Wowowee Philippine Daily Children's Party
January 8th 2009 06:56
As I'm writing this, I've done lunch and in my desk watching WOWOWEE, the daily children's party that Filipinologists make sure they watch live whenever they're in town. I'm told that there are such people; who are in love with everything Filipino, including the said lunchtime show.
Speaking from a purely boobtube viewer standpoint, the show is very entertaining for the child in me.
In fact, in our clan reunion last Christmas we even played the incredibly childish game of HEP-HEP-HOORAY in four categories so everybody got to know the new members of the clan: Teenagers (who only see each other on Christmas and are twistfully shy making friends); Kids (who can't concentrate away from PSPs to play well); Mamas who had the most fun and made the most noise; and Papas (who fought to the finish ala Manny Pacquiao and me egging them on screaming "Sino dyan si de la Joya?" at the top of my lungs).
Of course the clan elders were front seat watching their genes at play in their progeny. Of course, the Papas had to be dragged from outside where they were smoking, discussing investment prospects for the coming year and laughing at front page news reports.
Of course, the two most affluent in the clan donated the prizes for the HEP-HEP game.
Of course, the prizes under the tree wrapped up by the host Lola turned out to be Macy's Pre-Christmas sale bags sent via balikbayan box. The tired Emcees (master of ceremonies) took it as consolation prizes and got a shrieking surprise. I was lucky enough to get a patent leather purse done in black & white cheques but ended up swapping it for a chinese silk eyeglass bag and leather coin purse with my cousin who eyed the bag dreamily.
The game show host of WOWOWEE (whose earnings supposedly rivaled that of Manny Pacquiao's before the latter wisened up & got a percentage of paper view) is aptly described in the local parlance as "kenkoy"; a post-WWII Filipino magazine cartoon character who parts his hair in the middle and applies thick grease ala John Travolta and sports a black tuxedo.
The singers in the show, amateur or professional, invariably sing live and are always excellent. In this country, if you can't sing live and project at performance levels you don't get the time of day from anyone, no kidding.
We had an Asian- American NYU student we took around the country some ten years back. We took him to Mindanao and as we were winding up his exposure trip we sampled the night life in what is now refugee-ridden Cotabato City after the latest peace talks broke down with the Muslims. We did karaoke, after he said he was the best karaoke singer in Manhattan with a repertoire of Frank Sinatra songs.
We entered the club as the microphone was being passed around the tables. We took a table, ordered the usual San Miguels and thought about which songs we wanted to sing. Ever attentive on his Philippine exposure mode, he listened to each and every person to whom the mike was passed in the four or five tables until the mike came to our table.
He asked us to go first, so we sang our requested songs with me drunkenly belting out "Bed of Roses". After which he gracefully passed up singing his requested song "New York, New York". "Sh..t" he must've thought "who could've figured they could sing so well in this G--forsaken furthest nook of the country?"
There's an e-group that condemns WOWOWEE as projecting a denigrating image of the Phils. I can't be a member of that.
If its such a hit I refuse to even consider the proposition that its denigrating.
Filipinos are Filipinos are Filipinos no matter where you find them.
The belly dancers may be objected to as sexist but watch out for the men in the audience as the cameras pan this way and that. These men who look with a child's appreciation of the surgical make-over the girls go through (from the nose or boob job to the skin whitening to the hair straightening to the liposuction, etc., etc) knowing there's a family happily waiting for the paycheck at home. Of course there's the other kind of man audience too; but you can blame their women-folk for not bringing them up right; right?
Also, in the two-income family environment we have in this country where the women usually earn more than the men, the men pay attention when the women want to have their say.
Hillary fans rue Obama's victory in Manhattan but two women presidents in this country take the worst political pot shots (including the assassination of a beloved husband and father) that would shrivel up most men. Women senators are dime a dozen here and it is culturally acceptable (at least they rarely get beaten up these says) to dress up as a woman and go to the men's bathroom for a piss.
If we are sexist, we are tolerably so. Tolerance levels in this country are very high; even to a fault. Why?
Tolerance is in the genes. It comes with multi-cultural diversity and a deep love for peace for the enjoyment of family.
We are not backward, stupid, parochial, crabby or whatever else the disillusioned want to say to justify their leaving this country for greener pastures. (With global warming, this side of the world is now literally THE greener pasture).
Jose Rizal quoting Morga and in turn quoted by the group of Filipinos who first climbed Mt. Everest and are now embarked on a mid-2009 sailboat journey to Europe on boats to be built by the Islamized and severely marginalized Badjao tribe -- "when the Spanish landed in our shores they found Latin-speaking natives".
They embark on the journey to prove that before Spain "discovered" these Islands, we had already gone to Europe and back via the current that runs somewhere in the Pacific. (And they admit to having no previous experience with sailing!!! Hehehe, maybe the Badjao's ancestral spirits will accompany them.)
So here's to WOWOWEE fans worldwide. Cheers!
Speaking from a purely boobtube viewer standpoint, the show is very entertaining for the child in me.
In fact, in our clan reunion last Christmas we even played the incredibly childish game of HEP-HEP-HOORAY in four categories so everybody got to know the new members of the clan: Teenagers (who only see each other on Christmas and are twistfully shy making friends); Kids (who can't concentrate away from PSPs to play well); Mamas who had the most fun and made the most noise; and Papas (who fought to the finish ala Manny Pacquiao and me egging them on screaming "Sino dyan si de la Joya?" at the top of my lungs).
Of course the clan elders were front seat watching their genes at play in their progeny. Of course, the Papas had to be dragged from outside where they were smoking, discussing investment prospects for the coming year and laughing at front page news reports.
Of course, the two most affluent in the clan donated the prizes for the HEP-HEP game.
Of course, the prizes under the tree wrapped up by the host Lola turned out to be Macy's Pre-Christmas sale bags sent via balikbayan box. The tired Emcees (master of ceremonies) took it as consolation prizes and got a shrieking surprise. I was lucky enough to get a patent leather purse done in black & white cheques but ended up swapping it for a chinese silk eyeglass bag and leather coin purse with my cousin who eyed the bag dreamily.
The game show host of WOWOWEE (whose earnings supposedly rivaled that of Manny Pacquiao's before the latter wisened up & got a percentage of paper view) is aptly described in the local parlance as "kenkoy"; a post-WWII Filipino magazine cartoon character who parts his hair in the middle and applies thick grease ala John Travolta and sports a black tuxedo.
The singers in the show, amateur or professional, invariably sing live and are always excellent. In this country, if you can't sing live and project at performance levels you don't get the time of day from anyone, no kidding.
We had an Asian- American NYU student we took around the country some ten years back. We took him to Mindanao and as we were winding up his exposure trip we sampled the night life in what is now refugee-ridden Cotabato City after the latest peace talks broke down with the Muslims. We did karaoke, after he said he was the best karaoke singer in Manhattan with a repertoire of Frank Sinatra songs.
We entered the club as the microphone was being passed around the tables. We took a table, ordered the usual San Miguels and thought about which songs we wanted to sing. Ever attentive on his Philippine exposure mode, he listened to each and every person to whom the mike was passed in the four or five tables until the mike came to our table.
He asked us to go first, so we sang our requested songs with me drunkenly belting out "Bed of Roses". After which he gracefully passed up singing his requested song "New York, New York". "Sh..t" he must've thought "who could've figured they could sing so well in this G--forsaken furthest nook of the country?"
There's an e-group that condemns WOWOWEE as projecting a denigrating image of the Phils. I can't be a member of that.
If its such a hit I refuse to even consider the proposition that its denigrating.
Filipinos are Filipinos are Filipinos no matter where you find them.
The belly dancers may be objected to as sexist but watch out for the men in the audience as the cameras pan this way and that. These men who look with a child's appreciation of the surgical make-over the girls go through (from the nose or boob job to the skin whitening to the hair straightening to the liposuction, etc., etc) knowing there's a family happily waiting for the paycheck at home. Of course there's the other kind of man audience too; but you can blame their women-folk for not bringing them up right; right?
Also, in the two-income family environment we have in this country where the women usually earn more than the men, the men pay attention when the women want to have their say.
Hillary fans rue Obama's victory in Manhattan but two women presidents in this country take the worst political pot shots (including the assassination of a beloved husband and father) that would shrivel up most men. Women senators are dime a dozen here and it is culturally acceptable (at least they rarely get beaten up these says) to dress up as a woman and go to the men's bathroom for a piss.
If we are sexist, we are tolerably so. Tolerance levels in this country are very high; even to a fault. Why?
Tolerance is in the genes. It comes with multi-cultural diversity and a deep love for peace for the enjoyment of family.
We are not backward, stupid, parochial, crabby or whatever else the disillusioned want to say to justify their leaving this country for greener pastures. (With global warming, this side of the world is now literally THE greener pasture).
Jose Rizal quoting Morga and in turn quoted by the group of Filipinos who first climbed Mt. Everest and are now embarked on a mid-2009 sailboat journey to Europe on boats to be built by the Islamized and severely marginalized Badjao tribe -- "when the Spanish landed in our shores they found Latin-speaking natives".
They embark on the journey to prove that before Spain "discovered" these Islands, we had already gone to Europe and back via the current that runs somewhere in the Pacific. (And they admit to having no previous experience with sailing!!! Hehehe, maybe the Badjao's ancestral spirits will accompany them.)
So here's to WOWOWEE fans worldwide. Cheers!
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