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Rating: There was a time when MTV meant music and music videos about 24 hours a day: whether you were in the office, at the snack bar, or simply lounging on your couch at home, you turned on the cathode ray tube, tuned it to Music Television, and before you stood a remarkable musical-media rant. And what about the cartoons whose protagonists had become the archetype of youthful rebellion, the reckless Beavis & Butthead and the apathetic-disgusted Daria, mentioning the magnum opus of that era?
With the advent of reality TV and cameras installed in the most elusive human nooks, even the most famous music network in the world had to bend, due to marketing and share demands, to today's broadcasting trends. Nowadays, it's easier, in fact, to encounter the rowdy misadventures of "hunks & babes" from Jersey Shore than a classic nonstop video strip. Even the dynamic and "carefree" mood typical of the MTV airings seems almost dated: frustrated and perpetually worried teen moms, overweight kids on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Yankee nerds bickering with each other, little aristocrats who flaunt their pharaonic mansions to the cameras—like it was a report on the ruins of Machu Picchu—, a fairy-tale kindness that's almost hypocritical and fake, trivial insignificances... In short, what was once the frivolity, vigor, and joy of the old containers seems to have abdicated in favor of valleys of tears and suicide-like atmospheres worse than any Maria de Filippi style format.
The Bel Paese manages (in part) to distinguish itself from the current pseudo-bourgeois dialectic of clubbers and depressed teenagers, even though it is strictly subjected to the court of MTV. The recipe of I Soliti Idioti, a mix (rather brash) of satire and humor on the disheartening Italian socio-politico-institutional reality, cannot serve as a model due to the topics addressed, as it is accompanied by similar programs of much older and established manufacture. Even if the concept of the background is not surprising (perhaps a bit hackneyed), the sketches of the mini-stories are absolutely laugh-out-loud activities, each replicating a specific "mocking" theme (from ecclesiastical rigidity to the diverse gay world, passing through health-political wheeling and dealing), each with the lanky Francesco Mandelli and Fabrizio Biggio in the role (both physical and abstract) of some bizarre subject strictly "made in Italy". The final intent is, therefore, to dramatically hyperbolize Italian stereotypes, irreverently lampooning without censorship the protagonists of this not-so-perfect Italianism, far removed from the self-proclaimed perfection repeatedly invoked by its institutions and political representatives.
The immersion into the character by the two actors is nothing short of extraordinary: in addition to demonstrating great flexibility in the various "metamorphoses", avoiding embarrassing dips in performance, the duo manages to build brand-new simple but outrageously funny and irreverent episodes, extrapolating for each of them punchlines that became catchphrases on the lips of all the viewers: "Dica? I'm right there", "But the receipt?" or "Come on, damn it!" The double meanings, naturally of a sexual-erotic nature, expressed by the incomparable "transgender" version of Fabrizio Biggio, are hilarious to the nth degree.
Diving into the series, there is only the embarrassment of choice for composite braggadocio and idiocy. First and foremost are the misadventures of Sebastiano, a shy and awkward young rocker dealing with a postal worker (Gisella) who goes through all sorts of antics to avoid doing her job (burning a suitcase full of money, seducing the customer with ludicrous gestures...), continually conversing with "Dica" and "I'm right there" while invoking a phony Bertelli. Then there are the sketches of Fabio and Fabio, a gay couple with exaggerated and ostentatious attitudes (the former is a woman who missed the chance to procreate by "deceiving" nature and specialists in the field, the latter is an egocentric showoff with a phone camera constantly pointed at himself, scarcely attentive to the partner who is often dismissed with "I don't know"). Also worth mentioning are the exploits of Maria Luce and Gianpietro, eccentric aristocratic and fake-moralistic spouses obsessed with others' judgment about them (especially the wife), the amusing and blasphemous experiments by Padre Boi and Padre Giorgio to renovate the ecclesiastical world with market surveys and other pseudo-modern extravagances, exchanging lines at the end like "Where's Jesus? Let's find him"), the "raunchy" double meanings exposed by the chief's lover, an ambitious sycophant looking to embarrass assistant Protti, the disjointed family relationship between a gullible, vulgar, and pseudo-liberal father (Ruggero de Ceglie) perpetually responsible for his son's (Gianluca, a calm, chaste, and respectful boy) misfortunes, and finally, the schemes of a stationer to avoid issuing a receipt to a peculiar guy who insists on the fiscalization of his purchase.
Perhaps something alternative to Belén's succulent cheeks exists in the Italian-made cathode tube.
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