1972 in Italian television

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This is a list of Italian television related events from 1972.

Events

• January 26: The doctor Massimo Inardi, expert in classical music, loses the title of champion of the quiz Rischiatutto, detained for eight weeks, after having gained the (by then) astronomical sum of 48.300.000 liras. Inardi, renowned parapsychology scholar, has got great popularity and the nickname of “magician” for his presumed ESP power to read the quiz’s answers in the mind of the presenter Mike Bongiorno; in June, he wins too the final of the show..
• April 6: the cable TV Telebiella, founded by the businessman and TV director Filippo Sacchi and by the anchorman Enzo Tortora, begins to broadcast. In spite of the poor means, it gets a wide success in the Biella district and its example is followed by other local cable TV in the whole Italy.  Another breaking in the RAI monopoly are the foreign channels (TSI1, Tv Koper-Capodistria, Antenne 2) relayed also in the internal regions of Italy by private aerials.
• August 26: RAI broadcasts in PAL color the opening ceremony of the 1972 Summer Olympics; till the September 11, the games are shown in color, alternating PAL and SECAM (the German system appears by far the best). The expected passage of the RAI to the color, wanted by the Post and Communication minister Giovanni Gioia, is however further delayed by the opposition of the Republican Party, which sees it as an incentive to consumerism and arrives to threaten a government crisis about the matter.
• September 20: for the Festa dell’Unità, the PCI puts into operation a cable TV, broadcasting the events of the manifestation.
• December 15: the convention assigning the radio-TV services to RAI, expired after twenty years, is extended for another year.

Debuts

Variety

• Adesso musica (Now music) – music show, hosted by Vanna Brosio and Nino Fuscagni.

For children

• La festa della mamma (Mother’s day) – annual show, organized by the Institute of Antoniano.
• Scacco al re (Check to the king) – game show, inspired to the chess, ideated by Cino Tortorella, hosted by Ettore Andenna.
• Gulp (later Supergulp) – show of “TV comics”, care of Guido De Maria and Giancarlo Governi, with characters both classical (Corto Maltese) and specially created (Nick Carter). It’s the most beloved Italian show for children in the Seventies.

News and educational

• Io e … (Me and…) – by Luciano Emmer. An important personality of the Italian culture gives his advice about a place or a work of art. The cycle is inaugurated by Amintore Fanfani talking about the Madonna del Parto and closed by Pier Paolo Pasolini ; noticeable too the interventions of Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli.

Television shows

Drama

• Il numero 10 (Number 10) – by Silvio Maestranzi, with Josè Quaglio, about Maximilian Kolbe.
• Ipotesi sulla scomparsa di un fisico atomico (Hypothesis about an atomic physicist's disappearance) – by  Leandro Castellani, with Orso Maria Guerrini, about Ettore Majorana.
• La tecnica e il rito (The technique and the ritual) – by Miklos Jancso; a parable about the power through Attila’s life.
• Lulù – by Sandro Bolchi from the Carlo Bertolazzi’s piece, with Paola Quattrini.
• Tutte le domeniche mattina (Every Sunday morning) – by Carlo Tuzii, with Sergio Endrigo; love story among the Italian migrants in Switzerland.

Miniseries

• A come Andromeda (A for Andromeda) – by Vittorio Cottafavi, from the Fred Hoyle’s novel, with Nicoletta Rizzi, Luigi Vannucchi, Tino Carraro and Paola Pitagora; remake of a BBC show, in five episodes. First Italian experiment with the science fiction serial (the Scottish setting of the story was really reconstructed in Lombardy and Sardinia); its success, beside the one of Il segno del comando, induced RAI, in the next years, to follow the way of the fantastic stories. Very suggestive soundtrack by Marco Migliardi.
• Agostino di Ippona (Augustine of Hippo), Blaise Pascal (with Pierre Arditi in the title role) and The age of the Medici – docudramas by Roberto Rossellini about history of philosophy.
• The adventures of Pinocchio – by Luigi Comencini, from the Collodi’s novel,with Nino Manfredi (Mister Geppetto), Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia (The fox and the cat), Gina Lollobrigida (The fairy with turquoise hair) and the little Andrea Balestri (Pinocchio), music by Fiorenzo Carpi; in six episodes. Comencini underlines the realistic sides of the book and takes some liberties with the plot (the Pinocchio’s metamorphosis in child is put at the beginning instead of the end); however, his version is the same considered the nearest one to the Collodi’s spirit. The serial is the greatest RAI production of the year, shot in colors and adapted also in a movie.
• Joe Petrosino – by Daniele D’Anza, from the Arrigo Petacco's book, with Adolfo Celi in the title role; in five episodes. The serial, also if set in the 1900s, brings to the TV public pressing questions as the bounds between mafia and politic.
• I Nicotera – by Salvatore Nocita, with Turi Ferro; in five episodes, about the troubles of a Sicilian family immigrated to Milan.
• La pietra di luna (The moonstone) – by Anton Giulio Majano; in six episodes, from the Wilkie Collins’ novel.
• La donna di picche (The spade woman) – by Leonardo Cortese, with Ubaldo Lay, in five episodes; last enquiry of the lieutenant Sheridan, who in the ending is hit by a bullet.
• Sorelle Materassi (Materassi sisters) – by Mario Ferrero, with Sarah Ferrati, Rina Morelli, Giuseppe Pambieri and the appearance of a novice Roberto Benigni; in three episodes, from the Aldo Palazzeschi’s novel. The life of two aged spinster is upset by their senile passion for a reckless nephew.
• Il sospetto (Suspicion) and Il giudice e il suo boia (The judge and his hangman) – by Daniele D’Anza, from two Friedrich Durrematt’s detective stories, in two episodes each. Paolo Stoppa, as the policeman and avenger Barlach, is sided by Adolfo Celi (Il sospetto) and Ugo Pagliai (Il giudice e il suo boia).
• I demoni (Demons) – by Sandro Bolchi, with Luigi Vannucchi (Stavrogin), Glauco Mauri (Verchovenskij) and Warner Bentivegna (Kirilov); in five episodes, from the Dostoevskij’s novel, script by Diego Fabbri.

Variety

• Amico flauto (Flute, my friend) – musical show, hosted by Renzo Arbore.
• Il buono e il cattivo (The good and the bad) – by Beppe Recchia, with Cochi Ponzoni (the bad) and Renato Pozzetto (the good); first great success of the comic duo, and of their demented and non-conformist humor.
• Canzonissima 1972 – presented by Pippo Baudo and Loretta Goggi, who shows her talent also as singer and moreover as impressionist, and with Vittorio Gassman as constant guest; the contest is won by Massimo Ranieri with Erba di casa mia.
• Sai che ti dico? (You know what) – by Antonello Falqui, with Raimondo Vianello and Sandra Mondaini, and Gilbert Becaud as constant guest; it inaugurates the long series of shows at the service of the couple (in life and art) Vianello and Mondaini.
• Gli ultimi cento secondi (Last hundred sconds) – quiz hosted by Ric and Gian.

News and educational

• C’è musica e musica (There is music and music) – by Gianfranco Mingozzi, hosted by Luciano Berio; educational show about music, in every form (“from Monteverdi to the Beatles”).
• Nascita di una dittatura (Birth of a dictatorship) – by Sergio Zavoli; inquiry in six episodes about the coming to power of the fascism, fifty years after the march on Rome. It’s today again a precious historical document for the interviews to the survivor witnesses of the events, fascist or antifascist, some of which (as Amedeo Bordiga) deceased before the airing.
• Storie dell’emigrazione (Stories about emigration ) – by Alessandro Blasetti; historical enquiry in five episodes about Italian diaspora.

Ending this year

• L’approdo

• Chissà chi lo sa
• Teatro 10
• Le inchieste del commissario Maigret