Father Tobia's boys

#television #memories

Ah, the legendary children's TV! It lasted an hour, at most two, if you also considered the programs of older children. I waited for five in the afternoon with my heart in my mouth, I who did not go out and did not play with other children. It was my only entertainment after books, my only amusement, my source of information and learning, like Childcraft. It was pure pleasure. Now children are glued all day to dedicated channels, which broadcast cartoons 24 hours a day, and to cell phone videos.
I have a vague memory of a program that my mother and grandmother also liked so much. Father Tobia's boys, not to be confused with Father Brown's boys. It was a TV series, broadcast between 1967 and 1973, with a pedagogical background, which relied on the values of loyalty, courage, and friendship. The protagonists were Father Tobia (Silvano Tranquilli), his nice and stupid sacristan Giacinto (Franco Angrisano) and the group of young scouts from the parish. Those were the years of the DC in power and the interference of the Church in school and ministerial programs, but, I will tell you, it did not hurt. We laughed out loud and, at the same time, we taught ourselves values such as respect and honesty. Good and evil, right and wrong were distinct. A minimum of spirit of sacrifice and sense of guilt have never killed anyone, on the contrary, they helped the development of a healthy desire and did good to society as a whole.
The various Father Brown and Father Tobia, investigating priests, were the precursors of today's dull, hyper-replicated and embalmed Don Matteo. But, perhaps because we have changed, the result is not the same, alas.