Theme song was a kind of driving rock-mariachi with children singing "laa, la, la-laa, la, la, la, la, laa, la-la-laa la...vii-lla aLEGre!" But it wasn't the song as much as the rather scary panorama of a Mexican city (or rather a cheap model of one) in the throes of some holiday, complete with ferris wheel and fireworks, that most would remember about the opening of this show. (The only thing scarier on PBS was "We all live in a capital I" from Sesame Street.)
I agree with the post below that this was a nice show overall, with the cast of mostly children and teenagers alternating languages. I too learned to count to ten in Spanish from it. And I think it may have helped children in very white Protestant areas to open up to other cultures (as Sesame Street did).
Come on, you 30-35 year olds, try to think back to a day you stayed home from school with the flu and turned on PBS! This was only one of many peculiar shows in PBS reruns on weekdays in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Or maybe I was just deliriously ill.
I agree with the post below that this was a nice show overall, with the cast of mostly children and teenagers alternating languages. I too learned to count to ten in Spanish from it. And I think it may have helped children in very white Protestant areas to open up to other cultures (as Sesame Street did).
Come on, you 30-35 year olds, try to think back to a day you stayed home from school with the flu and turned on PBS! This was only one of many peculiar shows in PBS reruns on weekdays in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Or maybe I was just deliriously ill.
