31 minutos (English: 31 minutes) is a Chilean comedy television series and a children's music virtual band created by the production company Aplaplac (owned by Álvaro Díaz, Pedro Peirano and Juan Manuel Egaña) that was first broadcast March 15, 2003 on Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN).

In 2012, the production company Aplaplac confirmed that the series would return to television with a fourth season, which was released on October 4, 2014 through TVN, and its last original episode was broadcast on the night of December 27, 2014.

During its run, the series received universal acclaim from critics and viewers alike, with praise directed to its clever humour, soundtrack, accessibility towards children about complex issues and helping to revitalize the Chilean puppetry tradition.

The origins of 31 minutos date back to 1990, when its creators Álvaro Díaz and Pedro Peirano entered the Universidad de Chile to study journalism and met each other for the first time.

[12] The idea evolved into a puppet and marionette news show called "31 minutos" -—a name that originated from the contest rules, which mentioned that the projects had to last half an hour—.

[19][20] They were fully aware that minors no longer consumed only programs that were aimed at a child audience and, based on that, came to the idea that a satire of the news had to be made.

To that end, Peirano —who shared friendship with the members of the Chilean funk rock group Chancho en Piedra— introduced Pablo Ilabaca —guitarist of that band—, who brought with him a compact disc of tracks without lyrics, with which he didn't know what to do.

Ilabaca remained as the music producer for 31 minutos, giving rise to the Ranking Top segment, of which the character Policarpo Avendaño —interpreted by Daniel Castro— is in charge.

For example, Tulio and Bodoque appeared in commercial messages on the transport system of Santiago de Chile, Transantiago, to educate people on how to behave on the buses.

[42] In 2010, UNICEF released a commercial entitled "Rearmemos la vida de niños y niñas" (Let's revive the lives of children) with the aim of raising morale after the 2010 Chile earthquake.

[51] Thanks to Nickelodeon's children's audience, the program became internationalized, with good reception in countries such as Mexico and Brazil —where it was dubbed into Portuguese—[52][53] On June 19, 2005, the third season began to be broadcast on TVN,[54] consisting of only 15 episodes.

[57] Ro Velázquez —a member of the Mexican group Liquits— came up with the idea of producing a tribute album for the program in which fanatical artists chose their favorite song to record in their own way.

[33] The project became official with the release of "La regla primordial" —from the album Ratoncitos— versioned by Tepetokio (a duo formed by Mexican singer Rubén Albarrán and his wife Psykini) as a single.

[62] These performances began as a tour of southern Chile to bring joy to people in the localities most devastated by the earthquake of February 27 that year,[63] but some time later the play arrived in Mexico, in 2012.

[69] In the second half of 2012 the Organizing Committee of the 2013 Viña del Mar International Song Festival confirmed 31 minutos as one of the national artists for the journey.

[76][77] In view of the success achieved at the festival, they decided to play the stages again, but this time with Radio Guaripolo, a show directed by Alvaro Diaz and written by Pedro Peirano, which officially opened at the Teatro Municipal de Las Condes.

[80] One of the most important events of this production was the premiere of the song "Mi mamá me lo teje todo", which would later be part of the soundtrack of the fourth season.

[92][93] The first episode marked 9.3 points of screen share, but was surpassed by the program Morandé con compañía of the Chilean television channel Mega —which obtained more than 15—.

On November 20, 2019, the organizers of the Mexican festival Vive Latino released the line-up for its 21st edition,[125] where it highlighted 31 minutos with a double performance, on March 14 and 15, 2020 with a special show.

[127] During February 2020 a tour in Mexico was scheduled in which Yo nunca vi televisión was to perform during March in the cities of San Luis Potosí, Guadalajara and Mérida,[128] but to prevent contagion from the COVID-19 pandemic it was decided to reschedule the dates for October of the following year.

[130] The crisis caused by this disease was the reason for 31 minutos to join for the third time with UNICEF to launch the "Cuarentena 31" campaign, with the aim of addressing issues that affect children during confinement.

[131] The capsules were broadcast on Cartoon Network and Boomerang Latinoamécica,[132] and on July 29, 2020, a song entitled "Primavera" was launched to encourage people in the midst of the health crisis.

[134] Díaz and Peirano have stated on multiple occasions that it is not possible to make a fifth season for Chilean television, because this is not a format where the program can remain[135] —adding to this the high costs of production—.

[148][149] This team is joined by Calcetín con Rombos Man, the superhero defender of children's rights,[150] and Guaripolo, who calls himself the "favorite character of kids of 31 minutos", although nobody knows him.

[154] A fragment of episode fifteen of the second season (Hielito) was also shown in Holland as a segment within another show, and its dubbing was done by the comedian Niels van der Laan, who played all the characters.

[157] The recordings began in Chile in October 2006 and ended in the summer of 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil —where the production company Total Entertainment joined in to provide the cinematic experience that Aplaplac did not have—.

[161] Finally the series was brought to the big screen under the name of 31 minutos, la película,[162] and was released in Chile on March 27, 2008,[163][164] in Mexico on October 16, 2009[165][166] and in Brazil on August 3, 2012.

As a project for the National Museum of Dentistry of the University of Chile, the production company made a four-episode web series called Las muelas de Guaripolo,[171][172] in which this character appears teaching the public information about dental hygiene and its history.

This mini-series consists of three chapters of four to five minutes and deals with how Juan Carlos Bodoque —already retired from journalism— decides to fall into Ramona's requests to do a report on air pollution in Chile.

[175] The program —which consists of 12 episodes—[176] is designed as a spin-off of 31 minutos, that is, a production derived from some of its characters;[177] and the one chosen was precisely Tulio Triviño, the self-centered news anchor who now moves to his lavish summer cabin with his niece Patana and Tim, a friend of hers.