When Wally met Jose

MANILA, Philippines - They can easily tell what’s on each other’s minds without saying a single word. They’re together every day, except on a Sunday, when their tandem takes a rest from their almost daily grind. Their respective wives chat regularly on anything and everything under the sun.

“Yes, we’re like a married couple,” says Jose Manalo and Wally Bayola, except that they’re not and they’re definitely not gay (Jose has five children; Wally has four).

When Jose met Wally on the set of Eat, Bulaga! years ago (their team up is six years old and going strong), it was chemistry at first sight. Jose, or Wally would throw a line, and one of them will catch it, turn it around, and out comes a hilarious gag.

During their early years together, Jose and Wally hosted parlor games in Dagupan, Pangasinan, and sent the crowd rolling down the aisle. That was when they were struggling performers, making ends meet for their wives and children.

“I quit my studies when I married at 17,” recalls Jose. The then brand-new groom graciously allowed his wife to get her HRM degree while he eked out a living as pedicab driver and cigarette vendor.

Wally’s story is just as touching. Abandoned as a baby, he grew up in a church whose choir members turned him into the center of entertainment. They joked with him, made him perform funny, amusing numbers in front of them. This was the family Wally knew as a boy. He didn’t even get to meet his father till he turned 33.

Loneliness and deprivation have a way of making good comedians out of people. Jose, whose mother used to push him into joining singing contests in his native Tondo and elsewhere, put his performing skills to good use as a Boyoyong clown. Little did he know that cheering up children with his antics would come in handy when Eat, Bulaga!’s Tony Tuviera offered Jose to work as production assistant after his stint with Valiente. Jose went on to become floor director, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Wally’s audience broadened from the parish choir to theater goers when he tried the stage in high school. He supported himself in college by holding theater workshops for students. That’s where he met his wife, now a nursing student.

That’s why Wally can only laugh silently when clueless people call him gay in public. They don’t know that behind those flowing dresses they see on TV, especially on GMA 7’s late-night show, Wow Hayop! Featuring Animals are People Too! (Wednesdays after Fated to Love You) is a devoted family man.

Jose can’t blame the public for acting that way.

“People already have a picture of comedians in their heads,” he observes. “They laugh the minute they see us.”

This, he adds, also applies in his idol, Dolphy’s case, as well as that of his other role models, Palito, Cachupoy, Apeng Daldal and Tito, Vic and Joey.

If at all, Jose — and Wally — should take this as a compliment. Sure, it has its downside. Jose and Wally, for instance, must endure it when people hit them on the nape because they are the butt of jokes on TV.

But the highs outweigh the lows. For one, Jose and Wally bring in the viewers as hosts of Wow, Hayop! The show is a whole new ballgame for the tandem, as they feature bizarre, touching and amusing videos of animals with peculiar traits. Imagine, for instance, a penguin that goes to market to buy fish, a cheetah that outperforms a human being in painting, for a swan that all in love with a swan boat.

Jose and Wally inform and entertain — mimicking animal behavior and talking about them as well. And since the show zeroes in on animals, pets of celebrities are the stars as well. Their doting humans talk about how they groom and take care of their feathered and/or furry friends.

Today, people always look for Jose when they see Wally and vice-versa. And always, they are in front of the TV camera or performing in a comedy bar (e.g. Zirkoh), trading punch lines as if they’ve been at it since the day they were born.

Wally may be a self-confessed loner (he grew up in the hallowed grounds of the church, remember?). Jose may, by his own admission, be the noisy one. But who cares? As long as they make people laugh and forget their troubles, even for a while, that’s okay. The tandem works, precisely because it’s a classic example of opposites attracting each other.

Okay, next punch line, please!