Les amis de Chico

For a very long time (until last year to be precise), I really thought that I had "dreamed" this serial, since noone around me ever remembered having seen it.It actually came only once on french TV, late summer 1978, and then vanished into thin air. Miraculously, the DVD got released in France last December, and through various internet forums I have managed to talk to a few people who DID remember it... and thought they were they only ones ! Actually this show was something to be remembered : it is the tale of two kids who find a shrunken jivaro head in a box stolen in an antique dealer shop, and who spend the whole series carrying it around, hidden inside a football, to preserve it from the hands of two evilish thugs who want to make money out of it. Of course, a second vision, almost 25 years later, of this naive and childish scary story really doesn't enhance the terrified memory I had of it. The shrunken head, which looked absolutely horrid when I was 7 now looks like a corny wooden puppet with two eyes that go from left to right. The mood of the story is more detective-like than terror-oriented, but the simple fact that it was a head with no body attached to it made the whole thing totally spooky. Actually, the whole thing looks more like an Enid Blyton one-shot than like an episode from the "Tales from the Crypt". But I probably should remain faithful to my memories and not slouch in the usual and obvious adult contempt, cynicism and mockery. After all, this was made for kids, and it worked. Well, for kids in the 70's it did. Today's would probably find "The Boy with Two Heads" atrociously ridiculous !

I was just sitting here at my computer when the theme song to this show popped into my head. Why it sprang to mind, I don't know, but it prompted me to look it up here at IMDb and to my surprise, it's listed.

This was a very strange kid's mystery/adventure show, which I enjoyed as a child, although it took me a long time to actually be able to look at the head in the box. It did, literally, give me nightmares. (I was better once my Mom pointed out to me that it was wooden, and not a real head, but I still couldn't figure out how it talked!) It would be interesting to see it again after all these years, to see how it compares with my vague memories of it, but I don't think I would seek it out specifically.

This show totally freaked me out! I probably saw a ten-minute portion of a single episode, and that's all it took to scar me for life. That very night (I was probably 7 or 8 y/o) I couldn't sleep. I told my mommy that I just couldn't get that hideous head out of mine. In the show, a couple of kids had befriended a talking head that they kept in a shoebox. The head looked like the decapitation of "El Jefe" from The Three Amigos. ¡Ay Carramba! I don't really think about it often. I was just watching The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which reminded me of Chico the Rainmaker. (The way the President of the Universe flopped his head backward sparked the memory.) So, I decided to Google "chico rainmaker," and yadda yadda yadda, here I am sharing my pain.

"Chico, the rainmaker... Chico, the rainmaker..." I wonder how many other children were traumatized by this production.

I loved this show!

Every Saturday morning, my sisters, my brother and I would be waiting outside the Odeon Cinema for the doors to open. It only cost 30p for a good 2-3 hours entertainment. There were cartoons, Children's Film Foundation films and, of course, Chico the Rainmaker. Every time I saw that little head, I would smile. When Jill played the pan pipes and Chris played the drums, you knew Chico was about to do something magical. The story lines were straight out of the Enid Blyton school of writing, the acting was at some times funny, at others dreadful, but this show never failed to amuse and delight us.

It's almost 30 years since I last watched Chico, but I still remember the theme song after all this time. Chico will stay with me as a very happy memory of my childhood.

I saw this film in Hannover -Germany in 1978. I was living at the British Army barracks with no English TV. Every Saturday morning the bus would pull up and we all used to go to the Saturday morning pictures.

Chico the Rainmaker was my favourite, my 8 yr old memory of it was a weird scary wooden head that was kept in a football. He needed to be returned to the amazon and each week the children would get into all sorts of adventures whilst being chased by a couple of men who wanted to get their hands on Chico. I'd come home, popcorn in my hair, humming the theme tune! Great memories!