Organic food marketers will have you believe that us (i.e. The Mexicans) have a way of going about carrying a bunch of essential herbs, including non-essential nor-necessarily Mexican herbs [peppermint leaf, cumin seed, basil and coriander.]
I do carry around some Mexican chili powder, except in Mexico I just call it “chili powder.”
Cumbia Ninja is the story of a group of cumbia musicians and a Chinese ninja who live in some unnamed Latin American slum.
What happens when an old Chinese ninja master meets a group of cumbia musicians living in a Latin American slum controlled by drug dealers?
Well, I’m not really sure but we will soon find out, as MundoFox last week announced the upcoming premiere of Cumbia Ninja, an original series set in a Latin American slum (we’re not sure which one, but I guess they’re all the same,) where a young idealist and his buddies come up with an unusual way to clean up the streets where they live.
I don’t know you, but anything that doesn’t include a septuagenarian dancing around with a group of scantily-clad Latinas on a Saturday afternoon or some evil twin trying to poison the hacendado in a primetime telenovela sounds very refreshing.
Miblogestublog CEO and a bunch of blurry people who insisted on taking a picture with her.
This is exhausting! In addition to covering this week’s Hispanic TV Upfronts for these guys and these guys, I had to save some juicy details for the not-so-serious side of the 3-day-marathon of parties, parties and parties, programming presentations, interviews and business meetings.
* Hispanic TV Upfront week started May 13 with two networks, Azteca America and Estrella TV, holding “intimate dinners” at the exact same time in two very distant places, presumably to keep me from attending either. But, as you all know by now, I’m a sneaky Mexican and managed to attend both.
* Estrella TV brought to dinner at Tao Restaurant its most recent acquisition, Myrka Dellanos, who looked amazing and who is now going to be news anchoring instead of selling toothpaste.
* As it has been the case before, I crashed the People en Español party at Marquee, which was OK, but not nearly as as glamorous and/or fun as previous years. However, beggars can’t be chosers, so I shut up now. Besides, I must continue to be nice to them, especially to Elvis Lizardo, who famously calls me “The Mexican glue that keep us all together.”
Marlon Moreno and Hernán Lopez, uno más guapo que el otro
* After surveilling the venue for some famous bellos, I realized celebrities are not the only beautiful bunch, so I proceded to propose People en Español Editor ArmandoCorrea a co-production of “Los 50 ejecutivos más bellos del mercado latino,” a list that would be curated by @miblogestublog -of course, and published and promoted by Time Inc. or someone with that kind of money. I’m thinking MundoFox’ Hernán López should go on the cover, while Telemundo’s Peter Blacker will take the back cover, though I’m still not sure. Other execs being considered: Mundo Fox’ Oswald Mendez, Telemundo’s Emilio Romano and Fusion’s Miguel Ferrer. [This blog is accepting submissions now.]
* Tuesday events kicked off at 11:00 am at The New Amsterdam Theatre, where Univision held a lavish presentation for over 1,600 guests.
* Pretty much all those 1,600 guests then walked or took buses to Univision’s after party, which took place at ESPACE, where there was not a lot of “espace” nor food to feed all those hungry mouths. At some point, many attendees grew restless and angry as waiter after waiter kept passing in front of us with trays full of food, but destined to “VIP’s only.” That didn’t stop me, however, so I quickly managed to get a hold of a VERY VIP name tag (above) in order to secure some mini-burgers.
* The stunt didn’t work and I had to settle for a peanut butter cookie that surely contained about 5,325 calories.
* Since it secured me no food whatsoever, my Randy Falco name tag made a second appearance later that night at the Telemundo upfront in Lincoln Center, where it was not as well received as I had imagined. I still wore it to go say ‘hi’ to NBCU’s Chairman of Hispanic Ventures Joe Uva, who requested my immediate removal from the premises. [I stayed.]
* The marathon continued Wednesday with a noon presentation by Fox Hispanic Media at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The presentation included FHM’s four networks: Fox Deportes, Fox Life, Nat Geo Mundo and Mundo Fox. It attracted some big talent, including Bárbara Mori, Marlon Moreno, Mario Lopez and Oscar de la Hoya, who came onstage not wearing fishnet stockings but a pair of cowboy boots.
* After a presentation that seemed to last hours, most of us headed East towards Vme’s upfront at the Instituto Cervantes. Under new management, Vme hosted a small, intimate, sit-down presentation in a dark basement with no cellular signal whatsoever, making it the perfect setting for a much needed afternoon nap. (I caught several executives and members of the media happily snoring away, but I decided not to publish their names, mostly because it wouldn’t be fair and because I was also fast asleep.)
The Elevator’s Daniel Salcedo and me, before my Vme nap
* The marathon ended Wednesday night with a much-needed, circus-themed party hosted by Viacom’s Tr3s and headlined by Daddy Yankee, who made even the most stiff media executive shake his/her hips. EXTRA BONUS POINT for Tr3s, which spared us the power points and the data on Hispanic TV audience growth, etc. etc. etc.
This is Daddy Yankee in a very bad photo taken by @bathtubmedia
Yet, my favorite moment this week came at the Tr3s party when I was able to capture the following shot, featuring the great Eduardo Caballero, the father, grandfather, godfather of Hispanic media, and Ari Madrid, probably the craziest -and smartest- millennial I’ve ever met and one of the youngest entrants to this business.
Caballero changed the media world once. Ari will change it forever.
Media revolucionarios. Eduardo Caballero & Ariadna Madrid
Disney, the company that thinks Latino families dance cumbia while at an amusement park, this week unveiled the Disney Royal Ball collection, “the first ever line of Quinceañera gowns inspired by the inner qualities, personalities and stories of the Disney Princess characters.”
According to Gilberto Martinez Kladt, the VP of licensing of Disney Princess, and not related to this blogger:
Disney is thrilled to provide young Latinas with the opportunity to celebrate the elegance, grace and poise of their favorite Disney Princess characters on such a special and momentous day.
I’m not sure how much grace and/or poise you can display strutting around in these things; but then again, I am a little past my quinceañera, and for sure cannot afford these graceful dresses, which range between $530-$999. I guess I’ll have to find a way to display elegance, grace and poise in jeans and a pair of huaraches.
Univision’s upfront presentation Tuesday in New York City included some surprises and lots of more-of-the-same programming announcements.
There were some humorous moments, though, including a collective seizure (i.e. Harlem Shake) performed by Steve Mandala and his top sales team. However, this blogger’s favorite moment has got to be this AT&T spoof spot in which Univision CEO Randy Falco asks four adorable, non-Hispanic children what’s better, more or less?.
Watch it here:
This blogger is so tired from all this partying busy this week, that a proper upfront round-up will not come until the weekend (sit tight.) However, I thought you’d like to know that barely minutes after Univision wrapped its upfront presentation under the theme “One for all,” NBCU found it amusing to park a van right outside Univision’s party venue using the exact same tagline but touting NBCU, not Univision, as the company that reaches 90% of all Hispanics.
NBCU does indeed reach a large percentage of Hispanics as it owns not only a bunch of English-language networks that are popular among Latinos, but also mun2 and Telemundo.
The stunt was the most talked about subject during both, Univision’s and Telemundo’s parties, during which this blogger drank only cranberry juice and an occasional glass of water.
Photo: Mediamoves
It seems to me that everyone and their mother tonight are talking about the amazing ‘Space Oddity’ cover by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. So I won’t bother you guys with it.
However, much more relevant to this blog is Hadfield’s comprehensive explanation of why tortillas are better than bread in space… (and everywhere else, if I might add.) Watch him walk you through making a “sandwich” in space and behold the floating tortilla.
