254 classic broadcasts of La Tremenda Corte (in Spanish)
6 classic broadcasts of Latin America Popular Music Series

ALL KNOWN EPISODES TO EXIST.

Don't be fooled by other collections that claim to contain more episodes.  Many of these shows were aired on multiple dates in reruns, so you have plenty of sellers out there padding their collections with reruns!  We feature all known episodes in existence and do not add "fluff" to our collections to increase our claimed episode count like many others. 

NOTICE: This collection is all in MP3 format supplied on DVD.  You play this in your computer and then can copy all the MP3 files to your MP3 player of choice.  This DVD will NOT play in a regular CD player in your car, or your TV's DVD player, it is intended for your computer only which will allow you to transfer the MP3 files to any device that can play MP3's.  This collection remains the largest most original collection on ebay.

Le Tremenda Corte:

La Tremenda Corte (Spanish for "The Awesome Courthouse") was a radio comedy show produced in Havana, Cuba. The scripts were written by Cástor Vispo, a Spaniard who became Cuban citizen. The show was aired nonstop from 1942 to 1961. Later, the format of the show was adapted for a TV sitcom in Monterrey, Mexico, however, only three and a half seasons were produced from 1966 to 1969.

Cástor Vispo was born in La Coruña, Spain. He left his hometown at the age of 18, shortly after the Spanish Civil War broke out, to join his family in Cuba. While working at the El Universal newspaper, Vispo used his free time to write. His stories were closely related to the Cuban culture of the period, encompassing written press, theater and Cuban radio.

“La Tremenda Corte”, was the work of this clever and prolific comedy writer Castor Vispo definitely fused with speech and Cuban folk psychology. Both Vispo as the production team were given the task of finding local comedians who would shed an humorous light, in 1941 (during WWII) and help people to forget the hardships of that time. Soon they found Leopoldo Fernández (Tres Patines), a talented comedian who was already recognized in radio spots and theatre, and his inseparable friend, Anibal de Mar. The duo had already achieved popularity as the comedy duo Pototo y Filomeno, and they would bring parts of their act into the new show. The rest of the cast came from tests with other less well-known comedians, but equally outstanding.

The program began broadcasting on radio station RHC-Cadena Azul on January 7, 1942. It was owned by Amado Trinidad Velasco since 1941 (RHC belonged to the famous cigarette company Trinidad and Brothers).

In 1947, “La Tremenda Corte” like several other programs of its time, was transferred to rival station CMQ Radio advertisers and sponsors, seeking greater competitive advantage. The programs were broadcast live back then, three times per week from Monday to Friday at 8:30 pm and were sponsored by a firm of perfumery and soaps.

La Tremenda Corte aired uninterrupted from 1942 to 1961 (first RHC Cadena Azul and later at QMC), and its sole writer was Vispo. Despite such strenuous work for his imagination, Vispo always managed to pull through during this period. Over 360 shows are estimated to have been recorded, many of which are still heard on radio, but a few such episodes have never left Cuba and little is therefore known about them. Of all these missing radio shows were recorded at station CMQ in Havana, between 1947 and 1961, no one knows how many still survive, and they are considered rare and invaluable for fans and collectors of the series. In the peak of their success, the performances of the cast were taken to countries such as Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and the Dominican Republic, where they were acclaimed.

Beginning in 1960, production took a drastic turn for the show as a result of the revolution headed by Fidel Castro.

The show had been adapted previously to play in local theatres to some controversy, since the actors (Leopoldo Fernández especially) were vocal political critics both off and on stage.

Castro's regime, with its rigid Marxist tendency in those years, showed its displeasure with the existence of comedy shows on the broadcast media, especially when political leaders started to become the butt of jokes.

1960 and 1961 were particularly difficult for the cast, as the government began sending sympathizers to chant Communist slogans and disrupt the performances by any means necessary.

Then in 1961 a decree was issued in the island placing all theater, radio and TV troupes under the purview of the state's Censorship Commission.

Fernández was arrested over a shooting in a performance and had to serve a 27-day house arrest sentence for which no further explanation was offered.

After his release, Fernández is said to have made a short comic piece where he played “Pototo” while he and another actor reviewed a file of Cuban presidents' photos to install them on the wall. The other player showed a photo of Fulgencio Batista and Fernández said to him: “Throw this one away.” The other actor continued showing different pictures to Pototo's unchanging reply: – “Throw this one away too…” Finally, the assistant grabbed a photo of Fidel Castro. Leopoldo watched it, showed it to the audience and went to the wall as he said with his characteristic ironic humor: – “Allow me — I want to hang this one myself…”.

The joke, which spread far and wide and was repeated everywhere, was said to end with an assertion that this line had caused his detention — and would cause his later self-exile from Cuba in the same year. However, this story was later denied in Miami by Fernández, who, on hearing it from an alleged theater hand present at that performance, corrected the storyteller with visible displeasure and said: "Gentlemen, had I done and said those things, I would not be here to tell you the story… ".

Whatever the case, Cuban authorities finally shut down both the stage version of La Tremenda Corte and Pototo y Filomeno in Cuba, and in early 1962, the Cuban government seized CMQ and cancelled all comedy shows that were on air.

This caused the main cast of “La Tremenda Corte” (with the exception of the production team, Cástor Vispo included) to leave Cuba that year for Miami, never to return.

The self-exile was driven by economic reasons, never by ideological differences. In fact, none of the cast team expressed in that moment any political affinity and they decided to stay besides the facts that were addressing the Cuban society, even if they were living in a foreign country.

In those times actors did not receive income from the copy rights of the program, as it happens today, for this reason Abel Mestre, (who had been executive of company CMQ before being expropriated by the castrismo) bought many of the chapters from La Tremenda Corte for a truly derisory sum. Later he offered them for sale to many of the main Latin American radio stations of those years. The sale value was estimated in those years in $20 U.S. by episode, or more than $7.000 U.S. the totality of the episodes which still engravings are conserved, and are worth an exorbitant amount nowadays.