The Grand Prix of the Summer bursts RTVE: a return to nostalgia that makes the hair like scars

• Television The secrets of the new Grand Prix: from the tears of Ramón García to the heifer "tocapelotas"
• LOC Michelle Calvo and Cristinini: who are the new Grand Prix presenters?

"Mom, what is this program?" my son asked me last night when he saw about twenty people appear dressed in blue and yellow, with helmets, with a fish in their hands and trying to pass without giving the biggest of the guarrazos over some crazy logs. His father and I answered in unison: "It's the Grand Prix." It was inevitable not to say it with a melancholy smile while we searched in the drawer of memories. It wasn't difficult.

The Summer Grand Prix marked a whole generation of children who once a week during the summer sat in the village house, on the beach or at home with their parents, grandparents or siblings to watch two villages fight like gladiators to become the winner of a simple contest, No bending, entertaining, crazy...

Television

RTVE.

The secrets of the new Grand Prix: from the tears of Ramón García to the "tocapelotas" heifer

• Writing: ESTHER MUCIENTES Madrid

The secrets of the new Grand Prix: from the tears of Ramón García to the "tocapelotas" heifer

When last night I listened to the laughter of my daughters watching each of the tests and I tried to explain to them that now the heifer María Fernanda – "the heifer that runs, rows and walks" – is a person in disguise, but that when dad and mom were little she was a real heifer that rammed everything she caught on the set of that Grand Prix of yesteryear, None of them believed it. "How is there going to be a heifer on TV, Mom?" You're making it up," they told me. An innocent question and a few laughs that take you back in time are the two ingredients of what last night meant the return of The Grand Prix of Summer.

The new Summer Grand Prix remains the same as it was almost 20 years ago. Two towns -last night, Alfacar and Colmenarejo-, a presenter, the soul of The Grand Prix and architect, together with producer Carlo Boserman, of this long-awaited return; bowling, logs, hot potato, pilot puppy and other new games; mayors; the godfathers -Lolita is the best-, the heifer, even if it is not real... But, above all, without a doubt, nostalgia, so necessary in these times.

When televisions start looking for formats like crazy outside and within our borders in an attempt to find the new Pasapalabra that shoots audiences, they forget that it is not all a matter of audiences and leadership but that the solution is much simpler. So simple that last night's premiere of The Summer Grand Prix has exploded audiences, as it is: more than 26% of screen share and almost 2,600,000. It has taken 18 years to realize it.

Ramón García and Carlo Boserman had spent years planting on the table of the different directions of RTVE the return of The Grand Prix. It never went ahead, they told them that it was not the time, that they did not see it, that returning to the past was not fashionable, that the spectators were not going to understand it ... Mistake!

It is not necessary to dive much through social networks, barometer of the opinions of the audiences, to see that we were anxious for the return of The Grand Prix, for the return of Ramón García, to see those apotheosic gauntlets again, to see Lolita giving meaningless indications in the bowling, for the hot potato, by María Fernanda.

Nostalgia is a very powerful weapon. The strange thing is that television has taken so long to notice. Gabriel García Márquez said that "we grow up with dreams in our eyes and songs on our lips, and then we discover that life is not what we thought it would be. And then, we discovered nostalgia." Dreams in our eyes, songs on our lips and TV shows in our memory...

"Unite yesterday with today without losing the essence," said the producer on the same day of the presentation of the program. The essence is, but... But you have to do it right. You can pull nostalgia and make mistakes. Create a substitute that erases that nostalgia that makes your hair stand on end and causes more anger than memories. That with the new Summer Grand Prix hasn't happened.

"Yesterday I saw the Grand Prix and this morning when I woke up for a moment I doubted whether I had to go to high school or to work at the factory"; "Today I was back to being that 8-year-old boy who watched the Grand Prix with his grandfather after a long day at the beach, how happy!"; "Today many twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings will be like children A piece of our childhood returns." These are just some of the comments of a long list of viewers who last night returned for more than two hours to their childhood, to their summers, to nostalgia.

Of course, in this new Grand Prix there are things that were not there before and others that have disappeared. It's not 1996. As Ramón García said a few weeks ago in the presentation of the program, "we cannot do the 1996 Grand Prix." There can be no heifer because the Animal Protection Law does not allow it and there must be other elements that add to the new generations. Hence the presence of Cristinini in his streamer room broadcasting each test.

That shocks, yes, and more because she was not heard well and there were times when her comments bothered more than contributed. But it is an attempt to adapt a classic to the present. Mistaken? I don't think so. The presence of Cristinini is one more element. If it is, fine and if not, too. The Grand Prix, the one we know of my generation, was last night, and was in the figure of a man that RTVE has taken too long to recover: Ramón García.

On the day of the presentation of The Grand Prix to the press, Ramón García could not hold back his tears. Last night he made heart guts to endure them. "(...) When these small towns come and they manage to reach the heart with the people who participate in the team, but who bring us with all the affection in the world the sensitivity of their localities". His voice broke (and that was recorded).

Because for Ramón García, The Summer Grand Prix has been more than one of his programs. Only he and nothing but him could return it to the grill. And only he and nothing else could stand on the set and for much change of scenery, of co-presenters, of new tests, show the same as 20 years ago. Throw yourself on top of the penguins, ask for an umbrella so as not to get wet in the count of the fish of the Crazy Logs, give way to the repetition of the contestants' guarrazos and do it without a drop of sarcasm. In short, have fun, without more; Have fun as before.

The key is to combine who we were with who we are. And the Summer Grand Prix has done it very well. He has maintained his mythical tests that last night robbed more than one of us more than one smile and at the same time has added new elements to hook the children of now. Truth be told, my kids laughed and enjoyed the same thing we laughed and enjoyed 18 years ago. With the falls, with Lolita giving wrong indications in the Superbolos, with the heifer bothering him, with Ramón García asking a contestant "what do you do?" and he responds "to drink beers".

The Granada town of Alfacar won, but the real winners were the spectators, the adults of today who grew up watching The Grand Prix, and the children of today who in a few years will be able to tell their children that when they were small there was a program on television in which a man disguised as a heifer came out. and in which some gentlemen dressed in yellow and blue stuck some incredible hosts to become the winning town of The Summer Grand Prix 2023. Remember how we were, who we were and how far we came. "Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember it to tell it."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more