With ‘Estamos Unidos,’ Univision Gets a Crash Course in an Unfamiliar Format

Comedic television writer Carlos Aguilar remembers watching Spanish-dubbed versions of sitcoms such as “Bewitched,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” Aguilar waited expectantly for the jokes to catch on, for them to spark a wave of laughter throughout the room of the family’s Mexico City house. But the grown-ups sat in bored silence, and the programs bumped and trotted across the screen.

“It didn’t really work. No one could relate to the characters,” he said.

One of the most confusing aspects was the nonsensical characters’ names, like “Gilligan’s” Thurston Howell III. In a language where the H is silent, “Senor Howell” sounded hollow and sometimes just plain creepy to the young Aguilar, and that nose-crinkling memory of bad television is exactly what helped land him on a team of writers of the first original U.S.-produced sitcom for Univision.

For 13 months, Aguilar and his colleagues studied the anatomy of the American sitcom, determined to produce a replica for an audience that has never gone wild for the situation comedy. They attended a seminar in Toronto and another at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where they learned a bit about the technical aspects, like how to alter the set and lighting for a program shot on video, not film.

But more significantly, they say, they learned how to make jokes within a format that is unfamiliar to their audience.

“The American public has 40 years of learning process leading up to that. They started with ‘I Love Lucy,’ and they’ve advanced to [NBC’s] ‘3rd Rock From the Sun,’ ” said one of Aguilar’s writing partners, Gerardo Benavides. “We can’t give them high concept. We gotta give them ‘I Love Lucy’--basic family comedy.”

The result is “Estamos Unidos” (United Always). It premiered Dec. 1 in the Friday 10-10:30 p.m. time slot, and draws a respectable average of 1.66 million Hispanic households each week, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“We’re going to try . . . a very American concept--situation comedy,” said Mario Rodriguez, Univision’s programming president, who is widely credited with homing in on the subtle viewing trends of audiences across the country that have helped make Univision the dominant Spanish-language network.

“[The sitcom is] not something they’re familiar with, unlike the novela or the news or sketch comedy which everyone’s parents have watched,” Rodriguez said. “Situation comedies have never clicked, but we owe it to ourselves to see if it can be done. If ever there were a network . . . if it’s going to work, this is the place.”

Univision already plans to distribute “Estamos Unidos,” through television partners in Mexico and Venezuela, and the network will retain exclusive worldwide syndication rights outside of those two countries. If the show is a hit, it could be seen in countless countries and possibly be dubbed into other languages, Rodriguez said.

“We would hope that the comedy would be universal comedies,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not aiming just for the American market, but just like ‘I Love Lucy’ could be enjoyed around the world. Funny is funny, regardless of the setting.”

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The title, “Estamos Unidos,” sounds similar to Estados Unidos, Spanish for United States. It’s a play on words that Univision executives think gives a positive twist to a frequently heard phrase in Latin America.

The show’s Mari and Arturo Perez and their 8-year-old son are middle-class immigrants in San Diego who endure the misadventures of annoying relatives. Mari is played by Alicia Machado, a former Miss Venezuela who won the Miss Universe competition in 1996. Mari’s mother calls collect almost every day from Venezuela, while Mari’s father (played by Carlos Bonavides, a Mexican actor known for his 20 years of roles in telenovelas) lives with Mari and watches every young woman he sees with an admiration that rivals Benny Hill.

Originally, Mari and Arturo’s weird neighbor had assumed the persona of his wrestling character from Mexico, and he refused to take off his silver wrestling mask. El Gallo Quiroga even wore the head stocking during naps. When members of the Perez family tiptoed over to him and peel it back, they found an identical mask underneath. But relatives and friends of the show’s writers said El Gallo Quiroga was stupid, not funny. The mask hid his facial expressions and he seemed like a one-joke character, they said. By October, the writers had relegated him to a minor role in Arturo’s auto body shop and replaced him with Willy, a 25-year-old DJ who lives next door. One executive describes Willy as “a Puerto Rican Fonzie from New York.” But even without the cultural icons like the Nuyorican DJ or the Latino immigrant experience, “Estamos Unidos,” has stock characters that appear in successful U.S. sitcoms like CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond.” (The controlling mother-in-law is a constant source of stress; the oversexed father-in-law is a good foil to the more sedate married couple; and the quirky neighbor who seems to rely on the generosity of others offers a contrast to the self-sufficient, ambitious main characters.)

During the writers’ seminars in Toronto and Burbank, the difference between Spanish-language comedies and the American sitcom seemed to boil down to the amount of jokes. In the American sitcom, said Benavides, there seemed to be a “three-joke-per-page minimum.”

“In the American sitcom, you love your characters. There’s the angry one, the slutty one, and then it’s joke, joke, joke,” Benavides said. “In Spanish, where telenovelas are so popular, the storyline is more important, so I don’t think we’re going to have the same pacing as American sitcoms. It’s going to be a slower pace.”

Filming in front of a live studio audience was scheduled to begin in August at Greenwich Studios in north Miami, the same studio where NBC filmed its 1980s police drama “Miami Vice.” But the studios were dilapidated, with leaky roofs and antiquated light grids. Even after a major renovation, the state utility company did not immediately provide sufficient electrical power, which meant another delay. Filming eventually began on Nov. 7, three months late, and the air date was moved from early October to early December.

While this is Univision’s initial foray into U.S.-produced sitcoms, the network’s smaller competitor, Telemundo, gave it a whirl two years ago with a prime-time lineup of a refilmed Spanish-language version of “One Day at a Time,” along with new versions of “Starsky and Hutch” and “Charlie’s Angels.” Viewers couldn’t turn the channel fast enough, and last May in New York, Telemundo President Jim McNamara told advertisers the network was “marching back from ratings in Siberia.”

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Last year, Telemundo appeared to have learned a bit from its experience, and it unveiled its first original, U.S.-produced sitcom. “Los Beltran” is about a Cuban American bodega owner who moves his family to Burbank after winning the neighborhood lottery. The show was well-received, even though its ratings would still be unacceptable by Univision’s standards. Telemundo intends to keep it on the air through next fall.

“Los Beltran” was even nominated last year for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards for the first realistic portrayal of a gay couple on what has traditionally been a homophobic medium--Spanish-language television.

“Latin humor is so vaudeville,” said Benavides. “There’s always the sexual overtones, but we have to go above that. ‘Los Beltran’ does that well, and it’s a very funny show. We have to continue raising the bar, so it’s not just about the guy who falls as he comes into the room.”

Millie Colon, a buying director for Siboney USA, a large Spanish-language advertiser whose clients include Colgate-Palmolive; Pep Boys and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, said dubbed sitcoms from the English-language networks or Spanish rip-offs of U.S. sitcoms are not good investments.

Colon said she advised her clients to buy time during “Los Beltran” and she’ll do the same for “Estamos Unidos.”

“ ‘Estamos Unidos’ is a sitcom about Hispanics. It’s related to a Hispanic family, so it will work,” she said.

Last year, Henry G. Cisneros, the network’s then-chief operating officer, said Univision had raised its advertising rates significantly for each of the past three years. Univision’s ad rates are now neck-and-neck with the major networks for every time period except prime time.

But a hit sitcom like “Estamos Unidos” could enable Univision to achieve parity with general market networks in every time slot. It’s another reason the network is willing to risk a time slot with a new format, but it’s also why the network dedicated tremendous resources and time to minimizing that risk.

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Perhaps the key to creating a hit sitcom for Latinos is figuring out the magic behind Luis Santeiro’s writing. He was the co-creator of public television’s first bilingual sitcom, “Que Pasa, USA?,” about a Cuban family in Miami.

“I didn’t consciously emulate American sitcoms,” Santeiro said. “I put a Cuban family I know in an American sitcom. There’s almost an absurdity to Latin humor. They talk about magic realism, but that’s our reality. Things happen, and they’re so surreal that you laugh. We haven’t been able to expose the humorous side of our culture to mainstream culture.”

The 36 episodes of “Que Pasa, USA?” ran from 1977 to 1979 and launched the acting career of Steven Bauer, who would later appear alongside Al Pacino in “Scarface.” The show also provided the second television appearance of a Cuban American college student named Andy Garcia, whose subsequent film credits would include “Internal Affairs,” “The Untouchables,” and “Godfather III.”

“Que Pasa, USA?” received critical acclaim and successfully targeted PBS’ adolescent viewers. But unlike Univision’s new team of comedy writers, Santeiro said he never studied American humor. He took a chance and wrote from his heart.

But the chances Univision takes are calculated, studied ones as it looks to unseat its competition with Spanish-language programming.

“Univision’s never done anything like this,” Benavides said. “So nerves are a little tight.”