El Hormiguero
Encyclopedia
El Hormiguero is a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 with a live audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

 focusing on comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, and politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 running since September 2006. It is hosted and produced by screenwriter Pablo Motos
Pablo Motos
Pablo Motos is the host of El Hormiguero, a popular Spanish television show.- Radio :Pablo Motos media began his career as a broadcaster and director of Radio Requena...

 and aired on Cuatro, a Spanish television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 station, until June 11, 2011 but since September 5, 2011 is showed in another channel, Antena 3
Antena 3 (Spain)
Antena 3 is a Spanish terrestrial television channel owned by Antena 3 de Televisión. Some of the more popular programmes broadcast by Antena 3 include Aquí no hay quien viva, El Barco, Los Protegidos, Los Simpson and El Internado....

. Recurring guests on the show include Luis Piedrahita
Luis Piedrahita
Luis Piedrahita Cuesta is a Spanish stand-up comedian, magician, script writer, broadcaster and author. He is known as "El Rey de las Cosas Pequeñas" , due to his monologues in which he critiques the lack of regard of everyday things such as toilet lids, carnivorous plants, etc.He became widely...

, Raquel Martos, Flipi (the scientist), and puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....

 ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s Trancas and Barrancas (names taken from the Spanish expression "a trancas y barrancas" what means "in fits and starts"). It has proved a ratings success, and has expanded from a weekly 120-minute show to a daily 40-minute show in its third season, which began on September 17, 2007.
The show won the Entertainment prize at the 2009 Rose d'Or
Rose d'Or
The Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40...

 ceremony.

Format

The show is based on an earlier radio program, broadcasted on M80 Radio
M80 Radio
M80 Radio is a radio station in Spain and Portugal playing music from the 70s, 80s and 90s.The station began the emission in 1993 and is owned by Grupo PRISA.Frequencies in Portugal:...

, called No Somos Nadie ("We Are Noone"). This show continued until June 2007, when Pablo Motos announced that he would be leaving the program to allow the daily production of El Hormiguero. No Somos Nadie returned in September 2007 with new on-air talent, since most of the old show's talent were part of the television show.

Segments on the show include science experiments with Flipi, which have included a car running on vegetable oil
Vegetable oil used as fuel
Vegetable oil is an alternative fuel for diesel engines and for heating oil burners. For engines designed to burn diesel fuel, the viscosity of vegetable oil must be lowered to allow for proper atomization of the fuel, otherwise incomplete combustion and carbon build up will ultimately damage the...

, hangover cures
Hangover
A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dysphoria, diarrhea and thirst, typically after the...

, a superconductivity
Superconductivity
Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance occurring in certain materials below a characteristic temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum...

 demonstration, and various chemical reaction
Chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...

 demonstrations. Each episode features a satirical rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

, commentary on current events, and humorous phrases as spoken by children. Other segments include pitches for viewers to plant trees and "El Kiosco," a section of magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 reviews. The show also airs parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of other media, which have included Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...

, Pop Idol
Pop Idol
Pop Idol is a British television series which debuted on ITV on 6 October 2001. The show was a talent contest to decide the best new young pop singer in the United Kingdom, based on viewer voting and participation. Two series were broadcast - one in 2001-02 and a second in 2003...

, House, and Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is an American television series which was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force . The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in...

. Many episodes have featured special celebrity guests, including Boris Izaguirre
Boris Izaguirre
Boris Rodolfo Izaguirre Lobo is a Venezuelan-Spanish screenwriter, journalist, writer and showman.Izaguirre wrote the scripts of some of the Venezuelan telenovelas: Rubí and La dama de Rosa. After their success in Spain, he went to live in Santiago de Compostela.In Spain, Izaguirre started to...

, David Bisbal
David Bisbal
David Bisbal Ferré is a Grammy-winning Spanish pop singer. He gained his initial fame as a runner up on the interactive reality television show Operación Triunfo produced by TJ Hall....

, Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro Sanz , is a Spanish singer-songwriter and musician. For his work, Sanz has won a total of fifteen Latin Grammy Awards and three Grammy Awards. He has won the Latin Grammy for Album of the Year three times, more than any other artist...

, Paulina Rubio
Paulina Rubio
Paulina Susana Rubio Rue is a Mexican singer and actress. Rubio achieved international stardom with her fifth studio album, Paulina...

, and numerous international celebrities such as Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

, Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Michelle Tisdale is an American actress and singer who rose to prominence portraying the candy-counter girl Maddie Fitzpatrick in Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and the female antagonist Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical film series...

 or Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

. Special guests on the show are sometimes involved throughout the episode, including taking part in the various stunts and science experiments. A number of changes to the show, including new segments such as a webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...

 call-in portion from viewers, were planned for the upcoming format change in the third season, however this segment and some others like training of wild monkeys
Animal training
Animal training refers to teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for the purpose of companionship, detection, protection, entertainment or all of the above....

 were removed, the first one due to the amount of time needed and the second one due to low popularity among the audience.

A very popular segment that was later introduced is Extreme Survival
Survive
Survive is the verb form of survival, and may also refer to:*Survive *Survive , or the title song*Survive *Survive , or the title song*"Survive"...

, that features "El maestro empanao" (which roughly translates as "Master Dumbass") Marron and the host Pablo Motos testing out tips and hints on how to survive extreme situations or conditions (such as how to survive being overrun by a car, trapped in a falling lift, attacked by a pack of wolves, etc.). Another popular segment includes Trancas and Barrancas making fun of the day's news. A satirical news show in which puppets read the news, Las noticias del guiñol
Las noticias del guiñol
Las noticias del guiñol was a satirical news programme that aired on Canal+ and Cuatro in Spain...

, formerly aired on Cuatro.

International attention

The show first received international attention in 2006 for having people walk across a swimming pool filled with a non-Newtonian fluid
Non-Newtonian fluid
A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid whose flow properties differ in any way from those of Newtonian fluids. Most commonly the viscosity of non-Newtonian fluids is not independent of shear rate or shear rate history...

, a suspension
Suspension (chemistry)
In chemistry, a suspension is a heterogeneous fluid containing solid particles that are sufficiently large for sedimentation. Usually they must be larger than 1 micrometer. The internal phase is dispersed throughout the external phase through mechanical agitation, with the use of certain...

 of cornstarch
Cornstarch
Corn starch, cornstarch, cornflour or maize starch is the starch of the corn grain obtained from the endosperm of the corn kernel.-History:...

 and water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 called oobleck, that was mixed in a cement truck. This experiment was performed in an October 2006 episode of the show and was repeated with a new batch of oobleck on the Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

 special episode due to its popularity. In 2007, Cuatro signed an agreement with YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 that allows clips from Cuatro programs, including El Hormiguero, to be showcased on the site. In 2009, El Hormiguero was awarded as the best entertainment program in the international Rose d'Or
Rose d'Or
The Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40...

 awards. The win was the fourth time a Spanish program has received the award, the first since 1994.

Since 2008, the show has received a large number of appearances from international celebrities including professional wrestlers Batista and Rey Mysterio from WWE, the actors Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

, Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...

, Matt Dallas
Matt Dallas
Matthew Joseph "Matt" Dallas is an American actor, best known for playing the titular character on the ABC Family series, Kyle XY.-Personal life:Dallas was born in Phoenix, Arizona and attended Arizona School for the Arts...

, Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...

; Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...

 stars Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is an American actor.Matthew Fox may also refer to:* Matt Fox , American songwriter and producer a.k.a...

 and Jorge Garcia
Jorge Garcia
Jorge García is a U.S. actor and comedian. He first came to public attention with his performance as Hector Lopez on the television show Becker and later for his portrayal of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the television series Lost. Garcia also performs as a stand-up comedian.-Early life:García was born...

; Tokio Hotel
Tokio Hotel
Tokio Hotel is a pop rock band from Germany, founded in 2001 by singer Bill Kaulitz, guitarist Tom Kaulitz, drummer Gustav Schäfer and bassist Georg Listing...

; The Jonas Brothers
Jonas Brothers
The Jonas Brothers are an American boy band. The band gained its popularity from the Disney Channel children's television network. From the shore region of New Jersey, the band consists of three brothers: Paul Kevin Jonas II , Joseph Adam Jonas , and Nicholas Jerry Jonas...

, The Backstreet Boys
Backstreet Boys
The Backstreet Boys are an American vocal group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The band originally consisted of A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Nick Carter and Kevin Richardson. They rose to fame with their debut international album, Backstreet Boys...

, Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...

, Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...

, Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...

, Jaden Smith
Jaden Smith
Jaden Christopher Syre Smith is an American child actor, rapper, songwriter, dancer, and the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. He is the elder brother of singer Willow Smith...

, Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...

, Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

, Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...

, Rob Schneider
Rob Schneider
Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow:...

, Michael C. Hall
Michael C. Hall
Michael Carlyle Hall is an American actor whose television roles include David Fisher on the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and Dexter Morgan on the Showtime series Dexter. In 2009, Hall won a Golden Globe award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in Dexter.-Early life:Hall was born in...

, Jean Reno
Jean Reno
Jean Reno is a French actor. Working in French, English, Spanish and Italian, he has appeared not only in numerous successful Hollywood productions such as The Pink Panther, Godzilla, The Da Vinci Code, Mission: Impossible, Ronin and Couples Retreat, but also in European productions such as the...

, Emma Stone,Ke$ha, Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Michelle Tisdale is an American actress and singer who rose to prominence portraying the candy-counter girl Maddie Fitzpatrick in Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and the female antagonist Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical film series...

, the young actresses Selena Gomez
Selena Gomez
Selena Marie Gomez is an American actress and singer best known for portraying Alex Russo in the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place...

, Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

, Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...

, and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...

.

In 2009, Siete y Acción licensed the show's format to an Italian production company to produce a local version of the show. Also in 2009, a Chilean and a Brazilian versions were produced only to meet bad reviews in both countries.

After Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse Adam Eisenberg is an American actor. He made his screen debut with the comedy-drama television series Get Real from 1999 to 2000...

 spoke negatively about his experience as guest on El Hormiguero, in an interview with Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....

 on TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...

's Conan, Pablo Motos gave a humorous retort to the actor and the American talk-show host from the Spanish program.

In 2011, El Hormiguero was nominated to an International Emmy Award in the Non-scripted entertainment category.

Cast

  • Pablo Motos
    Pablo Motos
    Pablo Motos is the host of El Hormiguero, a popular Spanish television show.- Radio :Pablo Motos media began his career as a broadcaster and director of Radio Requena...

     - Himself - Host
  • Juan Ibáñez Pérez - Himself - Trancas
  • Damián Molla Herman - Himself - Barrancas
  • Enrique Pérez Vergara ("Flipy") - El científico loco(The Mad Scientist)(Until 5th season)
  • Jandro - El experto en todo (The expert in everything) and Contador de chistes con carteles (Jokes with posters)(5th season)
  • Raquel Martos González - Herself
  • Luis Piedrahita
    Luis Piedrahita
    Luis Piedrahita Cuesta is a Spanish stand-up comedian, magician, script writer, broadcaster and author. He is known as "El Rey de las Cosas Pequeñas" , due to his monologues in which he critiques the lack of regard of everyday things such as toilet lids, carnivorous plants, etc.He became widely...

     - El rey de las cosas pequeñas (The King of Little Things) and "Mago que revela sus propios trucos" (Wizard that reveals his own stunts)(5th season)
  • Jorge Marrón Martín - El Maestro Empanao (The Dumbass Master), "El efecto mariposa" (The Butterfly effect), "El científico" (5th Season, The Scientist)

External links


Media

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