Luis Antonio Rivera
| Luis Antonio Rivera | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Luis Antonio Rivera April 9, 1930 Humacao, Puerto Rico |
| Years active | 1940–present |
Luis Antonio Rivera a.k.a. "Yoyo Boing" (born April 9, 1930) is a comedian, actor and television show host, who was also one of the pioneers of Puerto Rican television.
Rivera was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico and his parents moved to Santurce, a section of San Juan, from Humacao when he was only three years old. After receiving his primary education, Rivera attended the "Escuela Superior Central de Santurce" (Central High School of Santurce). He found a part-time job at a local radio station which opened the doors to a new world for him.
Rivera became a member of the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico. As a drama student, he participated in two of René Marqués' plays. Having a deep baritone voice he also became a radio presenter. His radio station dramatized comedy sketches, and one of the producers suggested dramatizing Archie Comics over the radio. Due to the lack of audiovisual references for the characters at the time, there were no clear cut ways of representing the characters in Spanish, nor there were exact translations for their names. Rivera came up with the name of Yoyo Boing for representing Jughead; the name "Yoyo" sounded close to "Jughead", and the "Boing" part was a gimmick Rivera developed for the character: a vocalized "boing" that he constantly repeated to fill in silence gaps during each episode. Ever since his Archie stint on Puerto Rican radio, Puerto Ricans rarely refer to Rivera using his real name, and usually refer to him by his by-now "nickname".
1954 was the year that television was born in Puerto Rico. Rivera, together with Tommy Muñiz, José Miguel Agrelot and Paquito Cordero was one of the first comedians in Puerto Rican television. In 1960, he starred. alongside Norma Candal (Petunia) in a television comedy called "La Críada Malcríada" (The Rude Maid). In the 1970s, Rivera starred in own sit-com called "Mi Hippie Me Encanta" (I'm Crazy about My Hippie) broadcast by Telemundo. In the 1980s, Rivera starred in the situation comedies, "Generaciones", (Generations), with Chayanne, "Los Suegros" (The In-Laws) and later in a spin-off of that show called "Los Suegros y Los Nietos" (The In-Laws and the Grandchildren), broadcast by WAPA-TV. Rivera was also the General Manager of radio stations WKBM-AM ("AM 81") and WORO-FM ("Radio Oro", or Golden Radio), the radio branches of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan.
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