31 Minutos
31 minutos is a Chilean children's comedy television series and virtual band created by the production company Aplaplac, founded by Álvaro Díaz, Pedro Peirano, and Juan Manuel Egaña. It premiered on March 15, 2003, on Televisión Nacional de Chile. The show is presented as a satirical news program hosted by the puppet character Tulio Triviño, featuring comedic reports and sketches. It incorporates educational themes with a humourous format.
During its initial run, the series aired three seasons between 2003 and 2005, along with a special appearance in the 2003 Chilean telethon and a Christmas special that same year. On March 27, 2008, a feature film adaptation titled 31 minutos, la película was released.
After the third season, the series went on a nine-year hiatus with no new episodes produced. In 2012, Aplaplac announced that the show would return with a fourth season, which premiered on October 4, 2014, on TVN. The final original episode aired on December 27, 2014.
The series received widespread critical and audience acclaim for its clever, absurdist humor, original soundtrack, ability to address complex topics in a child-friendly manner, and its contribution to reviving Chile’s puppetry tradition.
From 2004 to 2007, the series was broadcast throughout Latin America on Nickelodeon, and beginning in 2015, it aired on Cartoon Network. In Mexico, it has also been broadcast on Canal Once and Once Niñas y Niños. The most recent season is available on Netflix in Latin America.
31 minutos has performed throughout Chile and Mexico, making the program a musical band. In 2025, it became the third puppet show to perform on NPR's Tiny Desk, being described as an "institution of Latin American children's programming."
History
Origins and foundation of Aplaplac
The origins of 31 minutos date back to 1990, when its creators Álvaro Díaz and Pedro Peirano entered the Universidad de Chile to study journalism and met each other for the first time. At first, Díaz did not meet with Peirano nor was he interested in talking to him, but they got together to do some academic work, which led both of them to realize that they shared the same sense of humor and to become friends. The two met again in 1995, when they produced programs such as Plan Z and El Factor Humano for the Chilean television channel Rock & Pop. But, contrary to their expectations, neither production prospered. In addition, the channel ceased broadcasting on December 1, 1999, leaving both Peirano and Diaz unemployed.To get out of this situation, they founded the production company Aplaplac together with Juan Manuel Egaña. Initially, Aplaplac developed two programs: Sangre, sudor y lágrimas, —a human-interest program bought by the sports channel PSN—, and Mira tú, a cultural program produced with funds from the Consejo Nacional de Televisión in 2001 and broadcast by Televisión Nacional de Chile in 2002.
Mira tú stood out for its quality and became the production company's letter of introduction, therefore Díaz, Peirano and Egaña applied for a second time to a CNTV competition fund in 2002, this time in the children's television category. The project presented was entitled El gabinete del Doctor Mojado, and in it a fish was conducting a television program from a fishbowl. In one of its segments, a puppet reported on what was happening with the excrements in the treatment plants. Aplaplac won the contest and obtained funds to produce 21 episodes that would be broadcast on Televisión Nacional de Chile. The idea evolved into a puppet and marionette news show called "31 minutos" -—a name that originated from the contest rules, which mentioned that the projects had to last half an hour—. Additionally, the series' name and logo parody that of 60 minutos, a controversial newscast broadcast by TVN between 1975 and 1988, that served as a propaganda medium for the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship. The logo also takes elements from that of the American cable network CNN's.
At the same time, Peirano worked at the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, where he met the artist Rodrigo Salinas, who -together with the artists Daniel Castro and Matias Iglesis- formed the art collective La nueva gráfica chilena. Peirano invited them to be part of the production team for 31 minutos, leaving Salinas and Castro as scriptwriters —along with Díaz and Peirano—, Iglesis as art director —establishing the visual identity of the program and its characters— and Juan Manuel Egaña as executive producer of Aplaplac and 31 minutos. Due to requirements from TVN, a stable female character had to be included in the episodes. The actress and comedian Alejandra Dueñas —known from La nueva gráfica chilena— later joined the team, giving life to Patana's character.
The conviction of their creators at the beginning was to make a type of television program that they would have liked to see as children. They were fully aware that minors no longer consumed only programs that were aimed at a child audience and, based on that, came to the idea that a satire of the news had to be made. The idea also arose of inventing songs and presenting them in a musical classification. To that end, Peirano —who shared friendship with the members of the Chilean funk rock group Chancho en Piedra— introduced Pablo Ilabaca —guitarist of that band—, who brought with him a compact disc of tracks without lyrics, with which he didn't know what to do. The first instrumental Díaz and Peirano heard was the one that later became the central theme of 31 minutos, of which they quickly became fond. The rest of the tracks were used for the soundtrack of the episodes, along with other songs invented by the team. Ilabaca remained as the music producer for 31 minutos, giving rise to the Ranking Top segment, of which the character Policarpo Avendaño —interpreted by Daniel Castro— is in charge.
Success and internationalization
31 minutos made its debut on March 15, 2003. Its first episodes marked 6 points of screen rating, but as time went on it began to popularize and increase its audience to an average of 14 points. Initially it was a news show of interest to children, however, as the program progressed in its first season, it went from being a parody of news to becoming a character comedy. In view of the popularity achieved by the program in 2003, the creators agreed to produce a second and third season, this time with funds from the channel.Part of the program's success lies in its script and characters, with hidden references to Chile's social reality. It has also been successful among young and adult audiences: the double entendre that it handles is manifested, for example, in the fact that the puppets are ironic imitations of real Chilean television characters, and recall events or television events that characterized Chile in the 1970s and 1980s.
The commercial success of the program was reflected in the appearance of several products based on it. On July 8, 2003, a studio album called 31 minutos was released, with the songs that were part of the musical classification of the first season of the program. It naturally sold out all its copies in less than a day and came to sell more than 200,000 copies. Not only was an album released, but on July 28, 2004, there was a release of 31 canciones de amor y una canción de Guaripolo, which included the songs of the second season. The name of the album refers to the book Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada by Pablo Neruda. Its premiere took place in the Paseo Ahumada in Santiago and, despite not surpassing the phenomenon achieved by its predecessor, in one week it sold 20,000 copies and achieved the position of platinum record. The songs of the third season were compiled in the album Ratoncitos -in which the musician Angelo Pierattini-, which was awarded a gold record a few days after its release. In addition to the records with the songs of the program, near Christmas 2003 the home videos Lo mejor de 31 minutos and Los Policarpo Top Top Top Awards were released, which together sold more than 35,000 records. This fact made them the best selling local DVDs in the history of Chile.
The popularity obtained with the program has led its characters to be part of publicity and propagandistic campaigns in Chile. For example, Tulio and Bodoque appeared in commercial messages on the transport system of Santiago de Chile, Transantiago, to educate people on how to behave on the buses. In 2010, UNICEF released a commercial entitled "Rearmemos la vida de niños y niñas" with the aim of raising morale after the 2010 Chile earthquake. These ads show Tulio talking about the fear he feels from the tremors, but his friends from the news encourage him by telling him that together everything is better and that it is normal to feel fear. Another ad with UNICEF was about short films showing musical numbers in which Patana gives Tulio advice on how to prevent influenza. In addition, since 2015, Mario Hugo has been the face of the Santiago Metropolitan Regional Government's campaign entitled "Cuidado con el perro", which calls for sterilization, responsible ownership and care of dogs in public spaces.
The second season of 31 minutos made its debut on March 20, 2004 on Televisión Nacional de Chile, and simultaneously the program began to be known in other countries. On June 9, 2004, Nickelodeon's Latin American signal bought the first two seasons of the series, and premiered them on September 17 of the same year. The network broadcast the episodes until 2007. Thanks to Nickelodeon's children's audience, the program became internationalized, with good reception in countries such as Mexico and Brazil —where it was dubbed into Portuguese— On June 19, 2005, the third season began to be broadcast on TVN, consisting of only 15 episodes.
Mexico was the first country other than Chile to broadcast the series on open television when it premiered in 2006 on Canal 11. Thanks to Canal 11's broadcasting, in 2007 the EMI label released the album 31 minutos for the first time in Mexico. Both events made 31 minutos a popular hit in the country. Ro Velázquez —a member of the Mexican group Liquits— came up with the idea of producing a tribute album for the program in which fanatical artists chose their favorite song to record in their own way. The project became official with the release of "La regla primordial" —from the album Ratoncitos— versioned by Tepetokio as a single. The tribute was named Yo nunca vi televisión and was published in December 2009 under the label Terricolas imbéciles. In it, fourteen Chilean and Mexican artists performed some songs from the first three albums of 31 minutos. Yo nunca vi televisión was distributed in Mexico and the southern United States, and sold about 5,000 copies in its first weeks. In addition to its physical version, it was uploaded to the iTunes store for downloading.