Word: menudo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Around this hemisphere, it already is. Díaz trotted out the original group in 1977. Their music is the blandest kind of pop, without even a dash of Latin bounce. Yet by 1980 Menudo was performing its custom-concocted songs ("Give me a kiss/ Now we are alone/ Nobody can see us") and primitive choreography throughout Central and South America...
...product flow is no less staggering than the live tours: two Menudo movies (which only a mother or a fan could love), ten record albums (total sales: 3 million) and four years of weekly half-hour TV programs. Remember Monkees lunch boxes? A Menudo school bag sells for $16. Menudo, in fact, may be the Strawberry Shortcake of Latin American product licensing. There are Menudo T shirts and sun visors, wristwatches and jeans...
...devising an ambitious American campaign. As many as 20 million Hispanics live in the U.S., and perhaps 1 million are females between ten and 15. The audience is concentrated in New York, South Florida, Texas and Southern California, which makes marketing Menudo easier...
...group has already sold 750,000 LPs in the U.S., although Díaz has yet to strike a deal with a domestic record company. The sound-track album of their second film, Una Aventura Llamada Menudo (An Adventure Called Menudo), was a bestseller all spring (No. 1 in New York and California) on Latin record charts. In the fall comes their first serious "crossover" attempt: Menudo on ABC, a series of four-minute spots in English as well as Spanish, will be aired by the network Saturday mornings...
...Menudo's encampment in New York last week was well timed. They arrived within 24 hours of the huge Puerto Rican Day parade down Fifth Avenue and so rode the crest of local ethnic pride. Indeed, many Hispanic American parents encourage their daughters' enthusiasm for a pop group that sings in the mother tongue. And the lads are nice. Onstage, in tight pants and glitzy tunics, the five do attempt a few sexy gyrations, but their lyrics tend to be wholesome odes to wind surfing, pretty hair, love of country and respect for elders...