Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Parchís: The Documentary’ On Netflix, About The Most Famous ‘80s Kids Band Most Americans Have Never Heard Of

Before Menudo, before New Kids, before Backstreet, ‘NSync or 1D, BTS or BIGBANG, there was Parchís. Though most of the U.S has never heard of it, the group of five boys and girls aged 8 to 12 was one of the most famous kids bands in the Spanish-speaking world from its inception in 1979 until it dissolved in 1985. Parchís: The Documentary takes a look at how the band was created, how their popularity spread from Spain to South America to Mexico, and talks to the six primary members as well as managers, record executives, fans and tour managers. Read on for more…

PARCHIS: THE DOCUMENTARY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Like most groups of this type, Parchís was created by a record label. Belter Records was looking to take advantage of a baby boom in Spain and add children’s music to their roster of more traditional artists. They put ads out in newspapers in Barcelona looking for singers and dancers, and eventually settled on the five members who would become Parchís (the Spanish name for Parcheesi). Via extensive archival footage, you see the group’s early TV appearances, where they’re awkward and not very nimble on their feet, but look adorable in their colorful costumes, modeled after Parcheesi game pieces.

There was Tino Fernandez (Red), the heartthrob; Yolanda Ventura (Yellow), the fun girl; Gemma Prat (Green), the shy one; Oscar Ferrer Cañadas (Blue), the adorable one, and David Muñoz (the die), who wore white or black and was the group’s best dancer. Their popularity exploded in Spain during their first year, with the label going all out to promote them via TV appearances, music videos, movies, specials and more. It seemed that all of the kids’ parents, intoxicated with the notion that their kids will be money machines, left their children in the hands of their manager, especially when they went overseas to tour Mexico and Argentina. We hear about every member of the band that was of age sowing their wild oats on tour with little adult supervision, and causing minor mischief like throwing chairs over hotel balconies.

The only parent who was concerned was Oscar’s; she’d come along on some of the overseas tours and was horrified with what she saw; when she reported this back to the other parents, they seemed to not care. However, after two years Oscar tired of it and left, replaced by the fire-haired and much more enthusiastic Frank Díaz Terez, who is also interviewed.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Any documentary about the rise and fall of a huge act. Think about The Boy Band Con without the scandal.

Performance Worth Watching: All of the band members, now in their late 40s and early 50s, stand out because they have fond memories of the crazy period where they were some of the most famous kids in the Spanish-speaking world, but don’t seem to be bitter about the fractions that seemed to occur, especially when Tino decided to go solo. They’re even sanguine about the fact that they didn’t see a lot of the money they were supposedly cranking out for the label. We especially appreciated Tino Fernandez, who got his left arm severed in an auto accident in the late ’90s. It has made him not only humble, but philosophical of his time in Parchís and the friends he made.

Memorable Dialogue: Yolanda says about the money: “I don’t even know who was stealing from whom, how often and in what way, but it’s… it seemed almost like out of a nightmare, because you didn’t know who the good guys were and who the bad guys were.”

Single Best Shot: For pure late-’70s cheese, you can’t beat the band, in color-appropriate G-Force costumes, dancing and lip-synching in front of scenes from what we know in the U.S. as Battle of the Planets.

Sex and Skin: Mostly innocent discussions about teen horniness.

Our Take: When we came across Parchís: The Documentary and pitched a review, we were wondering if this was going to be a bad choice or not. After all, it’s a pretty straightforward story about six people who bonded under extraordinary circumstances, and, since I never heard of Parchís, the nostalgia factor that docs like these revel in wasn’t there. There was nothing where we could point to something and say, “Hey, we remember that!” So were we just going to be bored for 105 minutes?

Thankfully, the documentary, directed by Daniel Arasanz, got me involved and held our interest the entire way through. Maybe it was because we wanted insight into a band becoming immensely popular overseas without getting much traction in the states, or we were just curious to see if any of these adorable kids fell into some really bad either while they were in the band or just after they left.

We saw none of that second thing, though they did string along the fact that Tino now had only one arm. But, for people who have never heard of Parchís, the film is a fantastic insight into what pop culture in the late ’70s and early ’80s was like in Spain and Latin America. The footage shows that Parchís was a pretty squeaky-clean act, more along the lines of early ’70s US acts like the Brady Kids, and it might give American viewers of a certain age (like our age) acid flashbacks of those heady days instead of the post-disco era. TV production values overseas weren’t quite on par with what Hollywood could crank out back then, and the cheesiness that it creates is more than enough reason to watch.

What we would have wanted to see was a little more about what the band members are doing now, as well as more footage from their reunion, where they talk to each other about their experiences and reminisce. That footage is played over the credits, and we should have seen more of it in the body of the film.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Parchís: The Documentary won’t have any juicy tales of teen heartthrobs gone bad, but it’s a fun journey into Spanish pop culture in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Parchis: The Documentary on Netflix