The end of advertising-as-entertainment: Carosello

Until the end of the 1970s, people would wait for the commercials… now, as soon as they appear, we change the channel. Those moments when we were told “and after Carosello, everyone to bed” are somewhat missed!

Indeed, as children, dear Discolovers, the moment that marked the end of the day was the broadcasting of five commercials (the word “spot” did not yet exist) preceded by very short films, cartoons, or animated puppets: namely, Carosello.
The television program Carosello was born on February 3, 1957. To avoid criticism from those who paid the license fee and did not appreciate television advertising, RAI decided to associate each commercial with an introductory mini-film that summarized self-contained stories in a few minutes.
The production of these mini-films thus became a training ground where all the major national directors cut their teeth. The public success was such that even the most famous actors did not disdain participating in these sketches. Among the directors who tried their hand at Carosello were the Taviani brothers and Ermanno Olmi, while among the actors, the participation of the great Eduardo De Filippo and the future Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo is certainly worth remembering.
However, Carosello had precise rules imposed by RAI: the duration of each individual advertisement was fixed at two minutes and fifteen seconds, of which a maximum of thirty-five seconds could be dedicated to the actual advertising message. From 1974, the duration of each individual commercial was shortened to one minute and forty seconds.
Censorship became strict: improper or allusive words could not be used. Throughout all the Carosello spots, the word “bird” was never used. A well-known brand of laxatives, in boasting the qualities of its product, was never able to use the phrase “regulates the bowels” but always had to stick to a much more chaste phrase: “regulates the organism”.
But which of those old advertisements do you remember?
I remember: the Bialetti coffee makers, which featured the “little man with a mustache” created by Paul Campani as their spokesperson.
Caffè Paulista, an advertisement created by Armando Testa who invented the puppet duo Caballero and Carmencita for this coffee. Between pistols and Mexican peones with Neapolitan accents, the phrases remained in our memory: “Bambina, sei già mia, chiudi il gas e vieni via!” (Baby, you’re already mine, turn off the gas and come away!).
And do you remember the Cynar carosello? A distinguished actor sat at a table in the middle of a large city’s traffic and sipped a liqueur: it was Ernesto Calindri advertising the bitter Cynar to combat “the wear and tear of modern life”.

But above all, I remember Calimero, the spokesperson for Mira Lanza detergents. The small black chick perhaps became the most famous character of Carosello for us children of the time, but his contribution to the success of the detergents with which his stories were associated was not high at all.
This whole world of advertising mini-films ended after approximately forty-two thousand films on January 1, 1977, when the last Carosello was broadcast: the last advertisement was for Stock, and the honor of bidding farewell to this cult program was assigned to Raffaella Carrà who, with evident emotion, thanked everyone who had worked on the success of this twenty-year show.