Curiosities

Sim nós temos bananas (Yes, we have some bananas). In the voice of Caetano, the Carnival song by Braguinha and Alberto Ribeiro began what would become a special attraction in Chacrinha’s irreverent TV program Noite da Banana (Banana Night).

Widely publicized, the event transformed the stage of TV Globo into a sort of giant grocery store, with bananas all over the place, handed out to the studio audience and at the stage door to people passing in the street. The opening program featured Caetano completing the anarchical nature of the program dressed in character in a banana-print nightshirt.

The success of this first program was such that the TV station decided to repeat it with even more bananas! This time Nana Caymmi helped in handing them out. Aracy de Almeida was personally invited by Caetano to take part. The evening also had two competitions gravitating around the same subject – who could eat the most bananas during the program would win a money prize, as would the person able to do the longest headstand with legs apart (known literally in Portuguese as “planting a banana tree”).

At the same time as helping to popularize the Tropicalists, their constant appearances on Chacrinha’s Discotheque Program also caused protests.  Some people thought that this kind of participation demeaned the movement, turning Tropicalism into an industrialized product for mass consumption.

The Tropicalists raised a finger to the critics (“gave a banana” in Portuguese) and continued with redoubled irreverence. In May, it was the turn of Chiquita Bacana Night, a party organized by Capinan and held at the samba venue in Rio’s Praça Onze. Kitsch was the event’s leitmotiv and guests had to come with a transistor radio and packed lunch. The place was decorated with plastic flowers, pineapples and, needless to say, bananas in abundance.