Cecco della Botte

Broadcast
The series was initially acquired by a regional Lombardy television channel called Canale 3 (known today as Antennatre, owned by the Mediapason Group), which broadcast the series in the early 1980s. After this first broadcast, the series would come to be broadcast by the Rete A channel, since the end of the same decade, in prime time at 8:30 PM, just before the night block of paid programming. Said channel reached all of Italy, through his affiliated regional television stations. The channel, known for showing foreign sindicated content, gained national fame for showing various telenovelas from the Mexican company Televisa from the 1980s and late 1970s, thanks to an exclusivity agreement. Televisa, the owner of 'El Chavo', possibly sold the series separately, since it was not part of Televisa's catalog of telenovelas, but was offered anyway (something very similar to the agreement between Televisa and TVS, the current SBT, in Brazil, at the same time), motivated by the fact that the series was already known in Lombardy, and there was a reception that was necessarily acceptable for it to be broadcast nationally.

It is not known exactly until what date the series was broadcast on Rete A, but possibly it stopped broadcasting between 1993 and 1994, when the channel abandoned Mexican soap operas, and became an exclusive channel for TV ads.

The broadcast of the series, at least on the Rete A channel, was partial, since only specific versions of certain episodes were broadcast, choosing unique versions of each episode, so as not to broadcast chapters with similar or the same plots (with few exceptions), so it is only known that episodes were broadcast mainly from the 1973, 1974 and 1975 seasons. However, this does not rule out that other versions have received a dubbing, which simply stopped being broadcast, as would happen in Brazil from 1990. Few chapters from 1976 to 1979 would have been broadcast, being mostly re-recordings of chapters from the first years of the series. In addition, it has been verified that some episodes that are considered lost were dubbed into Italian, as happened in Brazil.

Cast

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Trivia

 * Despite the fact that the series was broadcast nationally under the title “Un'autentica peste”, the series is better known by the name given to it in its first broadcast, “Cecco della Botte”, the common alias used to name the protagonist.
 * The Italian intro tries to be like the original, being introduced by a voice-over. The difference is, that in Italian, each actor introduces his character with his voice.
 * The OST, despite the fact that it is different from the one used in the original version of the program, is based on several musical themes used in the background by a program by Roberto Gómez Bolaños called, a sketch program that brought together various characters from the Mexican comedian, and that it was a contemporary series of that time. Among the themes used are “A Blessed Event”, a theme used by Chespirito in his first productions in the early 70s, possibly because it is a well-known theme in Italy (the theme is by the Italian composer Riz Ortolani); and the first musical theme of the aforementioned series "Chespirito", as the default ending theme (although there was a generic ending theme with the same opening theme, which would end up being used). Even in many long scenes without dialogue, at the beginning or in the middle of the episode, the original soundtrack remains unchanged. The OST was partially changed because, different from what happened in Brazil, the series was sent to Italy with an international track for its dubbing made by Televisa, with other tracks probably to avoid copyright. In fact, much of the soundtrack used for the dubbing was taken from the Valentino Production Music Library, which specialized in creating BGMs for television series, many of the songs used in the original series being taken from that library. Among these songs we can mention: "Happy Homes", and "Boston Baby Bounce", which are commonly used in the Italian dubbing, and which were part of the original soundtrack of both El Chavo and Chapulín Colorado. Moreover, the opening theme song “The Elephant Never Forgets” remains unchanged. In the credits, an audio of said song with background applause is usually used, which is taken from the first seasons of the El Chavo series, at a time when the series was recorded with a live audience, at the beginning of the 70s.
 * In post-production, a series of special effects were created that were absent in the original version. The recorded laughs of the original version, which were kept in most of the dubbings in Brazil, were replaced by a sequence of new laughs, which are heard with better sound quality (although, the original laughs and original OST can be heard in certain scenes without dialogue, many of which are left intact in this version). Also, in the Italian dub other sound effects are added that the series originally did not have, such as bird songs when the characters are outdoors; sounds of cars when they are on the street, etc. Along with this, sounds of falling objects or liquids are added. From the original audio, unlike the Brazilian dub, if the same bell effect is used when the characters hit each other (sometimes (with) a drum hit), although it is notorious that said sound effect was not superimposed in audio post-production, which causes there to be moments when that is heard lower than normal by mistake.
 * Despite being a woman, Doña Clotilde is interpreted in Italian by a man. The character is played with a marked Neapolitan accent.
 * This version has a series of modifications, compared to the original version, resorting mainly to the change of names, as in the Brazilian version.
 * For several years, almost all this dub was Lost Media, and there were only few fragments available. Only in 2023, a series of chapters, recorded at the time, have appeared on the Internet.
 * The series had an acceptable reception in its time, and it is remembered mainly by children, young people or even adults, who saw it in its day in the 80s, but it is practically unknown to young Italians. In Italy, the series is considered cult, and it is the one that has made Roberto Gómez Bolaños recognized in the country, where he is known as one of the most important comedians in Mexico.