The 80s of the last century, Saturdays at 10:00 pm Channel 7 (there were only two TV channels), the voice of Sammy Davis Jr. sounded to announce the chapter of Baretta, the less orthodox detective of the gringo police, an expert in disguise, bachelor accompanied by Fred the cockatoo, lived in a small room and his friend was a pimp who was also an informant.
Tony Baretta, played by the late Robert Blake, not only named the piece of baretta that way, he also marked a generation, the series was already old and had been canceled in the United States with three seasons that ended in 1978, but here everything came late and early of the 80s was all the rage.
The world was very different, civil rights were a recent thing and the roles of bad guys, slackers and criminals like Rooster (Baretta’s ‘toad’ informant) were reserved for black actors. Women either didn’t exist or were meant to be the self-sacrificing and helpful girlfriends like Jenny, ‘my beautiful genie’.
Colombian TV fed on canned cowboys and science fiction from the 60s (Great Chaparral, Bonanza, Star Trek and Land of Giants), starring white men until Charlie’s Angels appeared (the protagonists were all white ) to mark the sexual revolution, whose culmination would reach Wonder Woman well into her 80s.
The only black protagonists were Arnold and Willis, two children from the Bronx adopted by a millionaire, Mr. Drummond and his daughter, all the actors would have sad endings after the worldwide success of the comedy. Bill Cosby and Will Smith would become the first actors to star in comedies about completely African-American families.
Last week, for the first time two Asian actors, Michelle Yeoh and Le Huy Quan, won Best Leading Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively at the Oscars. I’m not saying that all past times are better, but for those born in the second half of the 20th century, before the internet and Streaming platforms with their infinite supply and the hundreds of channels of all kinds on cable TV, there was much more. to see with less offer.
‘Naturalia’ with Mrs. Gloria Castaño was enough to keep up to date on ecology and the environment, ‘Teledeportes’ with Hernán Peláez to follow world sports news and wait eight days for Baretta to live, hidden from parents, the adventures of the streets more dangerous. This reminds me that I need to renew my Netflix subscription.
