Barrio Sésamo Explained

Genre:Children's
Based On:Sesame Street (CTW) original series
Director:Enrique Nicanor (First season)
Starring:Caponata, Perezgil, Nisi, Angela, Braulio, Manolo, Carmen, Cuqui, Jose, (Spain) Ernie, Bert, Kermit, Grover, Cookie Monster, Count von Count (USA)
Country:Spain
Language:Spanish
Num Seasons:7
Producer:Alberto Espada (First season) Antonio Torets (other seasons)
Location:Prado del Rey (Madrid), Spain
Runtime:25 min. x episode
Company:Televisión Española
Children's Television Workshop/Sesame Workshop
Network:TVE

Barrio Sésamo (Sesame Neighborhood in English) is the Spanish co-production of the popular U.S. children's television series Sesame Street produced by Televisión Española and Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop) from 1979 to 2000, the equivalent of Plaza Sésamo in Latin America. All characters adopted Spanish names while for the title of the series a more appropriate Spanish name was chosen: barrio (Neighborhood) instead of Street (calle).

Ábrete Sésamo (1974-1978)

Previously, from 3 November 1974 to 29 March 1978, segments of the original Sesame Street were simply acquired by Televisión Española (TVE) and dubbed into Spanish to be aired with the title Ábrete Sésamo (es. Open Sesame) as part of its program "container" called Un globo, dos globos, tres globos.

Barrio Sésamo (1978-1988)

Season 1 (1978-1981)

In 1978, Televisión Española (TVE) and Children's Television Workshop (CTW) agreed the terms for a co-production, after years where TVE simply aired the original Sesame Street dubbed segments. The new episodes included a 15 minute segment of dubbed footage, and another 15 minute segment of original footage.[1]

Duncan Kenworthy from CTW was in charge of the USA production and Enrique Nicanor was assigned by TVE as director of the Spanish segments and designer of the two Spanish new original muppets "Caponata" and "Perezgil"

Human characters includes:

American characters with Spanish names:

Blas

Epi

Gustavo, la rana

Coco

Triqui

El conde draco

Cancellation

The First Bario Sésamo season was cancelled by TVE in 1981 when they denied the authors to keep their rights on the characters. An agreement had been reached where the authors granted full commercial rights to the station except the right to be mentioned as authors and the right to deny the use of the muppets for commercial advertising of carbonized drinks and unhealthy products for children, the same rights that Jim Henson kept with all his own characters. The station fired the first creators and banned the characters from appearing in the new season. The person responsible for the Children's Department at the station commissioning the American co-production company, CTW USA, to create and provide new "Spanish" muppets with new names. With that action, Barrio Sésamo was no longer a co-production with Spanish-created characters.[3]

La Cometa Blanca (1981-1983)

From 1981 to 1983, a different TVE children's program, La Cometa Blanca, included some sketches from Sesame Street. This program was directed by Muppet fan Lolo Rico and featured some actors who would later appear in Barrio Sésamo, mainly Mari Luz Olier, Alfonso Vallejo, and the child-actress Ruth Gabriel (then known as Ruth Abellán).

Seasons 2-4 (1983-1988)

The Sesame Street sketches in La Cometa Blanca were so successful with their young audience that the Spanish-version was given another chance in 1983. Only José Riesgo as Julián returned from the first season. Caponata and Perezgil were replaced by two new Muppets totally designed, this time, and constructed by CTW. The main character was Espinete, a large pink hedgehog that replaced Caponata. Like Caponata, Espinete was a full-body Muppet and was the main character on the show, played by Chelo Vivares. He became famous for sleeping in pajamas in spite of being "naked" the rest of the day.

Other characters included:

In 1983, one year after the second season started, a new government won the elections in Spain and José Maria Calviño was appointed as Director General of RTVE. The new staff fired those involved in the cancellation of the original series. The creator[4] of the banned first season was called by the station and was appointed as new Head of the Children' Programmes Unit and later Director of the TVE-2 channel.

The show finished around April 1988 and was replaced by Los Mundos de Yupi, a similar program fully produced by TVE, featuring three extraterrestrial characters.

Barrio Sésamo revival (1996-2000)

In 1996, the show returned to TVE, this time being produced in both Catalan and Spanish.[5]

New characters included Bluki (a blue full-body cat-like Muppet), Vera (a yellow monster), Bubo (an owl) and Gaspar (a human Muppet). Additional characters that made occasional appearances included a wild monster with red fur and a healthy appetite — portraying a role similar to Cookie Monster's — and a tan Anything Muppet that could be turned into characters (such as a baby, a girl friend of Vera's, a clumsy man with a moustache, or a pig). The show's directors were Enrique Nicanor, Antonio Torets, and Jose María Vidal (co-director).

Later Spanish dubs

Since 2006, Juega Conmigo, Sésamo, the Castilian Spanish dub of Play with Me Sesame, has been broadcast on Antena 3.

Since 2012, Super Healthy Monsters is a 5 to 7-minute series focuses on activities and foods that keep one healthy. Sesame Workshop produced 26 episodes in English, which initially aired dubbed in Spain on Antena 3 as a Barrio Sésamo mini-series called "Monstruos Supersanos."

On April 28, 2016, El Hotel Furchester, the Castilian Spanish dub of The Furchester Hotel, was broadcast in Spain on TVE Clan.

The show is part of the HBO programming in Spain under its original title, Sesame Street, with dubbed episodes of the HBO seasons from 2017 to present.

Episode list

List of 1979-80s series episodes

The rest of the episodes are in the website RTVE but they’re titled of the date.

List of 1980s series episodes

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2022-11-10 . 53 años de 'Barrio Sésamo': ¿por qué Espinete iba siempre desnudo menos para ir a dormir? Onda Cero Radio . 2023-01-12 . www.ondacero.es . es.
  2. Web site: 2022-05-15 . Debajo del traje de Espinete de ‘Barrio Sésamo’ había una mujer que ahora cuenta lo mal que lo pasó . 2023-01-12 . En Blau . es.
  3. News: TVE desmiente que Nicanor González tenga abierto un expediente. 1983-10-22. El País. 2018-10-13. es. 1134-6582.
  4. News: 1983-10-19 . Enrique Nicanor dirigirá la segunda cadena de Televisión . es . El País . 2018-10-13 . 1134-6582.
  5. News: 30 August 1996 . Sesame Street expands in four countries . United Press International.

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