the most intense the next. His show is an extension of his inner being.
“What amazed me was how long the show was and yet you could watch the whole time,” Rodriguez says. “His show is extremely visual . . . like a visual magnet.”
With “Sabado,” if the magnet doesn’t draw one (audience) segment, it’s bound to attract another. Consider that in one show alone you can watch youngsters compete in a costume-dance contest, then visit Romania and Count Dracula’s castle with the affable Don as guide. Or, you can watch Mirta from Chile, Jose from Argentina and Olga from Colombia as they battle for $5,000 in a “Wheel of Fortune”-type word guessing game.
“The main purpose of the show is information and entertainment,” says Kreutzberger. “We make the show for regular people, for the family. What we do is something not very new, but something very friendly and warm.”
Through it all, “Don Francisco” sings. He dances. He schmoozes with the models who gush over Mazola Corn Oil, Hershey’s Peanut Butter Cups and dozens of consumer goods and services. He put exclamation points on everything.
“There has never been anything like it,” says Peter Zomaya, assistant general manager at Channel 26 where “Sabado” has aired for five years. “(Kreutzberger’s) show is done very creatively. It’s adaptable in any Latin American country. He is totally in harmony and communicating with his audience.”
Which, says Kreutzberger, is just what he wants to do. “The idea was always to unify the Spanish-speaking people,” he says, “to unify us with our problems, with our feelings.”
Indeed, when Kreutzberger conceived the show, its purpose was to unite the long country of Chile. These days, “Sabado” unites several different cultures which speak the same language.
If “Sabado” reminds viewers of U.S. television of the ’50s and ’60s, it’s with good reason. Kreutzberger graduated with honors from the Jack Paar-Monty Hall school of television.
He was born December 28, 1940, to Erich and Ana Kreutzberger. She had been an opera singer, he a tailor before they fled Nazi Germany in 1939. It was mama who enrolled her son in music classes and there he learned to love the sound of applause. “I sang for the very first time when I was 11 years old in the school in front of 500 students. I sang very old and traditional songs in Spanish and the Italian song, `Torno Sorrento’,” recalls Mario.
Although his father wanted his son to take over his men’s clothing store, Mario loved working on stage at the local social club. Dad sent 17-year-old Mario to New York in 1957 to learn clothing design and English. His English class consisted of black-and-white television.
“The only opportunity I had to watch television before was in 1955. The president of Argentina, Juan Peron, brought a remote control truck with televisions into the streets of my country,” he says.
It was in New York, Mario fell in love with television. “I watched Jack Paar, the Late Late Show, Art Linkletter and his kids show and “The Price is Right,” he says. “There was something very important that impressed me about television in the States. That changed my mind about how an entertainer has to act on the stage … Everybody who is on television in the States acts very normal, acts like a regular person, moves like a regular person. If you watch television from Spain, from Germany … well, at least back then, they stood like mannequins.”
Two years later, Mario was back in Chile determined to make a career in TV. He did a wake-up radio show, continued his club act, creating “Don Francisco,” a foreigner in Chile who traveled the world. He dogged the local TV station to give him a chance. He was hired then fired. “Not professional enough,” said the boss. The fans prevailed. He returned and was fired again.
He studied more Ed Sullivan and Groucho Marx then was back on the air in 1962 with a hit, “Show Dominical,” which grew in popularity and length, then was renamed “Sabados Gigantes.” By the end of 1963, it was the most popular show in Chile.
By the early ’80s, Kreutzberger hit what he calls “the roof in his career.” He grabbed a few “Sabados” tapes and pitched the show to U.S. network execs. Univision eventually agreed, though they felt there was too much audience participation. Kreutzberger prevailed; he’d seen circus performers in Europe and magic acts in Las Vegas. “Sabado Gigante” bounded into the U.S. market in 1986. Kreutzberger became host in April of that year. The show went national in 1987.
“When I start here, after 10 minutes, I know that it was like at home. No problem,” he says.
These days, the shows are taped in Univision’s two-year old studios in Miami. It is a task achieved not without, well, a gigantic effort. Once a month, Kreutzberger and team board the 9-hour Santiago-to-Miami flight to spend a week or so working with local crews to tape 16 hours worth of “Sabado” shows. For two years, he has also put together his 13-week “Noche de Gigante,” a “Tonight Show” talk and entertainment mix.
Kreutzberger and “Sabados” have traveled to more than 140 countries, and during tapings of the show during the U.S. Bicentennial (they traveled the country in a motorhome), he caught a Jerry Lewis Telethon. Millions of dollars later, Kreutzberger’s telethon efforts have built six children’s hospitals in his native Chile, where his wife Temmy (they are the parents of three children) live.
Why has “SG” been so successful? “We are doing human, simple things, not sophisticated,” says Kreutzberger. “(We) act like every day. We sing, we cry, we smile. (We) play to middle class, to common people. Even sophisticated people are common people. Deep inside yourself, you’re a common man.”
