Lunch surprises over the years

Eat, Bulaga! premiered on July 30, 1979. Today, it still holds the record of being the longest-running noontime variety program aired in the history of Philippine television. It was Tony Tuviera, then working for the company Production Specialists of Romy Jalosjos, who thought that the comic troika of Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon would be the perfect hosts for their new program. It was Joey who coined the title of the show (Eat for lunch and Bulaga for the surprises the show offers). Coney Reyes joined the show in 1987, while Aiza Seguerra followed after finishing as a runner-up in the Little Miss Philippines segment.

To this day, Tito, Vic and Joey maintain that they never signed any contract with the Eat, Bulaga! management when offered to become hosts of the show. Friendship and their loyalty to the show are the only factors that keep them together. By the ’90s, various other companies showed interest in buying the airing rights of Eat, Bulaga!, but nothing came out of those proposals. In September 2007, a series of word wars occurred between Joey and Willie Revillame, the host of Eat, Bulaga! rival show Wowowee. But what is this we now hear that the trio have been behind the move to have Willie join their company?  

When Francis Magalona, one of Eat, Bulaga!’s long-time co-hosts, succumbed to leukemia it was only during a tribute to him that we found out that Francis was the one who had coined the word Dabarkads (Tagalog for friends) in describing the Eat, Bulaga! family.

In 2009, Eat, Bulaga! celebrated its 30th anniversary with a show dubbed as Tatlong Dekada ng Dabarkads (Three Decades of the Dabarkads).

Vic Sotto (center) with Ryzza Mae Dizon and Alonzo Muhlach. STAR

The show focused on honoring and helping remarkable people, including poor, hard-working students and other everyday heroes as a gesture of paying back to the public who had supported them through the years. Eat, Bulaga! then launched its coffee-table book called Ang Unang Tatlong Dekada (The First Three Decades), written by Butch Francisco with Jako de Leon (son of Joey) behind the design concept.

In February of 2014, co-host Wally Bayola who had been absent for sometime returned to Eat, Bulaga! in Juan For All, All For Juan joining his partners Jose Manalo, Paolo Ballesteros, Jimmy Santos and Valerie Weigmann for his birthday. On July 16, 2012, Indonesia’s SCTV Network aired the show’s first international franchise, Eat, Bulaga! Indonesia.

Eat, Bulaga! has won numerous awards since its inception that would include those given by PMPC Star Awards, Asian Television Awards, GMMSF Box Office Entertainment Awards, Anak TV Seal Awards, Aliw Awards, Golden Screen Awards, etc. Winners have been the TVJ, Ading Fernando, Allan K, Sex Bomb Dancers, EB Babes, Ryan Agoncillo, Pia Guanio, Julia Clarete, Helen Vela, Jose Manalo, Wally Bayola and Ryzza Mae Dizon.

It would not be so far-fetched for those in the entertainment sector to wonder what it was that kept the group together apart from friendship. Someone who knows them well tells us it could be because the trio served as good examples, to let bygones be bygones whenever problems arose, and never to sit on one’s anger (huwag magtanim ng galit). Here’s to more decades of entertaining the public!

(E-mail your comments to [email protected] or text me at 0917-8991835.)