Parchis (group)

Parchis was a 1980s children's group from Spain which enjoyed moderate success in countries around the world.

The group's name is a reference to the board game, Parcheesi (translated as Parchís in Spanish), where each player represents a different colored pawn (red, yellow, blue, and green). In the same way, each member of the group dressed in one of these four colors with the fifth member representing the dice.

Parchis' original five members were Constantino Fernández Fernández (the red pawn), Yolanda Ventura Román (the yellow pawn), Oscar Ferrer Cañadas (the blue pawn), Gemma Pratts Tremens (the green pawn), and David Muñoz Forcada (the rolling die, which is singular for dice).

After several line-up changes, the group disbanded in 1986 with various members continuing successful careers in the world of entertainment.

Parchis was created in 1979, after executives from the Belter Records company placed a newspaper ad in Barcelona, asking children to attend auditions to form a musical group. At first, Belter Records intended to employ the group members during summers only; the company's executives figured out that would be the best season of the year for Parchis albums and concerts to sell.

Parchis was neither a boy or girl band. Eventually, the band expanded to have six members at the same time. Gemma Pratts Teremens, David Muñoz Forcada, Oscar Ferrer Cañadas, Constantino Fernández Fernández (better known as Tino), and Yolanda Ventura (daughter of the well known trumpet player, Rudy Ventura) were the first five kids to be chosen as members of Parchis.

Tino was the heartthrob of the group; Gemma was the shy one; Yolanda was every boy's crush; Frank, who joined in 1981 after Oscar left, was the extroverted red head; and David, a blonde haired boy, was the best dancer and the life of the party.

Parchis' first single, "En La Armada", was a Spanish version of the Village People's disco hit, "In the Navy". "En La Armada" became a major hit in Spain, giving way for a number of important music composers to start working with Parchis. "En La Armada" was followed by what was arguably the group's biggest hit, "Durante la Espera de Parchis" ("During Parchis' Wait"). This song became a number one hit in Argentina. Later on, the group also became successful in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and other American countries.

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