Super Taldo

BACKGROUND

A famous Chilean newscaster named Bernardo de la Maza conducted this rare, non-aired interview in 1974 to then 14 year old Agustín Arenas Cardozo, a.k.a. "Super Taldo", a shy yet ingenious resident to a mental institution that suffered from severe Tourette's syndrome that included possessed-like seizures and bizarre (yet amusing) gestures, tics and contortions.

In such interview, Agustín speaks about his life, his friends and family, inserting violent curses in Chilean Spanish in his speech, while seizuring. He tells Bernardo de la Maza he would like to become a detective stories' writer, and his protagonist would be a character called "Hugo Montaldo", a.k.a. "Super Taldo" (hence the name of the meme).

Audio samples first, and then video shots of such lost interview surfaced over the net in the early 2000s in Chile, and became an instant, generational hit. During the years the meme expanded to all Latin America, and there are hundreds of videos paying homage to Super Taldo from Argentina, Mexico and Peru. Several Super Taldo phrases have become common catchphrases in Chilean slang.

In 2004 a local Valparaíso TV station (UCV) decided to look for Agustín and found him living a peaceful, out of fame life as a packaging company operator. Agustín told the press he was cured and surprised about his sudden celebrity status, that he was once married, had a daughter and later on got divorced.

Some popular Taldo catchphrases include:

- BERNARDO: "Tu tienes un coeficiente intelectual completamente normal, verdad?" TALDO: "Claro, claro…" – BERNARDO: "You have a completely normal IQ, right?" TALDO: "Yeah, sure, sure…"

- "Lo que más me gusta pero lo más que me gusta desde que yo puedo escribir, es la escritura" – "What I like the most, the most about writing is… to write"

- "El PICO… CONCHETUMADRE!" – "COCK!… MOTHERFUCKER!"

- "Con la misma acción pero distinto argumento y distinto personaje" – (I like to write my stories using) the same action, but with a different plot and a different character"

- "IUUWAH!"

- "Papel que encuentre lo lleno de escritura" – "Any piece of paper I find I fill it in with writing"

- "En el cielo hay estrellas, y yo digo que tu eres bella" – "In the sky there are stars, and I say you are a babe!"

ORIGINAL 1974 FOOTAGE (audio in Chilean Spanish, with subtitles)

A RANDOM ANIMATION OF THE INTERVIEW

SUPER TALDO DANCING REGGAETON REMIX

"STREET TALDO II" PARODY

2010 INTERVIEW IN "VIVA LA MAÑANA" (CHANNEL 13 CHILE)

ARGENTINE YOUTUBE PARODY

YET ANOTHER ARGENTINE YOUTUBE PARODY (for some reason they love Taldo in Argentina!)