Batibot may be unfairly known as the Philippines' answer to the Sesame Street. Nonetheless, It is one of the most popular, and best children educational show in the history of the country. It is more than a puppet and men show. It is a true Filipino gem geared towards helping the young Filipinos get a head start in reading, counting, and manners.
Its premiere episode was in 1984, with the name Sesame!, and eventually renamed Batibot several years later. Batibot in Filipino means "small, but strong and robust". As Sesame!, the program used both English and Filipino as the media of communication, but after evolving into Batibot, the show became a completely Filipino language children's educational show.
Characters such as:
Pong Pagong, Kiko Matsing, Manang Bola, Kapitan Basa, and of course Kuya Bodjie, bring not only the fun and learning, but the fun in learning as well.
When I was a kid, there was this news that Batibot will stop airing and one of the purported reason was that two of its popular characters will be "gone" and "can never be used again". I thought that they are going to destroy them. Them being Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing.
It really made no sense back then, and it was both confusing and heart wrenching. Later I found out that both Kiko Matsing and Pong Pagong can never be part of any “Batibot” revivals, because both muppets were merely on loan from Sesame Street’s Children’s Television Workshop to Batibot back then, and the rights to these characters are still with the makers of “Sesame Street.”
It was all downward spiral from then on. There were attempts to revive them, but competition and the landscape of Philippine TV has changed since their heydays.
As for the rest of the cast, a great compilation of their status nowadays can be found here.
Opening theme.
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