Basura TV

Basura TV is a series of commercials aired on MTV in Latin American countries.

Content

The "Basura TV" commercials appeared around the first half of June 2006, and they are a crude parody of cheap Mexican or other Latin variety shows, called telebasura in Spanish. In them, the show's "hostess" – dressed in a ridiculous gold cape and wine-colored dress, or in a futuristic silver suit, both of which show off her inflated stomach – performs a series of random short contests, always involving the public humilliation or torture of the contestants for virtually no prize. However, when the contestants "win" the contests, they only laugh absurdly. The show's audience is composed of the narrators and voice talents of MTV Latin America, and aiding the hostess is the character of "Secretario" (male secretary), dressed in an absurd chicken constume. It should be noted that some commercials don't feature any contests, but random singing or dancing by the show's hostess.

These have gained wide success, especially the one in which the hostess sings: "tratatá, Qué es lo que quiere la muchachita, una piña grande, la otra chiquita, y mijita no seas malpensá, que a María le gusta la piña pelá." ("tratatá, what is that the girl wants, a big pineapple the other one small, and honey don't get it the wrong way, for María likes bald pineapples".)

Controversy

Some of the "episodes" features crude scenes such as farts and a female's buttocks, and others feature a man whose ears bleed till his death or . Also the "Péndulo de la Muerte" features a female inside a trash can in which a huge ball of metal is thrown at her by the Secretario.

Popularity

Perhaps the wide unexpected popularity is due to the drastic change of commercial techniques in which the most recent commercials are opposite from those aired from 2004 to 2005, which featured random sequences that had an anxious and desperate atmosphere, such as desolate landspaces with weird music or repeated suquences of drops with a static sound in the background.

Variations

In the same vein of ridiculing trash media, another "Basura" sketch appeared in August 2006, though instead of TV it focuses on music. These feature a man in a fly costume, that is "addicted to crap" and in every sketch flies around trying to reach songs popularly regarded as bad. The commercials end with the fly enjoying the music, and a message, "Millones de moscas no se equivocan" ("Millions of flies can't be wrong"). For instance, one shows the fly smashing itself against a glass wall that has a poster of Christian Castro's "Azul" song. Other songs mocked by this commercial are the Macarena and the Lambada.

External links

*YouTube|id=GzE6EDxOhNw|Basura TV intro
*YouTube|id=FYG59wfpav8|Basura TV piña
*YouTube|id=hNnb2ujEYrQ|The Basura Fly variation of