2023-07-24 00:50:38
Ramón García (Bilbao, 61 years old) returns to La 1 de TVE and he does so today, at 10:35 p.m. with one of the programs that marked his career, ‘El Grand Prix del Verano’. Accompanied by Cristinini, Michelle Calvó and Wilbur, the legendary presenter will once again lead this family program where eight towns compete against each other over seven installments in this kind of “Olympics of Spanish municipalities”, as García has once defined them. Produced by RTVE in collaboration with EuroTV Producciones (Grupo iZen), the towns that will compete this Monday are Alfacar (Granada) and Colmenarejo (Madrid). And with two exceptional godparents: Miguel Ángel Muñoz and Lolita.
-He was moved during the presentation.
-Yeah. I am a bit of an easy tear and I don’t like to watch the programs I do. I only see them when I have detected a problem to correct it. And then when, well, one sees the images, memories of the Buñuel studios begin to come back to you, which are no longer there, of the tent that was built for the ‘What do we bet?’ in 1993, which was for a summer and he spent 14 years there. And then all the things suddenly come together. I remember the colleagues who are no longer here, who accompanied me at the beginning of this project. During that journey I was a father and when I talk about my daughters I get very emotional. But it’s pretty, isn’t it? Because that is attached to the program and it is attached to what I am when it comes to presenting as well. And what a hair he had, really, now with all the cardboard here already (laughs).
-He was in charge of the format for eleven uninterrupted summers. Was it always clear that she wanted to come back?
-Look, Carlo Boserman, general director of EuroTV, and I have been with the idea of continuing since it was finished. We were very clear that ‘The Grand Prix’ had a long life. What happens is that there was a time impasse where the great entertainment programs disappeared from television in Spain. We parked the project there. As executive producer, Carlo was in charge of trying, but he didn’t come out. When I met Ibai about the issue of the bells, he told me that he was a child from the ‘Grand Prix’ and we were about to do it together, what happens is that due to circumstances it did not come out and suddenly we were about to do it in another place and the call from Televisión Española came and we are delighted here because this is the natural home of this program.
-The way of consuming television has changed a lot in all this time. Will they manage to capture the viewer as before?
That’s the big question and I don’t have the answer. How are we going to achieve that? I was considering it. I really like to play devil’s advocate and when I got the whole team together, I would ask them: «Let’s see, 2023, are young people under 18 going to sit and watch a gray-haired guy, half bald, running with two girls and some people in costumes? We are crazy?”. Because there is not, there is not even a heifer, that the heifer had its point. For me, the heifer is a big loss when it comes to retaining viewers, especially in rural areas, which is where ‘El Grand Prix’ is seen a lot. Will we be able to do it? Well, I don’t know, that’s going to be my challenge. What have we done to make it work? Renew. There are no longer ballets, but curtains that are more reminiscent of video games. The role of Cristina López, Cristinini, is fundamental: she sits in a streamer’s booth to broadcast all the games and that world will be the support for the younger people, the people of social networks. I have to play my role as master of ceremonies, help and sew everything a bit, glue everything so that everything works and makes sense. The expectation is very great.
Are you worried about disappointing old viewers?
-I have also asked myself that, that they may think: «Jo, what a pain in the ass. The troncolocos again, the cow is gone, Ramón is older. Is this going to be the same? Well, I don’t want to see it anymore.” And I think so because we have also changed and our way of entertaining ourselves has also changed. But just like before, grandparents and parents watched the program and had a good time, we who have grown up, I’m already a father, why can’t I have a good time watching a program for a couple of hours if I do it with my daughters, if I do it with my grandchildren? That is the concept. The grandparent and child program. See it with family. There are kids in their thirties who are already meeting up for when ‘The Grand Prix’ airs.
-How has your relationship been over the years with the towns?
-The first year Cudillero won and they invited me. They made me a pixueto of honor that is like Cudillero’s favorite son. I remember that I was in Laredo then, with my wife, and I told her let’s go and spend a weekend. I arrived unshaven and in a T-shirt and when we got to Cudillero there was a queue to get off. The Civil Guard came: “Don Ramón, we were waiting for you.” I thought we were going incognito and the whole town was full of banners with a band of pipers waiting for us, the Minister of Culture, fireworks, a gala dinner… I had to buy a shirt. Then we had a great time. And also with the money from the contest they opened the tourist office. From that moment on, when the towns came, they would say to me: «Ramón, will you give us the proclamation? All”.
-And how many did he do?
-None. Because I couldn’t be in all the places, so in order not to make comparative grievances, I didn’t do any. I would have won a lot… Because then that was very well paid.
-Is ‘The Grand Prix’ the best marketing campaign for a town?
-It’s like that. Two and a half hours of program in ‘prime time’ talking about your town. In addition, each town makes its presentation video and you can’t even imagine the level, with drones and God’s. Then ‘The Grand Prix’ has also been renewed. The production is new, the lighting is awesome. All the little houses on the set and all the windows have their lights behind them. Now everything is alive. Each test is going to have its lighting, that is, visually the program has gained a lot because all the technique behind it has also evolved.
-You have spoken in the presentation of the refusals that the directors of the different chains gave you to the idea of resurrecting ‘El Grand Prix’. What reasons did they give?
-Well, it was a program from before and that on the new television it had no place. We told them: «Hey, it’s not ‘The Grand Prix’ from before. That it is new, that it is different ». Because we were changing it every year to adapt to the new times and that is why we already had this greased. But hey, television directives are that and they are stages. At that time I did ‘The Grand Prix’, ‘All in the family’ and ‘What do we bet?’. They were large formats but it is true that they cost a lot of money. And suddenly we enter a television where everything is getting smaller, where the radio is televised. When I see six guys sitting around talking, I always say it’s televised radio. Not here, here there is movement, there are games, there are changes of scenery, one comes out, another comes out, costume changes… And that’s what I like to do.
-He looks stoked.
-I am the guy who has the best time doing this program because I am the guy who is closest to the games and I see the real hostions. I am the one who has the most fun with it and I always tell the team that this is what must be transmitted to the viewer, that we are having a good time. I mean, I really laugh and I cry with laughter doing this program.
-Could you go back ‘What do we bet?’
-Everything is possible. At that time Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroniani, Sofía Loren, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell came… That was a very nice claim, but it cost a lot of money. Each bet was a different set, a different wardrobe, different guests… In other words, that expensive television now does not pass the filter of television budgets. That’s why they stopped doing the big formats, but there are always talented people who do things that leave you speechless. And that was the ‘What do we bet?’. Yes, the guests were very striking, but the important thing was the bets and now that they say that the television of the nineties is coming back…
Can you imagine him with Ana Obregón?
-Man, that would be a fantasy, right? Do with Obregón again the ‘What do we bet?’, imagine.
-To what exactly do you attribute that return of television from before?
-It is cyclical, nostalgia always returns. Nostalgia pulls the formats, and also the lack of creativity. TV is cyclical, there are programs that were part of TV and a little bit the basis of creativity and on that basis substitutes are created. But they are substitutes.
-And would you like to do a national program like the one you do in Castilla-La Mancha, ‘En compañía’?
I’d love to. Yesterday, my program was an audience record on regional television. Two toothless old men and an old widow, that’s the show. Some who can’t read or write, but do you know why it works? Because of the emotions, because they are true stories and I enjoy that. I am now going to Toledo happy because I know that I am going to help someone really to end loneliness, that this is the real pandemic, among older people, but also among young people, for me it is a luxury to be able to do it. It would be a bombshell to do it at a national level because we would reach more people and the more people see these things, the more ability to help you.
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