the trial that shocked Spain and that, 30 years later, we do not know what it turned out to be
Florentino Fernández testified from Madrid, Chiquito de la Calzada from Málaga, and a judge had to ask if he had literally pronounced “black lake, white lake.” Thirty years after that sight, almost as surreal as the character himself, not even its protagonists agree on how the subject ended. The clone. On September 18, 1995, Telecinco premiered ‘Tonight we crossed the Mississippi’, a late night presented by Pepe Navarro that combined interviews, social chronicle and sketches. It was in this hodgepodge of excesses that Lucas Grijander, played by Florentino Fernández, appeared: an imitator who reproduced the invented language, gestures and cadence of Chiquito de la Calzada, then at the height of his popularity after becoming famous as a comedian after turning 60. The man from Malaga did not take long to take the matter to court. That sinful fistro. Grijander It was not a disguised imitation: He lived in the fictitious republic of Chiquitistan and repeated jokes and phrases modeled after those of Chiquito. He said “See you later Lucas” and “For the glory of my mother”, he wore Chiquito’s characteristic printed shirts and filled his speech with little screams and small heel-toe-heel jumps. The success of Florentino Fernández’s character accelerated Chiquito’s transformation into a pop icon to the same extent or more than the activity of the original Chiquito himself. In fact, his fame was so enormous that he generated his own exploitation, Crispín Klander. The documentary. All of this is told by Javier Morales and Juan Zavala in the upcoming Movistar+ documentary ‘The Other Chiquito’, which also contextualizes how the original phenomenon cannot be understood without the context of a Spain that was emerging from the hangover of 1992 and that found in the humorist’s absurd language a kind of collective refuge. In parallel, the private networks, newborn and still without established rules, competed for formulas capable of hooking the midnight audience. Diego San José, creator of the original idea of the documentary, wonders if Grijander was plagiarized or Fernández literally created “another Chiquito.” What Florentino Fernández says. In 2017, on the occasion of Chiquito’s 85th birthday, Florentino Fernández recalled the litigation in the program ‘Dani & Flo‘. The comedian from Madrid avoided the word “plagiarism” and spoke of a complaint for impersonation, which affected not only Lucas Grijander but also Crispín Klander. The process had moments that bordered on involuntary comedy, such as the judge’s famous question about whether he had pronounced “black lake, white lake.” Fernández expressed his admiration for the comedian at all times and assured that the conflict was resolved amicably. There is some personal blogs about television who contradict him, and say that Chiquito lost the lawsuit without taking any compensation, but officially, it is not known. In fact, this documentary void is what the production itself promises to explain. Morales and Zavala have described the litigation as something that transcends the anecdote and define the case as “a wound that Chiquito carried until his death,” from which it is understood that the lawsuit did not have a satisfactory conclusion for the comedian. In the end, one of the great judicial mysteries of modern Spain comes from one of the most excessive and brilliant comedians that our television has ever produced, the original Chiquito. Pure Celtiberia Show. In Xataka | 13 geniuses of Chiquito that made him the most wonderful comedian of his time
