Giocagiò

Time is boundless as children. In particular, the fifteen minutes that elapsed from 4.45pm to the fateful 5pm never ended, when Rai programs began, inaugurated by the image of the antenna that rose slowly, immersed in solemn music.

As a preview on the children TV — blessed times in the afternoon when criminologists with swollen lips and directors of magazines still did not argue about crimes and women torn to pieces — there was a program, aired from 1966 to ’69, entitled “Giocagiò” .

The most famous conductors were Lucia Scalera and Nino Fuscagni (yes, who to put side by side with a “Lucia” if not the legendary “Renzo” of “I promessi sposi”, broadcast in 1967?)

I was a curious and lonely child, I liked things for children but also for adults, I followed all the TV dramas without losing a word, and maybe that’s right how, between fairy tales, animated puppets and imperishable literary works, my fantasy was formed.

“Giocagiò” was dedicated “to the little ones” and was a sort of “Art attack” ante litteram. The aim of the program was to teach, in a fun and light way, how to build objects and take care of plants and animals. In those years the didactic intent and the ethical direction of the children were never forgotten.

I liked building an igloo, drawing ice bricks with a felt-tip pen on a half-opened eggshell. Who knows if today’s children know what an igloo was? Who knows if at least the Eskimo children know? (Or should I say Inuit, now that things get offended when they are called by their name?)

The television was black and white then, the backgrounds were pieces of painted cardboard, but a few objects were enough — a table, a chair, a bird cage — to unleash the imagination of the little ones, reconstructing the imaginary house in which the program was set, as well as when, in the Sound Tales of the Fabbri Brothers, the sound of the harp was enough to mark the passage of time. Powerful is the imagination of children, and powerful that of the reader if only the writer knew how to touch the right buttons.

The two presenters were very successful because they were polite, kind, young and smiling. Scalera was the prototype of the teacher we all wanted to have, beautiful and maternal, sweet and cheerful. But they were also sober, elegant, formal. She had a dark helmet of bouffant hair and he the inevitable jacket and tie. Those were years in which the form counted but did not replace the substance, however.

How I wish that, all of a sudden, the remote control disappeared from my hands and a cup of hot tea materialized instead. Five o’clock on a winter afternoon … My mother and grandmother sitting on the sofa that is also my bed, in the beautiful new living room of my house in via San Carlo, with the armchairs in brown fake leather and the yellow curtains. My father’s desk in the corner, he works during the day and studies in the evening to graduate. Me, huddled in front of the low marble table that represents everything for me: bedside table, desk, game shelf. I soak Plasmon biscuits that melt into tea, and I have a salty cold smell in my nose. A light shines next to the device, because “otherwise it hurts the eyes”, the black and white flashes illuminate the room and, on the screen, Nino and Lucia smile: beautiful and young as they will never be again.

I don’t know if, between foam parties and weekly birthday parties, our children showered with gifts, dazed in front of the tablet, nailed to dad’s cell phone, have ever experienced such joy?