First of a series
Antulio “Kobbo” Santarrosa spoke exclusively with THE SPOKESMAN about some questions about his figure and his character from La Comay, with whom he returns to the small screen via TeleOnce today at 5:55 PM.
The “hell” he claims lived on Mega TV, what happened to Rocky The Kid, his arrival at TeleOnce, his “enemies” and his second retirement are just some of the topics under discussion as part of the series that starts today with this newspaper.
Santarrosa ended his six-year retirement in the state of Florida on January 28, 2019 with the return of La Comay on Mega TV.
In this way, he brought back the character who had been on the air for 14 years in SuperXclusivo, by Wapa TV, from where he was fired in January 2013 after a boycott that managed to cancel numerous commercial directives.
His motivation to leave, sell, and fight his horse farm in Florida on local television, he assures that it stemmed from the island’s lack of control.
“We lived in Ocala, a country, and we had a great house, but we felt a bit alone. And before I made an offer from Raúl Alarcón (president of SBS), we decided to come to Puerto Rico, ”he said.
However, his return was motivated by many more.
Regarding his wife Iris Lugo’s reaction to this determination, he noted that “she always follows me and does what satisfies me and makes me happy. He supports me in everything ”.
The puppeteer did not regret turning away from television.
“I didn’t regret it, because those six years were fantastic, I did things I wanted to do. I wanted to have a farm or farm here in Puerto Rico. When the Wapa thing happens, I retire, we go to Orlando and see the city of Ocala and I say, ‘This is where we are going to make our dream come true,’ he recalls.
Describes his time on Mega TV as ‘hell’
December 18, 2020 was his last show on Mega TV, along with Rocky The Kid, when he decided not to renew the contract.
He assured that he was comfortable during his first months on the Spanish public address system (SBS). However, “after that it was hell, it was hell. And what I’m saying here, Raúl Alarcón (president of SBS) knows I wrote it to him; not one, not two, not three, five, ten times … of the things that happened at Mega. I’m not going to go into details, but for God’s sake Raúl knows I lived there, ”he insisted.
He explained that a month before notifying him of his decision, he had sent him an extensive email.
“I have a good thing and that is that I write everything, because that is my test. I was very sorry, but I had to tell him, “I can’t take it anymore!” I was there for two years, but for the first two months I said, “This will be resolved.” But the rest was hell. My employees can tell you that they have also suffered from it ”, he emphasized.
Santarrosa stated that “the people at Mega behaved very well with me. I have no complaints about it. It’s a conglomerate that didn’t have a set of things for me to do my program properly, ”he said.
His time on Mega TV was not without controversy, either. In June 2020, he faced a boycott over expressions of La Comay, considered racist, against the president of the Victory Citizen Movement (MVC), Ana Irma Rivera Lassén. While in October of that year the annoyance was caused by the dissemination of a photo showing the candidate for mayor of San Juan, Manuel Natal, with the daughter of Alexandra Lúgaro, candidate for governor by MVC.
On social networks, before announcing his departure from TV – on December 11, 2020 – some pointed out that this was due to the completion of the general election.
‘What happens is that they are coincidences of life. Politics is over, but people don’t know that my contract also expired. If it had, I wouldn’t be here (on TeleOnce) ”, he said.
His entry into TeleOnce, he says, was exactly at the request of owner Lenard Liberman, president of Liberman Media Group, which took over Univisión Puerto Rico.
Liberman called me, he was not prepared for this. We had quite a few meetings because I wanted to meet not only TeleOnce, but him too. He showed me that he is very interested and knows, because there are people who do not know television and are in the area. He knows a lot about television, ”he said, who signed a two-and-a-half-year contract.
Kobbo announced that it will have no restrictions on the part of the channel to freely express itself and control politicians.
“Whoever says that is lying, the deal Mr. Liberman and I have is that La Comay must be La Comay. La Comay becomes La Comay. Of course I want to do other things that I can’t say right now because I want them to develop. It’s not that it’s a change in La Comay, because he’ll always talk about gossip, the bloopers, the vacilón, but I want to delve into other things that benefit the city. After a while they will see ”, he expected.
“Rocky wanted to be”
Today he reveals the animator accompanying the doll, “since Rocky the Kid was not allowed to”. Kobbo assured that he had asked Alarcón “for” to allow the announcer to continue on SBS Radio and enter TeleOnce, as well as other of his employees who work on channels other than Mega TV.
“Rocky wanted it to be, everything was ironed, but before that I said, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’ His father (Roque Gallart) works with him, his brother (Rogie) is a programmer there and I would have felt very bad that they had gotten revenge on Rocky and his family. He was sad, ”he explained.
Incidentally, he did not consider bringing back his old partner Héctor Travieso, who left in the final phase shortly after the program started.
He added that Naughty “sat with me about a month earlier and said, ‘I have to go.’ I asked him if there was anything wrong, if he was sick or his wife, and he said no ”.
He admits that many hate him
On the other hand, the producer also spoke of his “enemies”.
“It all depends on what the enemy understands. I have a lot of people in the area who hate me. For example, when La Comay came to Mega, it caused Telemundo to make a lot of changes, Wapa and Univisión too. That bothers the media people, not the public. Now that we’re on TeleOnce, it’s stamping that both Telemundo and Wapa are going to make their adjustments; They already vibrate because he has a strong character. And those could be the enemies, ”he argued.