As written in the previous blog post of "Teach me Italian", it was the spread of television throughout the national territory to modify or make known and therefore spread even more uses and customs of Italians until then confined to their regionalisms.
It is not hyperbole to suggest how TV was therefore a fruit of the post-war period, an announcer of well-being and rediscovered peace that had to be spread all over the world and not only in Italy. To act as a sounding board, in a country engaged in hard work in factories and reconstruction still in progress, came economic well-being whose spearhead was represented by television.
Officially founded in 1954, from the end of 1956 the network arrives throughout Italy, even if the technical completion will take place only in 1960. Very fast times with a progression of subscriptions that went from 88 thousand in 1954 to one million in 1958, to two million in 1960, to 5 million in 1965, the year of "overtaking" on the radio, until then the most widespread means of communication.
So who else could teach Italian to Italians if not television? The rectangular box with a thousand contents has been able to act as a glue in the nascent Italian society, placing the first bricks of what will be called popular culture. Italian TV shows have accompanied the growth of entire generations, testifying to the development of tastes and trends until then often considered as real taboos. On closer inspection, the prime-time television programs preferred by Italians have always been those designed for the whole family, an unmissable event for young and old and a moment of meeting during which to enrich themselves not only on a cultural level but also at a family level. Among those that certainly contributed most to the spread of literacy throughout the nation, we cannot forget Carosello, aired between 1957 and 1977. Even today, entire generations of Italians remember going "to bed after Carosello", a successful television format that was nothing more than an advertising program that kept families glued to television. To challenge each other on stage some of the most famous Italian directors used to create stories and stories through which to advertise the most popular Italian products. Olmi, Pontecorvo, Leone, Pasolini, Fellini. And then there were Italian actors and international stars, such as Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Yul Brynner. And how can we forget the avant-garde animations? This is how the characters most loved by children of the time were born: Calimero, "L'omino coi baffi" by Bialetti, "Carmencita e Caballero" by Lavazza, all stuff that today would be outside the confines of political correctness.
Macchiette, before the advent of musical programs such as "Canzonissima" or those of prize quizzes such as "Lascia o raddoppia?" that have marked and entertained entire generations, spreading the language even where television took a few more years to arrive on a permanent basis, especially in the south of the notoriously more agricultural and less industrialized country. For a means of communication today among the most widespread in the world and that has distinguished itself in the past for certainly higher canons than the commercial TV present today.
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