David Fernández Ortiz

David Fernández Ortiz (born June 24, 1970 in Igualada ) is a Spanish comedian and actor who also works as a singer and voice actor . In 2008 he took part in the Eurovision Song Contest as a fictional character for Spain under the pseudonym Rodolfo Chikilicuatre .

Artistic career

Fernández, who had actually studied industrial jewelery , became a member of the Catalan comic theater group La Cubana in 1998 . He worked there in various plays.

In 2002 he started working for the production company El Terrat . His first television appearance took place in 2004 on the program Una altra cosa on Catalan television, which was directed by Andreu Buenafuente .

Then he was hired for the same moderator's late-night show Buenafuente , which was initially broadcast by Antena 3 and has since been taken over by LaSexta . Here Fernández became known to a larger audience through the representation of his own comedy characters, but also through imitations, for example of Michael Jackson .

Rodolfo Chikilicuatre

Invention of the figure

In Buenafuente Fernández regularly portrays ad hoc improvised figures, each taken from a current news report. On January 21, 2008, he was supposed to play an anonymous Argentine who had invented a guitar with an attached vibrator . This invention actually exists.

About two weeks later, Fernández could be seen again in this role. Now he presented Buenafuente with a reggaeton title called Baila el Chiki Chiki (German: "Dance the Chiki-Chiki", at that time still written Chiqui-Chiqui ) as a thank you for the first appearance . They claim that the piece was written by the director Santiago Segura (text) and the songwriter Pedro Guerra (music). Shortly before the final of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) they revoked this claim, but the real authorship is still unclear.

Fernández later claimed in his role as Rodolfo that his nephew Roberto Chikilicuatrito junior had invented the song. The alleged nephew, who was seen for the first time in the Eurovision preliminary round, is actually Andreu Buenafuente.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Rodolfo Chikilicuatre in Belgrade, 2008

Towards the end of January 2008, Buenafuente decided to propose David Fernández under the pseudonym Rodolfo Chikilicuatre as a candidate for the Spanish preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade . This year the Spanish candidates and their songs were featured on MySpace . Five titles should be selected by email voting and five titles by the decision of a professional jury.

In the application video, the actresses Alejandra Jiménez Cascón and Silvia Abril appear for the first time as Chikilicuatre's stage dancers, who in the next appearance at Buenafuente under the names Disco (later assigned to Cascón in a blue costume) and Gráfica (Abril as a dancer in a red costume, who constantly falls down ) were presented. For the ESC final, three more dancers were selected through casting (Leticia Martín, María Ángeles Mas and Cecilia López).

David Fernández as Rodolfo Chikilicuatre was only second on the overall list, but the first winner, Antonio González "el Gato", was disqualified for alleged manipulation of the voting. However, Baila el Chiki Chiki had a clear lead of over 40,000 votes over the third-placed La Casa Azul .

In the final of the action Salvemos Eurovisión (“Let's save Eurovision”), which was broadcast by TVE on March 8, 2008, the representative of Spain was to be chosen from the ten remaining candidates. David Fernández aka Rodolfo Chikilicuatre got the highest number of points. He was the winner of the preliminary round and represented the country in the European competition in Belgrade.

On March 11, 2008 Fernández announced a change in his contribution to submit a text without political allusion, as required by the rules of the ESC. Among other things, the mention of Hugo Chavez was removed. The definitive version presented on March 14, 2008 is longer than the original and contains an English section in which reference is made to Spaniards who are also prominent abroad.

In the final of the ESC on May 24, 2008, Fernández and the Albanian contribution finally took 16th place out of 25, the best result for Spain since 2004. The program also achieved the second highest audience rating for the ESC in Spain since the measurement of the Audience numbers. Therefore, despite the parodic character and the mediocre placement, the participation was rated as a success.

Chikimania

How quickly the artificial figure and its song achieved cult status in Spain became evident when football player Christian Fernández from Club UD Las Palmas celebrated a goal that had just been scored on March 22, 2008 in the middle of the game by performing the four dance steps mentioned in the song. The song was also parodied in advertisements and Chikilicuatre caricatured on the cover of the satirical magazine El Jueves . In the village of Illueca it was even suggested that a street should be named after the song.

The fictional character Rodolfo Chikilicuatre has appeared on several popular Spanish TV shows and was interviewed like a real star. Several actions and public appearances organized by Buenafuente increased the enthusiasm for the fictional singer. Among other things, Jordi Évole , another comedian on the Buenafuente program, reached on April 30, 2008 that Pope Benedict XVI. a copy of the children's plastic guitar used as a trademark by Chikilicuatre was presented.

After several announcements, the end of the "joke" was carried out in Buenafuente on June 4, 2008 : Chikilicuatre announced there that he wanted to withdraw from the music business and was finally driven out of the studio in a British hearse equipped for a funeral (albeit alive ).

Movies

David Fernández Ortiz has starred in various films and short films, for example in:

• Kibris: la ley del equilibrio
• tapas
• Donkey Xote (voice of Rocinante )

Web links

Commons : David Fernández Ortiz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's website
• David Fernández Ortiz in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Appearance in Buenafuente on January 21, 2008.
2. ↑ Explanation of the vibrator guitar
3. ↑ First broadcast of Baila el Chiki Chiki in Buenafuente .
4. ^ Revocation by the song authors at Buenafuente on May 15, 2008 ( Memento from June 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
5. ^ Spanish preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008
6. ↑ Report in El País of May 27, 2007.
7. ^ Article in Buenafuente on May 12, 2008 ( Memento from June 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
8. ^ Scene in Buenafuente from June 4, 2008 ( Memento from July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).