How Abelardo got his name
I wanted to post here to see if anyone else remembers.
I think I started to watch Plaza Sesamo soon after it premiered in Mexico in 1972. I remember that I used to play outdoors as soon as I came back from school and there used to be a lot of children playing outside. One day all of them dissappeared, and I remeber asking to one of my friends why she wasn't outside playing. She told me: haven´t you seen "Plaza Sesamo"? I thought they were refering to a boring show with marionets that use to be a the same time slot before. I couldn't understand until the day I decided to watch it and then I instantly fell in love with the show.
Anyway that was probably the first season of "Plaza Sesamo" and they had the usual muppet crowd and only two muppets that interacted with live actors. These were "Abelardo" and "Paco". Abelardo was a Giant Orange and Yellow Dragon performed in exactly the same way as "Big bird" and Paco was a Parrot who always appeared inside a window. Paco was a grumpy character who loved to eat "Sardines with Honey". Paco's eyes were a bit like Animals with heavely populated eyelids that could blink. Paco was the equivalent to Oscar.
I believed that Abelardo was called that way as a intent of translating Big Bird's name into spanish. As you see the posible choices would have been "Pajarruco" or "Ave largo" (large bird). Then "Ave Largo" sounded a bit like "Abelardo", which is a real people's name.
I have a picture in a year book from 1972, where they show live actors with a very ugly "big-bird-like creature" from plaza sesamo. Althought maybe the picture was taken from the brazilian "Vila Sesamo". I think that in pre-production they were planning to create a Big Bird,
but in some part of the designing process they decided to use a Dragon instead of a bird but they kept the name "Abelardo".
I don´t know where the original Plaza Sesamo was made but the first cast was probably from all over latin america because I remember they had many different accents.
Four years later, I believe, they made a big re-design, changed the main title song and all the songs in the program, the whole cast was new (now mostly formed by mexican actors), and the two local muppets, Abelardo and Paco were completely re-designed. I remeber the new abelardo had Bouncing eyes and both Paco and Abelardo could Blink.
But after 3 or so years the production ended.
In the late eighties a new production of "Plaza Sesamo" started, with new cast, new main title with no lyrics and Two new muppets. Abelardo and Paco were history and they were subtituted with "Montoya" and "Bodoque". Montoya a Giant parrot and Bodoque a grouch.
Montoya was a parrot very similar to Big bird.
The problem with this production is that they just couldn't erase "Abelardo the dragon" from people minds. At least not the name. So the parents continued to call the new character Abelardo. The kids were crazy arguing with they parents, "No dad he is not Abelardo, his name is Montoya". Some adults were just plain stupid. They never saw the difference between Abelardo the Dragon, Montoya or Big Bird, they thought they were all the same.
Therefore in the next season when they changed the cast (again), the music, added new muppets (Lola and Pancho), finally, they decided to change Montoya´s name to "Abelardo Montoya" to end the dispute between kids and parents.
So that's How "abelardo Montoya" the parrot got his name. In a way he's a homage to the old Abelardo and Paco, because he is a mix of the two charcters a parrot and an oversized dragon.
Cheers,
JC
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