The Galician comedian Robert Bodegas makes up one half of the comedy duo Pantomima Fullbut the pair, which completes Albert Marriedrarely shares shots in the popular short videos that make up the format that sweeps YouTube by caricaturing “people who freak out.” Foodies, runners, CEOs and tormented writers will return to the target of their jokes on April 29 at the World Humor Meeting. your show, In his head it was spectacular, will open the performances at the Teatro Colón at 8:30 p.m.
They open the World Meeting of Humorism with their show In his head it was spectacular, a motto from one of the Pantomime Full videos popularized as a meme. Who are they shooting at this time?
It’s a bit of the usual. The topics of the videos are discussed: from entrepreneurs, backpackers, foodies, chefs, and, in short, people who have been blown away by a move. It is our universe. When planning a show, you focus on the topics that have been liked the most during the year. In the end, the videos are so short that many times you are left thinking that much more could be said about this or that. Well, this show is for this.
Pantomime Full videos have a very specific format, with an agile montage. How do you adapt it to live?
It totally changes, but, in the end, the main difference is that we are both together all the time, because in the videos there is only one. It is the opportunity to check that we get along. The show is about developing themes that we deal with in the videos. Sometimes it develops as a monologue, or bring up a topic and present our criticism and our vision with audiovisual support, and other times in a sketch format, and suddenly each one is a character. I don’t know if it’s a big sale, but it is what it is. I understand that, in the previous show, people had a hard time imagining how it would be taken to a theater. Now, the fact that many people have repeated at the end is the best guarantee. Talking to fellow comedians, they always say they find it cool, even though it doesn’t have the rhythm of the videos. Since it has so many segments, they are minigags that happen one after the other, with more duration. In the end, the feeling is like when you watch videos on YouTube, where one ends and another begins, and although the intention was to see only one, you end up watching ten.
Not even you imagined the repercussion that the format would have. Now, every time they release a video, it practically becomes news: “Pantomime Full caricatures collective X in their new video…”
Yes, but I think that the fact that it is news is more a need for the media to give movement to their social networks than anything else. We did not imagine the repercussion, of course, it would be crazy or presumptuous, but it is true that the media take you out every week.
Is there some sociological study and observation of reality behind your videos?
To be a studio it would have to be objective, but in the end yes, it’s about that, about showing the anthology of a generation, of millennials. Going forward, when you want to see what these people were like, you have a kind of library. It serves to see that in 2020 there were those of the crossfit, the foodies… in the end, everything is so ephemeral that it makes it infinite, because society will keep putting things out. We recently did one of the morning routine. There have always been people who got up early, but now there’s getting up early as a pose: I’m more productive than anyone else because at 5:30 in the morning I’m already reading marketing in English and I get up five hours before my day starts to meditate. It’s a very current thing and, as things appear all the time, if you’re a little attentive you can reflect it. It is curious to see how a type of business suddenly invades the city: a while ago it was frozen yogurt stalls, then vapers. They are there for a year, people see it everywhere and they all end up eating frozen yogurt or vaping, then that self-regulates and there are two stores left that take advantage of the real demand for it. There is something that fills a city with things to try and after a year they change it for something else.
Many can (or we can) recognize us in the attitudes that they laugh at in their videos. Is it a way to laugh at yourself?
Sure. It’s gotten to a point where there are so many videos that it’s hard to escape from ourselves. At the end eight little moments appear, and you realize that you have fallen into four things, or even that it is you 100%. Normally people find it funny to be recognized, but there are those who are annoyed or angry. It’s an acidic thing, but it’s not usually so ruthless that someone can really get upset.
For many, Pantomime Full is one of the best examples of what can be done humor at someone’s expense without being hurtful.
Yes, although I believe that deep down nobody tries to be hurtful, although you can be. It is a matter of sensitivities. There are videos in which we also value how cruel we can be with the character, depending on whether we like him better or worse. If he is a bad person, we try to be as cruel as we can. If the character is the typical one who always hangs out in groups of friends because he has to book the hotel when there is a trip, or buy the gift when there is a birthday, you are not going to bait someone who is a bit looser either, but he gets fire chestnuts to people and keeps groups of friends on their feet. That of the CEO, because in the end he is a ghost that treats the workers badly and pays you in happiness, so you say: let’s give it a go. That video created a lot of buzz on Linkedin.
Has anyone ever been taken for granted for bad?
Yes, it is not the most common, but when you have that much reach, it is not difficult for someone to take it to heart and insult you. Then there is something that makes us very funny, which is the people who are not familiar with it and believe that it is true. He spent a lot of time with one that Alberto made that he lived in London and that Spain was too lazy for him, that he was wanting to get away. That video went very viral, and it was full of comments saying: Well, don’t come back! Stay in fucking England! Subnormal, like in Spain nowhere!
Consider that now there is a chance that someone will come up and punch them.
It is true. Well, if it happens, I hope that whoever gives it to us tries at least not to break any teeth, as well as courtesy.