Carlos Balá is an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 actor who specialized in children's entertainment.
Descended from Lebanese immigrants, he was born in 1925 in the Chacarita neighborhood. His father, Mustafá Balaá, was a butcher and his mother was Juana Boglich

His trademarks were his particular bowl cut hairstyle and catch phrases with a nonsense

Nonsense

Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous...

 flavor, repeated in many gags:

• Q: ¿Qué gusto tiene la sal? ("What does salt taste like?") A: ¡Salada! ("Salty!")
• Q: ¿El chupete es..? ("The pacifier is..?") A: "¡Feo!" ("Ugly!") (to discourage toddlers from using them)
• ¡Mirá cómo tiemblo! ("See me shaking", mocking fear)
• ¡Te pasaste, Petronilo! ¡Pegá la vuelta! ("Petronilo, you're off the charts! Get back down!")
• Mamá... ¿cuándo nos vamos? ("Mommy, when do we leave?" - used by Balá's insufferable kid character to signal his impatience)
• ¿Un gestito de idea? ("Strike a clever pose!" - meaningless in Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
   as well)
• Ea-ea-a pe-pé
• ¡Zumbu-drule! (while Balá's hand hovers over his unsuspecting opponent's head like a spider)

On TV, Carlitos had a supposedly invisible dog named Angueto; Balá would be pulled around by a taut leash, with no dog at the end.

He also starred in movies, most notably in the Canuto Cañete series in the 1960s, and in other family-oriented films that opened during school vacations. He toured Argentina with many theatrical acts, and had many successful summer runs in the vacationing city of Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

. Some years, the act was embedded in a circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

.

In the years before cable television, Balá had a weekly TV show every year, cementing his status at the top of children entertainment, on par with Piluso

Alberto Olmedo

Alberto Olmedo was an Argentine comedian and actor.Olmedo was born in Barrio Pichincha, Rosario, Santa Fe Province. In his teens, he was a gifted gymnast and an aspiring actor, who tried his luck with several amateur theater companies and enjoyed some local success.Olmedo moved to Buenos Aires in...

 and Pepitito

José Marrone

José Carlos Marrone was an Argentine actor and humorist.His beginnings were in vaudeville theaters and the radio; afterwards he hosted several children-oriented TV shows, such as "El Circo de Marrone" , playing the clown character Pepitito...

.

External links

• Carlitos Balá at Montevideo.com.uy