El Vacilón de la Mañana
El Vacilon de la Mañana is New York's top morning radio show, broadcast from Spanish-language station La Mega (97.9). A similarly named program is broadcast by another Spanish Broadcasting Systems' (SBS) affiliate station in Miami, a fact that raises confusion among some listeners in both markets. This article refers to the New York radio program.
Overview
El Vacilón de la Mañana has various key elements: prank calls, musical parodies, comedy sketches, humorous commentary about straight and odd news, and open telephone lines. The program's key player is Luis Jiménez (born in March 26,1970 in Caguas, Puerto Rico), who has been its main host for more than twelve years. Jiménez co-hosts the broadcast with Raymond Broussard (born in Canóvanas, Puerto Rico on December 20, 1951, of Cajun and Puerto Rican descent) and who uses the stage name Moonshadow.
Coincidentally, Jiménez modeled his show after El Gufeo Matutino (The Morning Goof), a very successful radio program in Puerto Rico that lasted fourteen years and had Moonshadow as its main producer and host. After Broussard's move to New York City in 1997, and after the untimely passing of Jiménez's then radio partner, Junior Hernández, in 1998, the program had a succesion of co-hosts, with Moonshadow joining the show for good in 2002. While Moonshadow originally modeled his show after Howard Stern's (with a very strong dose of Puerto Rican cultural elements), Jiménez's numerous original contributions give the show a very unique pan-Latino flavor (its largest audience appears to be the Dominican community in New York City). The result has "out-Sterned" Stern's show, since El Vacilón's audienceship ratings have surpassed Stern's for close to two years.
Jiménez and Moonshadow do not act alone: besides a sizeable audience participation, the show's announcers and assistant producers (called the Mequetrefes, or Whippersnappers) are key to the success of the show. This ragtag group feature a female traffic announcer (Carolina Cadillo, born in Newark, New Jersey, of Peruvian and Nicaraguan descent), a rather peculiar news announcer (Francis Méndez, born in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic), the show's main audio producer (DJ Chucky), its call screeners and production assistants (Tony Sánchez, Bocachula, etc.), and the like.
Each member of the team is known for a perceived self-avowed defect or particularity: Luis Jiménez claims to have undersized genitalia and hypospadias, Moonshadow has an inguinal hernia but reportedly has the fastest tongue in American radio history; Francis Méndez is allegedly a former cocaine addict who now suffers from erectile dysfunction as a result, Carolina Cadillo is a proud nymphomaniac who speaks Spanish with a noticeable English accent (Spanish is her second language) and who has virtually no buttocks, and so on.
Prank Calls
Prank calls are usually presented in a section called Caíste! (You Fell for It!), in which unwitting people are called to their homes or jobplaces and are provoked with touchy subjects for the prank victims (generally, they are taunted with intimate subjects). These prank calls are made by request from friends or family of the victims. The most famous prank call victim on the show's history was a Colombian building superintendent given the moniker Manolo Cabeza 'e Huevo (Manuel The Blockhead) by Jiménez, who played the part of a viciously irate jealous husband. Manolo's enraged response, streaming expletives, has become the most copied and broadcasted anecdote in the show's history. Manolo's son Israel, who coordinated the phone call, was in turn pranked in another memorable call.
After the deportation of the section's producer, Rubén El Moreno, back to his country of origin, the Dominican Republic in late 2004, this section is currently in limbo, although prank reruns are played on its regularly slotted time. In several occasions, the current cast has tried to pull some pranks of their own, with mixed success.
Controversy
El Vacilon has been under controversy with some Christian fundamentalist groups for allowing Spanish (and some English) cuss words without censoring them. The production team alleges that the language they use in the program is that used in common Spanish in most of Latin America, which reportedly has more lax standards about language (and particularly words with sexual overtones) than American English. Besides this, the program's hosts use a collection of Spanish jargon words, some of which are a layover of Moonshadow's earlier radio programs. For example, words like chanforneta (which Moonshadow coined himself) and calembo are euphemisms for the female and male genitals, respectively. Macrón is an euphemism for the insult cabrón, which is also used as a term of endearment for El Vacilón followers who call in.
Comedic characters
Luis Jiménez (and occasionally Moonshadow, who used to play all the comedic characters in his previous shows but has a more laid-back role on this one) play various characters in fifteen-minute segments on the show (usually three a day). Among them: Cornelio Toro, a naive Colombian store-owner whose wife has made a habit of being unfaithful to him with every man she comes in contact with while Toro fails to recognize it every time, even though he immediately knows when someone else is being cheated on (the name is a play on Spanish words: Cornelio sounds very much like "cuernudo", a cuckold, while Toro, or bull, evokes the bull's cuernos, or horns, the sign of the deceived man in Latin American culture); Jonathan Buford Rodriguez, better known as El Chulo, a gigolo who preys on wealthy geriatric women; El Chef Pipí, a parody on Cuban chef and television personality Douglas Rodríguez, better known as Chef Pepin, being Chef Pipí's main trait his questionable masculinity; Rebeca Larica, a hyperventilating, gum-chewing woman who craves for male attention (played by Moonshadow); Dr. Héctor Tilla, a self-proclaimed medical doctor with very rude manners and a long history of malpractice lawsuits; Paca Garmentí and Silvia Penacho Chafrías; two civic-minded single women, both over 60 years-old, who love to bicker with each other (both names are plays on Spanish words too crude to be translated here); Madam Melo (originally called Mamá Melo), a hyperkinetic Dominican santeria practitioner (her original name was also another crude sexual reference); Goyito and Memin, two schoolkids (Memin being a straight arrow, while Goyito is a perennial foul-mouthed prankster) and Federico Rivera Rodriguez, better known as Findingo, a bisexual chronic marijuana smoker with a strong speech impairment.
Some of the ideas behind these characters are not entirely original: Cornelio Toro is the updated version of Toribio Tauro, a similar television character played by Puerto Rican comedic actor Adrian Garcia on Puerto Rican television; El Chulo evolved from a real human being who was a production assistant for one of Puerto Rico's radio morning shows who had a liking for geriatric women (and became famously made fun of by being called El Chupaviejas by the show's hosts), and Dr. Hector Tilla was another one of Garcia's creations. Goyito and Memin were originally created by Moonshadow after Pellín and Pillín, two animated characters from a Puerto Rican public service announcement, while Findingo's name was taken from a similarly named (although completely different) comedic character played by the late Puerto Rican actor, René Rubiella; the original character shared a low intelligence quotient with the newer one, besides the name. The parody on Chef Pepin has been rumored to be hated by the parodied celebrity because of its homoerotic undertones.
Special mention has to be made about a real "character" who happens to be a regular caller to the show, and as of October 2005 has joined the cast on a part-time basis. Metadona is a real-life reformed robber, born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, who had a chronic drug addiction before rehabilitation. There are strong doubts about him being completely drug free, but he vows to have abandoned his criminal past for good. His slow delivery (evoking a chronically drug-induced state) and daring stories about botched robberies and juvenile pranks entitled him to the alias, which is the Spanish word for methadone. He has a habit of loudly opening a beer can for breakfast every time he calls.
Musical Parodies
El Vacilón's musical parodies have recently become the show's bread and butter in a section called El Joyón Musical (joyón can be an augmentative for either the word joya (jewel), or joyo (Puerto Rican vulgar slang for anus). Some listeners have complained these parodies take more show time than warranted. In this section, popular Latino songs are typically parodied in the show, generally changing the lyrics to sexually suggestive, humorous lyrics. Some English-language songs are also parodied, but mostly fragments of them.
News, straight and odd
Straight news are read and humorously discussed in the section called Hablando Plepla (Talking Nonsense)
The same is done for odd news in the section called Noticias Locas (Crazy News). Most are taken from the Odd News segment of Yahoo! News.
Francis Méndez reads regular news at the top of the hour (not the same as Hablando Plepla), but injecting humorous slang phrases to the headlines. This goes in sharp contrast to the serious, almost dead-panned delivery of the show's sports announcer, Cuban-born Renato Murphy, as well as that of Cadillo's traffic report. The result is almost as odd as the Noticias Locas segment itself.
Open Lines
Lines are opened in a segment of the show for listeners to call in and tell their anecdotes, which are generally mishaps or sexual situations. Although many subject names are suggested, all calls wind up discussing the aforementioned situations. From Monday to Thursday, subjects are rotated, but the last 3 hours of Friday's show are devoted to randomly take calls on previous subjects, in the section called Lo Que Sobró de la Semana (What's Left of This Week).