The group's name is a reference to the board game parchís (an adaptation of pachisi), where each player represents a different colored pawn (red, yellow, blue, and green).
Parchís was created in 1979, after executives from the Belter Records company placed a newspaper ad in Barcelona, asking children to attend auditions to form a musical group.
At first, Belter Records intended to employ the group members during summers only; the company's executives figured out that would be the best season of the year for Parchís albums and concerts to sell.
Gemma Prat Termens, David Muñoz Forcada, Oscar Ferrer Cañadas, Constantino Fernández Fernández (better known as Tino), and Yolanda Ventura (daughter of the well-known trumpet player, Rudy Ventura) were the first five kids to be chosen as members of Parchís.
[1] Parchís' first single, "En La Armada", was a Spanish version of the Village People's disco hit, "In the Navy".
"En La Armada" became a major hit in Spain, giving way for a number of important music composers to start working with Parchís.
With Menudo reaching unprecedented (for a Hispanic children's music group) success levels in Latin America as well as in Spain, and other Latin American groups like Los Chamos and Los Chicos also providing Parchís with the competition, and with Ferrer Cañadas' considerable number of fans going, Parchís began to wane.