Bim Bum Bam (partially found first season of Italian kids' TV show, 1982-1982)
The show's logo, taken from its intro.
Status: Partially found
Comment: off-air snippets found
This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its informal writing and lack of references.
"Bim Bum Bam" was an Italian kids' TV programme which aired from 1981 to 2002.
Background
"Bim Bum Bam" was first broadcast in 1981 on a network of private stations affiliated to Italian Publisher Rusconi, merely as a moniker for an afternoon slot in which several cartoons were aired non-stop, with no studio segments in between.
In 1982, Rusconi founded the Italia Uno network and "Bim Bum Bam" became a show as well, with in-studio segments between each cartoon, including games and sponsors. Later in the same year, Italia Uno was bought by Silvio Berlusconi and became part of the Fininvest and later Mediaset broadcasting group.
The show had a continously changing line-up of hosts, along with a Muppet-like pink dog mascot named "Uan" starting from the second season in 1983, but the most popular host was Paolo Bonolis who was part of the cast from 1982 to 1990 and then went on to become a successful TV presenter in his own right.
The Lost First Season
On September 13th, 1982, the first episode of "Bim Bum Bam" featuring studio segments was aired on Italia Uno. The hosts were Paolo Bonolis, Sandro Fedele and Marina Morra.
The three presenters were fresh off their experience on Italy's national broadcasting company, RAI-TV, where they hosted "3, 2, 1...Contatto", the Italian version of PBS's "3, 2, 1...Contact", between 1980 and 1981.
The show was taped in Rome by production company C.C.C. (Cerrato Compagnia Cinematografica), in a studio set up to look like a spaceship, with the three hosts wearing different coloured suits with the words "BIM", "BUM" and "BAM" written on each of their tops.
The in-studio part of the show featured sketches involving the three hosts, musical guests, and recurring segments such as "Paolologo il Giocologo" where Bonolis as a self-professed magic trick expert comically failed at showing such tricks, "Il Personaggio Misterioso" (The Mysterious Character) where the spectators were invited to recognize a famous character a fragment of whose picture was shown, etc.
On December 26th, 1982, a special episode was aired featuring a group of child singers called Ministars who performed cover versions of Italy's then-popular songs in a similar fashion to UK's Minipops. This special Boxing Day show also featured an appearance by the group I Cavalieri del Re, who wrote and performed several theme tunes for many Italian editions of anime series at the time. Speaking of theme tunes, the opening theme to the 1982-83 season of "Bim Bum Bam" was a specifically-written synthpop tune whose author is unknown.
The outro theme changed from time to time, various official promos for different songs were chosen such as:
- Patrizia Pitti "Io e Te", promo video filmed at Rome's Luneur amusement park
- Dollar "Mirror Mirror", official promo video
- Tortuga "Tip Tap Dancer", promo video possibly shot in-house featuring a young Lorella Cuccarini as a backup dancer, who later became a well-known showgirl in her own right
- Scialpi "Rocking Rolling", details unknown whether it was the official promo or an in-house performance
Availability
This season of "Bim Bum Bam" was never kept in Italia Uno's archives, as it was shipped to its affiliate stations via copies on U-Matic tapes generated from master tapes which were kept by Cerrato Compagnia Cinematografica.
In the early 2000s, C.C.C. closed down and a supermarket was opened in its site.
When C.C.C. ceased operations, their video archive was junked, which means that the first-generation master tapes for the first season of "Bim Bum Bam" no longer exist.
However, several off-air, incomplete recordings have surfaced. Many of them are part of the collection of a lady from Rome named Caterina Cantone, who passed away in the early 2010s; Caterina was a teenager at the time and was one of the lucky few to own a VCR and record a huge collection of TV excerpts of the time, mostly kids shows. A few sketches, musical excerpts, and a near-complete recording of the Boxing Day special survive in her collection.
YouTube channel I Magnetici Anni also posted some found excerpts.
Also, in 1998 the Tortuga "Tip Tap Dancer" video was shown on "Matricole", an Italian "before they were famous" show, showcasing Lorella Cuccarini's presence in the video, but mistaking Tortuga for the name of a disco club.
The same show also aired a segment involving Bonolis and a youth sports association, this time without any actual context, but it can be assumed that it was filmed for "Bim Bum Bam" and probably sourced from the then-still-extant master tapes.
The only hope for finding complete episodes is that anyone who used to work for Italia Uno's affiliate stations could have kept some of the U-Matic copies sent to them for broadcast, but the chances are slim.