Batibot (partially found Filipino children's educational TV series; 1984-2002)

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BatibotLogo.jpg

The show's logo.

Status: Partially Found

Batibot, previously known as Sesame is a Filipino educational show for children produced by Philippine Children's Television Foundation. Sesame, its precursor, was co-produced by Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop).[1]

Info

Just like Sesame Street and its precursor Sesame, the show is aimed at children and educates them. The show is iconic due to the characters Pong Pagong (a full-body character similar to Big Bird) and Kiko Matsing (a character who resembles and acts like Oscar the Grouch) which were both inspired by a Filipino fable "The Monkey and the Turtle."

Sesame, its precursor, was a co-production between the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTF) and the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) with the support of the Philippine government at that time. It is a bilingual program, having two languages: Filipino and English.[2] The support of the government ended after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. and the deal with CTW was cancelled. The show ran from 1983 to 1984.

A year later, PCTF decided to produce its own show named Batibot. It was done entirely in Filipino and characters Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing are in the show due to the deal with CTW, until the 1990s. It is aired every weekday at 10:30 AM.[3] It is consistently ranked as among the top 10 daytime shows in the Philippines.

The show was aired on several networks throughout the years, and in 1999 it was relaunched as Batang Batibot. The show ended in 2003.

Availability

Several scenes of the show are available online, however, full episodes are nowhere to be seen. The intros and several scenes were uploaded from the late 2000s. Both Batibot and Sesame doesn't have full episodes yet on the internet. On January 20, 2022, after a request by StupidStickman, University of Georgia uploaded the first full episode of Batibot.[4] An October 1995 episode was uploaded by the university on May 17, 2022.[5]

On October 7, 2023, Filipino archivist UndustFixation uncovered a segment of Batibot back when it aired on ABS-CBN in 1991.[6]

Gallery

Reunion of Batibot stars from Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho, has some scenes.

Footage of "Sesame."

Batang Batibot opening.

Opening, aired in December 19, 1990.

Opening, aired from 1995 to 1996, uploaded by the original animator

Shotput segment, from 1991.

External Links

References