The second episode celebrating Zelig’s thirtieth birthday on Canale 5 would have been a requiem without the guest stars Geppi Cucciari and Elio (with his Storie Tese). The problem with bringing monologues from two decades ago to the stage is that today, in addition to ruining the beautiful nostalgic memory, too often they no longer make you laugh. Let’s see together the pass and fail of this evening (Moscia).

Incontrada and Bisio, ‘our’ Sandra and Raimondo (but he makes a special dedication to her): rating 8

The television couple par excellence, they have now been together for 22 years and it is difficult to imagine them separated – even if we have seen it happen on both the small and big screen. Claudio Bisio and Vanessa Incontrada are the beating heart of Zelig which without them would celebrate a much more sad thirty-year anniversary. She still pretends not to understand Italian well, to miss bits and pieces, while he is always there to make fun of her in a script that has been repeating itself, affectionately, for an eternity. But it never gets boring. At the beginning of the episode, Bisio surprises her with an unexpected dedication: “Even though my wife is in the room, I wanted to say that I love this person here very much. Because even in difficult moments she always brings a smile, that’s not for everyone.” Incontrada replies, excited: “But do you want to make me cry right away?”. No, no one would want that, certainly not when they’re standing side by side on that stage. Their symbiosis is, perhaps, the only ‘nostalgic’ element that really works within the entire attempted commemoration. They will never get bored, these two are home. At least for several generations who grew up watching them bicker and sneer at each other on TV. They are a bit ‘our’ Sandra and Raimondo. Including all the ‘beard’ and ‘boredom’ by which they are unfortunately surrounded. Solidarity.

But will it ever be possible to witness a monologue of ‘jokes’ about trans people in 2026?! vote 0

More than nostalgia, here we can really talk about Jurassic Park. The first episode was almost promising. And in fact we feel, if not seduced and abandoned, then at least mocked. Because the second lacks everything, including big names apart from Geppi Cucciari and Elio who, thank goodness, do their part: excellence (and exception). For the rest of the time, however, we helplessly witness the collapse of any hope of celebrating ‘Zelig’ as a good memory. The award-winning hosting couple tries to simulate as much enthusiasm as possible, but it’s not enough: there’s no material. And what there is makes you laugh very little. Sad to see Leonardo Manera again, for example, on stage like in the good old days ‘in analysis under hypnosis’ and with the catchphrase ‘Fluoro’. Why it was so much fun at the time can only be explained by those who manage to recover the Holy Grail on the day of never. If some jokes sound old and/or simply stupid, other ‘dinosaurs’ are guilty of much worse crimes: Paolo Migone starts a monologue against women, in particular his wife, who is paranoid, is always in the kitchen and doesn’t let him have the table ready when he returns from the office and would just like to wear slippers. Instead, poor star, he has to take care not to crumble crackers on the ground, otherwise his wife will ‘squeal’. Or, never mind, asks him to take out the garbage. The craft in the exhibition is undoubted, but Migone reels off concepts that today make him annoying and petulant, as well as ungrateful. Full solidarity with the spouse we imagine at home crushing ants because of this one who crumbles around, unpunished. And he even boasts about it on TV. The same goes for Gigi Rock who proposes a sketch lasting over ten minutes (perceived to be two centuries) with a single topic: trans people, Obviously professional streetwalkers, who attack him during the night, undermining his virtues. But he, also a self-styled vocal double of Giuliano Sangiorgi, sings ‘Meraviglioso’. Because ‘Look behind you, what a gift I have given you!’, “Even your pain can then appear wonderful.” “Tour Eiffel” was the most elegant of the fifty-five (figure of rhetoric of hyperbole, ed.) very subtle double entendres used by the seventy-year-old comedian as synonyms for ‘penis (very large)’ of the various ‘Lolas’ he encountered in life. And who in the end even asked him for a hundred euros, after leaving him dazed on the street, ‘tied to the bumper’. What bullshit talk, if you forgive the Frenchness. And even if you don’t forgive us, in the face of such an abyss, we will certainly not be the heavy ones.

Geppi Cucciari’s gratitude (and his version of ‘Caro, Ti Amo’ with Elio): rating 10

Busy with ‘Splendida Cornice’, the jewel program that she hosts every Thursday evening on Rai 3, Geppi Cucciari returns excitedly to the stage of ‘Zelig’ which saw her artistic birth. She has prepared an ‘almost poetic’ piece, of which even Strehler would say ‘What a drag!'”, she warns. Instead, it doesn’t go like that: in her words, the memories of the beginnings in the Milan venue which later gave its name to the show: ‘There were 180 seats, all aluminum chairs. When the audience wasn’t laughing, you could hear them creaking, in the general silence, a unique anguish!’ He remembers Badora, the first and perhaps only (?) character with whom he took his first steps on that stage: he had ‘Cossiga as an elocution teacher and Valeria Marini as a support teacher so as not to make his insularity felt in his pronunciation’. Her career as a monologist in the guise of herself was born shortly after, due to an evening co-hosted with Claudio Bisio which turned into a nightmare for her: the comedian overlapped and anticipated her lines, an unbearable thing – and which makes you laugh because it is still very true today, Bisio has this trademark ‘charm’ which over time she has transformed into her own style, but Vanessa Incontrada should be canonized before yesterday, if the Sacred Rota ever wanted deal with it. In short, thanks (?) to Bisio, Geppi learned that evening how precious ‘solitude’ was, at least on stage. With our friend Elio ours then occurs in one of the highest moments of the evening and, perhaps, of the entire edition: the reply in notes to ‘Cara, Ti Amo’ which becomes ‘Caro, Ti Amo’ (VIDEO) and finally justice, at least musically, is done. Cucciari sniper: she eliminates all the false myths and contradictions of those who ‘you call men, but in reality they are just tall children’. Perfect. Now the only problem will be how to get this surgical, brutalist and very honest image of (many) adult males out of our heads. But why make the effort? We are happy to keep it. Thank you always, Geppi dear, we love you!

The implied fight between ‘Zelig’ and Checco Zalone (still absent without justification) continues: vote 7

Second episode and we are already at the second film that ‘celebrates’ Checco Zalone in his absence. There are two things here: either the best-selling comedian really didn’t want to participate in the program and now the program itself is rightly making him feel bad about it, albeit with a (fake) smile, or they are preparing the ground for a surprise in extremis that will see Zalone epifinazzarsi on stage, perhaps for the last appointment with the show, in two Mondays. Until that moment, the implied ‘fight’ that ‘Zelig’ is waging ‘against’ the prodigal son who is currently the box office king at the cinema but is oblivious to those who paved the way to his success, we are very passionate about. Bisio and Incontrada launch an rvm of his first appearance on the show, dated 2006. The host underlines: ‘You see, Vanessa, he was there when he was with us, but today he’s not there. You know, his film surpassed Avatar at the box office, don’t we want to congratulate him so much?”. The more they praise him in absentia, the more the feeling is that of being in front of a mythological ‘caffeuccio’ by Barbara d’Urso from the good old trashy days. In a very very large cup. But we could be wrong, for goodness sake, maybe they are sincere congratulations…