TV Italian Style
The ‘TV Italian Style’ podcast is an A-Z of the golden age of Italian television of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s from the perspective of the ever popular varietà and the famous faces who would host and guest star on these shows. It’s a bilingual podcast, in English and Italian, with conversations with experts on Italian TV and culture alongside clips from all the best shows and performances. Visit the accompanying website https://tvitalianstyle.wordpress.com/ to download translated transcriptions for each episode to support your listening.
TV Italian Style
S: Studio Uno, un ‘varietà musicale di classe’
In this episode, we’re celebrating a show that, in the words of television critic G in the Corriere della sera newspaper, ‘mostra uno standard superiore alla media della trasmissioni del genere’. It’s another one of my favourites but it's also one of the cornerstones of the varietà televisivo and a series that is responsible for establishing a certain successful variety show format that would shape subsequent Italian series for many years. The title? Well, apparently, that took a little while to be decided upon – according to the radio and television listings magazine Radiocorriere anyway. In an article from October 1961, the show is introduced as follows:
Il titolo del nuovo show di Guido Sacerdote e Antonello Falqui, che la televisione presenterà a partire da sabato 21 ottobre, è stato scelto pochi giorni fa. Si era parlato di Giardino d’autunno, poi di Parata di stelle e di Sabato notte. Alla fine, la scelta è caduta su Studio Uno, in omaggio appunto allo studio del Centro di produzione TV di via Teulada, in cui sono stati realizzati programmi di grande successo come Il musichiere, le varie edizioni di Canzonissima e quel Giardino d’inverno degli stessi Sacerdote e Falqui che la scorsa primavera ottenne il secondo premio al Festival internazionale di Montreux per varietà televisivi.
So ladies and gentlemen, please join me as we delve into the wonderful world of Studio Uno.