If Topo Gigio has been missing something in 63 years of adventures, it has been fly over Qatar in the quarterfinals, go ghostly against Van Gaal and reincarnate as Lionel Messi.
When on 9 December La Pulga raised his hands to his ears as a sign of opposition to the Dutch coach, Gigio somehow became the “mascot” of La Scaloneta and sparked searches: “What is the life of the Italian rodent What was a Latin American Phenomenon?” thousands wondered.
The memory seemed faded for 2001, a time when Juan Román Riquelme installed a powerful allegory appealing to the icon of the sweet mole to resist the power (then Xeneize president Mauricio Macri). Messi took that celebration back and resurrected the foam animal. Behind that football background, the creature that has “raised” several generations by dint of tenderness.
Maria Perego, the creator born in Venice who gave birth to that adorable little thing without contractions did not imagine giving birth to the future bearer of subliminal messages. Author, puppeteer, television presenter, “Geppetto” had several puppets in her atelier, but she sewed that upturned muzzle on us and the path took another direction.
On the year of birth of Gigio (diminutive of Luigi, Luis) there are contradictory data. The newspaper Republic Cites María, who considered 1961 as the great starting point, when the “little insect” broke into the RAI sketch program Carousel. The origin is earlier, 1958.
“It wasn’t easy to get out of Maria’s mind”, reads the Rat on its official page. “He would take part in a Saturday night show where he had his puppets sing all the most famous songs. And just by listening to those songs, slowing them down or speeding them up, he was inspired by the distorted voices that came out of them, to create new characters. And one day, finally, hearing Domenico Modugno sing the Sveglietta, Maria exclaimed: ‘But this is the voice of a little mouse! A little mouse always cheerful and a little shy. A field mouse. I’ll call him Gigio!’ And so finally, after cutting and sewing, making and unmaking, I came into the world”.
Messi’s mother was not even an embryo when the mustachioed man with eyes like blind sweets revolutionized the Italian spectator with his irruption. She didn’t require the strings to move, He was not considered a puppet properly or an electronic puppet. «It’s a medieval formula, with tweezers», explains Perego (1923-2019), who had started working for Rai in mid-1954 with papier-mâché experiments.
“The mole is handled from the side, the puppeteers dress in black and with special lighting they disappear. It’s like the famous black theater in Prague”, illustrates the Argentine José Luis Telecher, the father of Carozo and Narizota, influenced by Gigio, who discovered at the age of eight and regrets. “We’ve never been lucky enough to cross all three.”
Almost a blond Mickey Mouse – Gigio’s “mom” admitted the inspiration in the Walt Disney character. The key was innocence, the absence of evil, excessive tenderness. At first the mole didn’t speak. The throat responsible for the voice of the flute ended up being that of Peppino Mazzullo, Sicilian dramatic actor now 96 years old, which Perego specifically chose and who worked for the product until 2006.
Accused of undercover evangelical Christian pastor, the mammal ambassador of the United Nations and Unicef has managed to export his naive preaching in Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, Austria, Belgium, Syria. In Argentina, perhaps one of the most intense adoption homes, military man Juan Carlos Onganía also begged him not to pack early and entertain people for a few more years.
An almost silvery pair of ears
In the late 1960s, Perego visited the country with a delegation to arrange contracts with Channel 11. He settled for 50 days at the Claridge Hotel and brought with him three foam trunks, a bed, heads and loose arms.. On that occasion he revealed the big secret: the little body of his “son” had to undergo maintenance every 15 days, depending on the hustle and bustle he was subjected to.
“Devastating event”, declared Radiolandia in 1968 when Gigio appeared on Teleonce. The legend that reproduces the newspaper archive is the one at the end of the first seasonOnganía himself wrote to Perego asking for on-screen continuity because his grandchildren cried at the farewell.
Designed for the children’s segment, not even Doña María made a calculation prediction: there was no adult who could resist the sweetness of that compulsive cuddle seeker who invited “to bed” or warned “I said it first!” Faced with acceptance in Iran and other unexpected exports, Perego was paralyzed. Have you ever said that, for example, that After three shows in Japan, 250,000 postcards arrived at her home.
For 1968 the very famous pair of ears he even raided the Buenos Aires Police page. A Federal Police scam and scam commission raided a home in Artigas at 1800 and found dies and materials for the clandestine manufacture of the Mole. The outcome: they arrested a certain Moisés Wizer, according to the pages of Crónica.
The legal issue has revealed too much to Doña Perego in these latitudes. Doll counterfeiting was part of daily Argentine life. In our country, the company of Julio Korn (owner of TV Guía, Anteojito, Antena and other magazines) had, in principle, the license. For example, 35 million pesos were paid for four years of legal permits.
At the center of attention, just 38 centimeters tall, was already another Buenos Aires in 1969 and was advertising a famous chocolate-covered biscuit and pudding on TV. It was inside The gallery, the Juan Carlos Mareco program that ignited fanaticism. He came to the cinema in this part of the map in 1970 with the film Mole Gigio and the red balloon, for the times her partner was Hector Larrea.
Gigio’s popularity rating has pushed the needle to extremes. i’m going through very song, with Nino Manfredi, with Raffaella Carrà and also duetted with Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra themselves. Few know who was one of his fervent followers since he was a child: Michael Jackson, who kept a collection of moles in his rest.
With Berugo Carámbula or Gachi Ferrari as his other partners, the Argentine life he lived includes presentations at Tabarís for the winter holidays, accompanied by an eighties pop girl group, Las Primas, the same one of the hits Stretch out your hand, Antonio, touch my Piripipi Y Give me a joy.
The official creator book arrived in 2015. Gigio the mole and meavailable at 20 dollars, it tells not only the world’s fascination for this little animal and the stars who have succumbed to its charm (from Lucio Dalla to John Wayne) but also the biography of the Venetian who, believing so much in magic, was able to live off her. “The real secret of an artist is knowing how to see, in a block of motionless matter, the character pressing to get out.”
Despite the decision to stay behind the scenes, Perego didn’t live far from well-deserved recognition in his later years. even with his death The New York Times paid tribute and revered the woman who installed the “little bug” in the United States, popularized by Ed Sullivan. In Honduras, the Rat has taken on the immortal form of a drink (this is the name given to homemade ice cream in a bag that appears to have ‘ears’).
In 2018, Italian newspapers claimed to have witnessed “the second life of Mole Gigio”, with the launch of the animated series. Ultra high definition drawing encouraged quarantine in 2020 and taught about coronavirus. “The level of popularity today is 9 out of 10, but among generations aged 40 and over. The celebration of Messi has aroused curiosity among young people who did not know him,” explains Italian journalist Laura Grassi.
The little man who bases his diet on sweets rather than larvae – and who has gone from black and white to color by reinventing television – he never expected Qatar to be included in his passport. Messi accidentally brought him to life-meme and now several generations ask about him, as they ask about that incessant and heartbreaking verse: “Of the Malvinas boys I will never forget”.
Source: Clarin
