Thirty -seven years of uninterrupted activity. In a television universe where everything moved, it appeared and disappeared, “Striscia la Notizia” has always been there. A sort of shiny star that has shone and made it shine, until the supply, slow but inexorable.

“Striscia” has been there before the Berlin Wall collapsed, before the two Germanies gathered and even before the government approved the Mammì law, capable of ensuring the direct to Berlusconi’s networks.

There are those with “Striscia” were born, who with “Striscia” grew up, who with “Striscia” has aged. A travel companion who seemed eternal and stainless. It seemed.

Striscia oriented public opinion

If to accredit a news he was used to supporting “the news said”, “Striscia” has long detained the power to guide public opinion. The judgments and opinions took place under the blessing of Antonio Ricci’s satirical news, as proof of how powerful his influence and credibility were.

“Striscia” dictated the costumes with the tissues, the blonde and the brunette, often identified as the emblem of Berlusconism. He broke the schemes with the Gabibbo, a red puppet with the shouting voice called to embody the reaction of belly before the injustices, which in 1992 obtained preferences during the votes for the election of the President of the Republic. Five years later, even the Gabibbo party was born for the supplementary elections of the Mugello Senatorial College, where he challenged Antonio Di Pietro, Giuliano Ferrara and Sandro Curzi. Clash that in reality did not take place because the earthquake in Umbria and Marche led to the retreat from the election campaign in favor of services and investigations to support earthquake victims.

A sense of justified omnipotence

“Striscia” weighed, weighed a lot. He also passed the 9 million spectators in the evening and the conductors pointed him out promptly: “We won Monday, we won on Tuesday, we won Wednesday …”. And so on, with Ezio Greggio who often loved to deceive the data further, citing contacts instead of average listening. Signs of justified omnipotence. On the other hand, “Striscia affirmed it”.

That of Greggio and Iacchetti was certainly the most iconic and tested couple. “It is he or it is not him”, “And on, and down and Tric and Trac”, “We are not talking about Bau Bau, cat cat”. Torks that became such without the help of social networks. Virality was ‘human’ and the gags spread with word of mouth, at school, at the bar, at work. As with the ‘Fu Fu Dance’, the initials of the 1995-96 season daughter of the parody originating from the Tic of Massimo D’Alema, accustomed to blowing his hands tight in his fist.

Another TV, another “strip”. The password in the nineties was above all “insistence”. The bone never gave up, never. And if the victim did not believe he had to make statements, he didn’t care. We remained there, to ask the same question to the street, stalking it and chasing it. To symbolize all this, even before Valerio Staffelli, was Stefano Salvi, the vice-giby with perennial yellow waterproof that tormented the victims by punctually unleashing the desired reaction. The shoes with Indro Montanelli and Marina Ripa di Meana are memorable in this sense.

Then came the tapir and the term “attacked” entered the dictionaries by right. Staffelli in March 1997 became the official handler. Sugar, accused of plagiarism, reacted very badly (“I spit in your mouth, you have to frighten you …”), as well as Vittorio Sgarbi who split it on his head. Reinhold Messner were also rebelled and the undertone in Sanremo in 2001, who were welcomed in the race by the Ariston whistles, proof of how inconvenient and self -injurious it was not to bow to “Striscia”.

On the subject of festivals, the program was always alert. Historically, the Sanremese week was the one who sanctioned the goodbye to the Greggio-Iacchetti couple who, from the following Monday, would have given the witness to the new arrivals. In 1996, through a sort of acrostic, Iacchetti revealed Ron’s triumph in advance thanks to the writing of three names: Rosa Comics, Lino Banfi and Vince Tempera. By combining ‘Rosa Lino wins’ the identity of the winner was revealed.

Before Bonolis and Laurenti, the most spot on tandem as an alternative to the owner formation was undoubtedly the one composed of Gene Gnocchi and Tullio Solenghi. In 1997 the two brought the wonderful parody of “Striscia la Berisha”, a phantom Albanian version of “Striscia” out of the cylinder. On air by an improvised and bad study, gnocchi and solenghi showed up sloppy and scruffy, with the two tissues on the sides of the counter definitely over the years. A ferocious irony, irresistible, who today – in the politically correct era where even mimicing almond eyes generates diplomatic accidents – would not find space.

The peak, with the Wanna Marchi case

However, the absolute “Striscia” apex touched him in 2001 with the case ‘Wanna Marchi’. The operation carried out by the Guardia di Finanza was called ‘Salato Tapiro’ and was activated thanks to the reports launched by the services of Jimmy Ghione. If not the most important medal (the complaints on the rainbow mission and the effects of depleted uranium were no less commendable), certainly the most shining one on the media centrality front. “Striscia” moved the balance and this certificate had more than anything else.

You know, when the plays are on your side it is easy to be right. A privilege that is granted to you even if the truth is on the other hand. Everything changes if someone throws you down from the throne. At that point the vulnerability that you had well hidden before. And if the external perception transforms, the spectators automatically upset their beliefs.

But today is another movie

Metamorphosis has a single great architect: “your business”. The game show, entered the scene in the autumn of 2003, destroyed the “strip” armor by removing it much more than the simple primacy of the listening, or the eternal infallibility.

For example, it happened on the eve of the epilogue of the fourth season of “Masterchef”, when Max Laudadio revealed the names of the first three classified in advance. An uproar broke out, with the web that, surprisingly, rose against “strip” for a spoiler considered inappropriate and inexplicable. Beyond the controversy itself, the warning of the detachment between the transmission of Canale 5 and that audience that once, perhaps, would have forgiven the joke, strong of an irreducible bond, was clear.

“Striscia” has therefore become fragile, ‘mortal’, a product like many others, which like everyone can be born, eclipsed and fail. As “Carosello”, who after twenty years raised the white flag because he had realized that the advertising market had evolved, “Striscia” is forced to do the same and to admit, especially to herself, that after almost forty years we were all finished in another film.

Tail securities that strip did not deserve

The exit to the scene will be hard to digest and, not surprisingly, it will take place in small doses, with a clear reduction of episodes and a postponed restart in late November. There are those who like Renzo Arbore have always married the leave line to the maximum of shine, with the result of being regretted, and those who on the contrary has unquestionably traveled the path of obstinacy. Lay to the bitter end, dreaming of never greeting.

Too bad that the ‘end’ exists for everyone, sooner or later. And “Striscia”, after all, these bitter tail titles did not deserve them. For what it was, for what he represented for Italian TV.