Italian Variety Shows: The 1980s, Loud and Wondrous

Enter the rise of Fininvest and color TV as a toolkit of endless possibilities

At the dawn of the 1980s, two main players helped ramp up the form and content of variety shows. One was the rise of Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi’s network that was unabashedly commercial and had a keen eye on the culture and aesthetics of the United States of America and was less bound to the decorum of RAI. The other was, of course, color broadcast, which only arrived in Italy in 1978 and enabled more sophisticated and/or artistically ambitious and/or immersive sets and costumes, which, in turn, meant even more stellar music numbers, both original and covers. We got an inkling of it with Stryx in 1978, but the eighties saw sets that recreated discotheques, abstract halls of mirrors, enchanted fairy-tale landscapes, circus and revue theater halls, cruise ships, beauty centers, and drive-in movie theaters. In case you missed it, read Part I here.

At the heart of 80s television was also the attempt to find someone as impactful as Raffaella Carrà, who was aging out of her “showgirl” per…