While I'm working here in Mexico I’ve been getting up very early and discovering some of the wild, trippy puppetry that airs on Latin American cable. By far my favorite shows so far is 31 Minutos, an insanely popular Spanish program produced in Chile, which I had heard about back in Canada, but never had the opportunity to actually watch until now.
The show’s name takes itself from 60 Minutes and the series is as popular with adults as it is with kids, due in no small part to the fact that many of the show’s puppet characters are parodies of popular Chilean television personalities. My Spanish is much too rudimentary to understand much of what's actually being said, but the show is so high energy and jam-packed with puppets, music and visual gags that it’s an absolute blast to watch, even if you can’t understand a word of it.
Three seasons of the show have been produced since 2003 and there is even talk about a possible feature film version in the future. For those of you in Latin America or with access to a satellite that carries Spanish language channels, you can catch the series on Mundonick and TVN.
Videos and pictures from 31 Minutos are available on the show's official site and you can also check out the Official Community of 31 Minutos (click here for a poorly translated English language version).
