31 minutes

31 minutos is a children's television series and later, a Chilean musical band created by the production company Aplaplac (owned by Álvaro Díaz, Pedro Peirano and Juan Manuel Egaña) and premiered on March 15, 2003, although with a pilot released in 2002, by Televisión Nacional de Chile, the program is a parody of 60 minutes, a controversial newscast on the same channel, broadcast in the 1970s and 1980s. It focuses on the adventures of the team of a newscast of little prestige in which something unexpected always happens, whose presenter is Tulio Triviño. The show notes are educational and some leave an explicit or implicit message, while others are quite ridiculous.

In its first period, the series had three seasons, from 2003 to 2006, in addition to participating in the 2003 Telethon and a Christmas special that same year. On March 27, 2008, it was made into a movie under the title 31 minutes, the movie.

In 2012, the production company Aplaplac confirmed that the series would return to television with a fourth season, which was released on October 4, 2014 through TVN; its last episode was broadcast on the night of January 2, 2015, respectively.

From 2004 to 2007 it was broadcast throughout Latin America on Nickelodeon, and between 2016 and 2021 on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, although only its fourth season. It was also broadcast in Mexico on Canal Once and Once Niños. The first three seasons are available in Chile on the streaming service of Televisión Nacional de Chile, TVN Play, while the fourth was available on Netflix throughout Latin America. In addition, the 4 seasons (in Spanish and Portuguese) are available on YouTube.

Since 2010, 31 minutos has performed in Chile, Mexico and Latin America, which makes the program currently a musical band. On their tours, the band performs their songs made on the show and their musical work done outside of it.

History

Origins and foundation of Aplaplac (1989-2002)

Álvaro Díaz.

Pedro Peirano.

The origins of 31 minutos date back to 1989, when its creators Álvaro Díaz and Pedro Peirano entered the University of Chile to study journalism and met for the first time. Initially, Díaz He did not hang out with Peirano nor was he interested in talking to him, but they had to meet to do academic work, which led to both realizing that they shared the same sense of humor and they became friends and later began a relationship that would last until today., which was reflected in the main characters of the series 31 minutos. The two met again in 1994, the year in which they made the program Gato por hare and later they made other programs such as Plan Z and The Human Factor for the Chilean television channel Rock & Pop. But, contrary to what they expected, none of the productions prospered. To this is added that the channel ceased its broadcasts on January 1, 2000, which left Díaz and Peirano unemployed.

To get out of this situation, they founded the production company Aplaplac together with Juan Manuel Egaña. Initially, Aplaplac developed two programs: Blood, sweat and tears —a space with a human nature that was bought by the sports channel PSN — and Mira tú —a cultural program made with funds from the National Television Council in 2001, and broadcast by Televisión Nacional de Chile in 2002.

Mira tú stood out for its quality and became the letter of introduction for the production company, therefore Díaz, Peirano and Egaña applied for the second time to a CNTV fund in 2002, this time in the children's television category. The project presented was entitled The Cabinet of the Wet Doctor, and in it a fish was conducting a television program from a fishbowl. In one of its segments, a puppet reported what was happening with the excrement in the treatment plants. Aplaplac won the contest and obtained funds to produce 21 episodes that would be broadcast on Televisión Nacional de Chile. The idea evolved until it became a puppet and puppet newscast called «31 minutos» —name that originates from the contest rules, where it was mentioned that the projects should last half an hour—

At the same time, Peirano worked at the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, where he met cartoonist Rodrigo Salinas, who —together with artists Daniel Castro and Matias Iglesis— formed the art collective La nueva gráfica chilena. Peirano invited them to form part of the production team of 31 minutos, leaving Salinas and Castro as directors and scriptwriters —together with Díaz and Peirano—, Iglesis as art director —establishing the visual identity of the program and its characters— and Juan Manuel Egaña as executive producer of Aplaplac and 31 minutos. Due to TVN's demands, a stable female character had to be included in the episodes. The actress and comedian Alejandra Dueñas —known from La nueva gráfica chilena— later joined the team, giving life to the character of Patana.

The conviction that its creators had when they started was to make a type of television program that they would have liked to see as children. They were fully aware that minors no longer only consumed programs that were focused on a children's audience and, based on that, they came up with the idea that a satire of the newscasts had to be made. The idea of inventing songs and presenting them in a musical classification also arose. For this, Peirano —who shared a friendship with the members of the Chilean funk rock group Chancho en Piedra— introduced Pablo Ilabaca —guitarist of that band—, who brought with him a CD of tracks without lyrics, with which he did not know what to do. The first instrumental that Díaz and Peirano heard was the one that later became the theme song for 31 minutos, which they quickly became fond of. The rest of the tracks were used for the soundtrack of the episodes, along with other songs invented by the team. Ilabaca was left as the music producer of 31 minutos, giving rise to the segment Ranking Top, of which the character Policarpo Avendaño —played by Daniel Castro— is in charge.

Success and internationalization (2003-2006)

31 minutes made its premiere on March 15, 2003. Its first episodes scored 6 points of audience share, but over time it began to become popular and its audience increased to an average of 14 units. Initially a children's news story show, however, as the show progressed into its first season, it transitioned from a parody of newsreels to a character comedy. Given the popularity of the show in 2003, the creators agreed to produce a second and third season, this time with funds from the channel.

Part of the success of the program lies in its script and its characters, with hidden references to the social reality of Chile. It has also been successful among young and adult audiences: the double meaning it uses is manifested, for example, in which the puppets are ironic imitations of real characters from Chilean television, and recall events or television events that characterized Chile in the 1970s and 1980s.

The commercial success of the program was reflected in the appearance of various products based on it. On July 8, 2003, a studio album called 31 minutes was released, with the songs that were part of of the musical classification of the first season of the program. This naturally sold out all its copies in less than a day and went on to sell more than 200,000 copies., since, on July 28, 2004, 31 love songs and a Guaripolo song were released, which included the songs from the second season. The name of the album alludes to the book Twenty love poems and a desperate song by Pablo Neruda. Its premiere was held on the Paseo Ahumada in Santiago and, despite not surpassing the phenomenon achieved by its predecessor, in one week it sold 20,000 copies and achieved a platinum record position. The themes of the third season were compiled in the album Ratoncitos —where the musician Á participates ngelo Pierattini—, creditor of a gold record a few days after its release. In addition to the discs with the songs from the program, around Christmas 2004 the videos The best of 31 minutes were released in home format and The Policarpo Top Top Top Awards, which together sold more than 35,000 records. This fact made them the best-selling local DVDs in the history of Chile.

The popularity obtained with the program has led its characters to be part of advertising and propaganda campaigns in Chile. For example, Tulio and Bodoque appeared in commercial messages for the Santiago de Chile Transantiago transportation system to educate people about behavior on buses. boys and girls» with the aim of raising their spirits after the 2010 Chilean earthquake. In these ads, Tulio is seen talking about the fear he feels due to the tremors, but his friends from the news show encourage him by saying that together everything is better and that It is normal to feel fear. Another advertisement with Unicef dealt with shorts where musical numbers are shown in which Patana gives Tulio advice on how to prevent influenza. Added to this is the fact that, since 2015, Mario Hugo is the face of the campaign of the Metropolitan Regional Government of Santiago entitled "Cuidado con el perro", which calls for sterilization, responsible ownership and care of dogs in public spaces.

The second season of 31 minutes made its premiere on December 24, 2003 (Christmas Special) on Televisión Nacional de Chile, and simultaneously the program began to be known in other countries. On June 9, 2004, the Latin American signal of the Nickelodeon channel bought the first two seasons of the series, and premiered them on September 17 of the same year. The network broadcast the episodes until 2007. Thanks to the children's audience of On Nickelodeon the program went international, with good reception in countries like Mexico and Brazil —where it was dubbed into Portuguese. On September 19, 2005, the third season began to be broadcast on TVN, consisting of only 15 episodes.

Mexico was the first country other than Chile to broadcast the series on open television when it premiered in 2005 on Canal 11. The Canal 11 broadcast made it possible for the EMI label to release the album 31 minutos for the first time in Mexico. Both events caused 31 minutos to be a success in the country. Ro Velázquez —a member of the Mexican group Liquits— came up with the idea of producing a tribute album for the program in which fanatical artists of this chose their favorite song to record it in their own way. the Mexican singer Rubén Albarrán and his wife Psykini) as a single. In it, fourteen Chilean and Mexican artists performed some songs from the first three 31-minute albums. Yo nunca vi televisión was distributed in Mexico and the southern United States, and sold around 5,000 copies in its first weeks. In addition to its physical version, it was uploaded to the iTunes store for download.

Plays and concerts (2010-2014)

At the end of 2010, 31 minutes performed a play called Resuscitating a Star. The plot revolved around a television talent show, where Tulio Triviño and other characters were looking for the best out-of-fashion artist to give him the opportunity to be out of fashion again. These presentations began as a tour of southern Chile to cheer up the people from the towns most devastated by the earthquake that occurred on February 27 of that year, but some time later the work arrived in Mexico, in 2014.

31 minutes presented at the Lollapalooza Chile 2012.

On March 31, 2012, they performed at the Lollapalooza Chile festival. Juan Manuel Egaña received an invitation and, together with Felipe Ilabaca —bassist of Chancho en Piedra—, convinced Díaz and Peirano to participate —who, at At first, they considered the fact as humorous. The impact was such that the band (made up of musicians Pablo Ilabaca on electric guitar, Felipe Ilabaca on bass, Camilo Salinas on keyboards and Pedropiedra on drums, along with the voice actors of the program) scheduled four presentations for July at the Movistar Arena in Santiago. These events had a great turnout and were very popular, in addition to being released in a live album called Gira mundial —under the Feria Music label—. In the second semester of 2012, the Organizing Committee of the Viña del Mar International Song Festival 2013 confirmed 31 minutos as one of the national artists for the day. of 2013, being the first group of puppets to set foot in Quinta Vergara. In more than an hour and a half of presentation, they achieved a show that was praised by the press and applauded by the audience present, who awarded them the 4 highest awards of the evening. They also achieved the maximum rating position of the 2013 edition of the festival: 53 points of screen share. Coinciding with the same day of the presentation, the company Amnesia Games developed a 31 minute game for mobile phones in alliance with the producer Aplaplac and the telephone company Claro Chile. The game stood out in the Windows Phone and Amazon stores and managed to position itself in the first places in the Apple application store.

In view of the success achieved at the festival, they decided to return to the stage, but this time with Radio Guaripolo, a show directed by Álvaro Díaz and written by Pedro Peirano, officially premiered at the Municipal Theater de Las Condes. In it, Guaripolo is the owner of a radio station, where he dedicates himself to making phone jokes to the rest of the characters in 31 minutos. One of the most important facts of this production It was the premiere of the song "My mom knits everything for me", which would later be part of the soundtrack of the fourth season.

Season Four and Present

To all this is added that, after nine years of absence, 31 minutos announced its return to television, according to an interview that Aplaplac gave to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera. The fourth season began its recordings in 2013 and it was broadcast by TVN. In addition, the program again won a CNTV fund to finance it. The team underwent restructuring, such as the change of Juan Manuel Egaña —who became Chilevisión's Management and Development Manager— by Alejandra Neumann in the executive production of Aplaplac and the series, and the making of Juanín, who although he was dubbed by Salinas, he did not participate as a puppeteer in the recordings, so the actor Héctor Velozo had to take his place. Salinas only gave life to his characters live in the presentation at the Viña del Mar Festival in 2013.

The premiere of this season was on October 4, 2014, seen for the first time in HD (16:9). The first episode scored 9.3 points of screen share, but was surpassed by the program Morandé con compañía of the Chilean television channel Mega —which obtained more than 15. It ended on the night of January 1, 2015 after a cycle of twelve episodes. Despite the low results it obtained on Televisión Nacional de Chile, as of January 2016 it was purchased and transmitted by the Cartoon Network signal to Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and then began to be broadcast throughout Latin America by Boomerang. On January 5, 2020 was added to Netflix Latin America.

During the premiere of the episodes of the fourth season, 31 minutes adapted their 2003 Christmas special into a montage entitled Hot Christmas, with which they performed during the month of December at the Centro de las Artes 660 in Las Condes. The program had already established itself as a musical group, and Díaz together with Peirano decided to focus their future on tours and live concerts. During 2015 they prepared a play based on the drama Romeo y Julieta, by William Shakespeare, with which they performed in January 2016 as part of the Santiago a Mil International Festival. Later they showed it in places such as the Municipal Theater of Las Condes in April 2016 and the Teatro Oriente de Providencia in July of the same year. He participated again in the 2017 version of the Santiago a Mil International Festival.

Scene of the tour Radio Guaripolo.

On September 12, 2015, Aplaplac independently released the album Arwrarwrirwrarwro —where the songs from the fourth season are found—. The album had a pre-sale in Mexico, in July of the same year, during a presentation by Radio Guaripolo. Pablo Ilabaca and Álvaro Díaz were in charge of its production, but it had the support of Felipe Ilabaca, Camilo Salinas and Pedropiedra on instruments.

On the other hand, Radio Guaripolo performed for the last time in the city of San Miguel in August 2016. For the 2016 tour in Mexico, Aplaplac premiered Tremendo Tulio Tour, a parody montage of the tributes of artists for their careers, where they pay one to Tulio Triviño. The success of the tour led them to play live for the first time in Argentina and Colombia. The first performance was held at the Usina del Arte in Buenos Aires on April 21, 2018. This was the last show in which Pedropiedra participated as a drummer for 31 minutes,, so Leonardo Corvalán —drummer of Chancho en Piedra— took his place. The second was at the Rock al Paque Festival in Bogotá on June 30, 2019, with three performances on same day. In January 2019, the making of a fifth studio album was confirmed, without depending on the music of a season. To promote it, the first single to be released was "Ritmo sidereal", released on October 11, 2019. It was followed by "Perro chico" and "Lucía, la watermelon", which appeared on November 22, 2019 and January 17, 2020, respectively. On November 20, 2019, the organizers of the Mexican festival Vive Latino unveiled the confirmed lineup for its twenty-first edition, where 31 minutes stood out with a double performance, on November 14 and 15. March 2020 with a special show. the format of a newscast —as in the television series— and played a repertoire of songs of which "Ritmo sidereal" and "Perro chico" were part. During February In 2020, a tour was scheduled in Mexico in which Yo nunca vi televisión would be presented during March in the cities of San Luis Potosí, Guadalajara and Mérida, but to prevent contagion from the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 it was decided to reschedule the dates for October of the following year. Of the original presentations, 31 minutos could only appear on both days at the festival l Vive Latino. The crisis caused by this disease was the reason for 31 minutos to join forces for the third time with Unicef to launch the “Quarantine 31” campaign, with the aim of addressing issues that affect Latinos. children during confinement. The capsules were broadcast on Cartoon Network and Boomerang Latin America, and on July 29, 2020, a song titled "Primavera" was released to encourage people in the midst of the health crisis. On September 1 In March 2020, Unicef named 31 minutos as Goodwill Ambassadors for Unicef Chile. educate about the processes of deconfinement and return to school in Chile, publicizing its protocols. On July 1, 2021, the TVN Play streaming service was launched, created by Televisión Nacional de Chile itself, where you can watch the first 3 seasons of 31 minutes.

Díaz and Peirano have declared on multiple occasions that it is not possible to carry out a fifth season for Chilean television, because this is not a format where the program can remain —added to this the high costs of production—. The reinvention through tours, new songs and records has been key to the validity of the franchise. In any case, none has ruled out the possibility of doing it on platforms of streaming, according to their interest.

Characters

31 minutes is hosted by Tulio Triviño Tufillo, a millionaire and egocentric gray chimpanzee, but ignorant and lacking in understanding. He is the best friend of Juan Carlos Bodoque, a red rabbit. This is the star journalist of the program and is in charge of the section on environmental issues La Nota Verde. He is moody, bohemian, witty, occasional poet, womanizer, but above all, a great gambler addicted to horse races and betting at the racetrack. Juanín Juan Harry is the general producer of the studio, but on the other hand, the only survivor of his species, the juanines. He loves his job and everyone is aware that he is the one who He does everything. Policarpo Avendaño is the commentator on shows, owner of the musical segment Ranking Top. Mario Hugo is an absent-minded reporter, owner of many dogs. He is madly in love with Patana Tufillo, a young journalist in practice, in turn Tulio's niece. This team is joined by Calcetín with Rombos Man, the superhero defender of children's rights, and Guaripolo, who calls himself the "favorite character of children from 31 minutes », although no one knows him.

31 minutes, the movie

Poster for the promotion of the film in Brazil. From left to right: Tulio Triviño, Juanín Juan Harry, Cachirula de los Cachirulos and Juan Carlos Bodoque.

Since the triumph obtained with its first season, Díaz and Peirano had a much larger project in mind, a 31-minute film. the third season. The incidental music was provided by Pablo Ilabaca and Ángelo Pierattini —who already worked together on the album for the third season Ratoncitosos—. The recordings began in Chile in October 2006 and ended in the summer of 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil —where the production company Total Entertainment joined to provide the film experience that Aplaplac did not have. However, the post-production and sound process delayed the film, with things like a Telephone casting to choose the voices of Tulio, Bodoque and Juanín in their childhood stage. In September 2007, Peirano went to review the co-production in Spain. Because he did not carry cash, he was not admitted to the country, which he was able to enter only after the intervention of the Chilean embassy.

Finally the series was brought to the big screen under the name 31 minutos, la película, and was released in Chile on March 27, 2008, in Mexico on October 16 of 2009 and in Brazil on August 3, 2012. With this film a temporary end to the series was given. In total, 210,000 spectators attended to see the film in Chile. Despite being praised, it did not it collected what it cost to produce it, which led Aplaplac into an economic crisis for two years, and its members had to work on other projects. In addition, they were affected by a robbery at the production company's offices.

Derived Series

Aplaplac has produced several miniseries with the characters of 31 minutos. As a project for the National Museum of Dentistry of the University of Chile, the production company produced a four-episode web series called Las muelas de Guaripolo, in which said character appears teaching the public information about the dental hygiene and its history. Together with Las muelas de Guaripolo, in 2017, 31 minutos in collaboration with the Chilean Ministry of Health produced the web series La cloud of smoke. This miniseries consists of three chapters of four to five minutes and deals with how Juan Carlos Bodoque —already retired from journalism— decides to give in to Ramona's requests to do a report on air pollution in Chile.

On July 11, 2009, The vacations of Tulio, Patana and little Tim premiered on TVN. The program —consists of 12 episodes — is planned as a spin-off of 31 minutes, that is, a derivative of some of its characters; and the chosen one was precisely Tulio Triviño, the news conductor who now moves to his lavish summer cabin with his niece Patana and Tim, a friend of hers. The stay is boring, so Tulio entertains his little companions by telling them stories, and that is how each chapter begins. It should be noted that Juan Carlos Bodoque is also present in Tulio's stories giving ecological advice.

In 2018, Aplaplac commissioned the Chilean Security Association to create a web-series of puppets of his mascot Segurito, who in the company of his friend Dami, and his clumsy neighbor Guaripolo -a character from 31 minutes-, they must carry out a program dealing with various topics related to work, mental or health security. The series premiered on May 28, 2018, and currently has 4 seasons. In addition, they have toured throughout the country with small musical numbers.

Pablo Ilabaca is one of the composers of the songs 31 minutesalong with the scriptwriters and actors in the series.

Discography

Tribute Albums

• 2009 - I never saw television.

Tours

Jorge González playing with 31 minutes for the opening of a Puma clothing store.

• Resuciting a Star (2010)
• Tuliopalooza (2012)

• World Tour (2012)
• Radio Guaripolo (2013)
• Warm Christmas (2014)
• Romeo and Juliet (2016)
• Tremendo Tulio Tour (2016)
• I never saw television (2020)
• Don Quixote (2021)

Awards, nominations and distinctions