El Mundo del Profesor Rossa ([Spanish Language] for The World of Professor Rossa) was a Chileanchildren's television show centering on a professor named "Professor Rossa" (Iván Arenas), who taught about Chilean national animals, mountains and nature. The show was broadcast on UCV TV from 1981 to 1984 and on Canal 13 from 1984 to 2001.
The show
The Professor Rossa
The show was set in Professor Rossa's house. The first seasons, the program only starred the professor and piano composer Valentin Trujillo. Guru Guru appeared later, as a man in bird disguise who delivered the children's letters to the professor, the bird started to have a "father-son" relationship with the professor, so Guru Guru left the postman role. Don Carter came to fill the role and the show was expanded to four characters.[1]
The four characters interacted inside the house always doing a mess, irritating the professor to bring humor to the program. In some seasons, the professor moved the show from his living room to an underground room connected by a secret passage, leaving the first set.
The professor had videos about animals and nature in Betacam format, and to watch it, the character must put the tape in front of his eyes.
Main characters
Professor Rossa (played by Iván Arenas): A Professor with pink hair and moustache, who taught about Chilean animals.
Guru Guru (Francisco Ossa, later played by Claudio Moreno): A man in bird disguise with pink cap and glasses, hatched from an egg left on set. He speaks in a very particular way, using frequently the letter G.
Don Carter (Juan Alcayaga): A postman. Friend of Guru Guru.
Tío Valentín (Valentín Trujillo): Uncle Valentín was the pianist. His appearances on the program were less frequent in the last years of the show.
Three characters of the show, Guru Guru (left),Professor Rossa (center) and Valentin Trujillo (right)
Awards
The show received, in both 1986 and 1988, the "Best Children Program" Award by the Chilean CNTV.[2]
Controversy
El Video Prohibido Del Profesor Rossa (Professor Rossa's Forbidden Video) (2002)
The program ended under the administration of Enrique García Fernández (executive director of Canal 13 at the time) for economic reasons. Coincidentally, around the same time, in April 2002, a video entitled El video prohibido del Profesor Rossa (Professor Rossa's forbidden video) was made public, which was erroneously attributed to the abrupt end of the show. The video featured the four characters doing fake outtakes, where they were seen jokingly fighting and swearing. The video was initially edited as a joke gift for Arenas for his 50th birthday in 2001. The copy of the original video got out of hand and was shared internally and privately in Canal 13 and the Universidad Uniacc, but its massive diffusion was due to its uploading to the website Elantro.cl. The joke became known mainly via Internet, and such was the propagation that the matter became news all over Chile, in a year when the Chilean show business was very aggressive and monopolized the front pages of newspapers, matinees and entertainment programs of that year.
The program ended in February 2002 and the video was broadcast in April of that year, so it was associated that the controversial video was the cause of the end of the program, but this was not so, because the program's team did not reach an economic agreement to continue producing it. The program was even going to return in September of that year, on Saturdays at 10 pm, but it was definitely cancelled under the decision of Vasco Moulian, who was the executive director of the children's area of Canal 13.
The forbidden video of Professor Rossa has been catalogued as the first viral video in Chile, due to the fact that it was broadcast when the Internet was already massifying in the Chilean population, even being commercialized in diskettes and CD's in stores and free fairs.
