For fifty-two years, until September 2015, the spirit of the Ed Sullivan Show came alive every Saturday night via Sábado Gigante – Gigantic Saturday. Created and hosted since 1963 by Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld, AKA Don Francisco, Sábado Gigante was a time warp of sorts in that it provided a stage for a Sullivan Show cross section of Latin talent. Even many commercials were presented product in-hand in a live 50’s manner. And like Sullivan, Don Francisco provided a first break for many Latin performers. Perhaps using taped segments in later years, Sábado Gigante was produced with a live and very much participatory audience.
“...19 Things You Didn’t Know About Don Francisco
1. His real name is Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld, but we all know him as Don Francisco
2. The iconic Latino host is Jewish. There were bar mitzvahs and some special celebrations, but his family wasn’t strictly observant.
3. His parents were Holocaust survivors.
4. His mother was an opera singer in Germany and his father was a tailor.
5. He traveled to New York to study because he wanted to be a famous clothing designer, but he spent most of the time watching TV.
6. When he returned to his native Chile, he used what he had learned from Ed Sullivan and Steve Allen by watching their shows and made a whole new variety show in Spanish in his country. The show, called “Sabados Gigantes” aired in Chile’s Channel 13.”.....