Eat Bulaga!?

New York Comic-Con was in full swing this weekend. The largest pop-culture event on the East Coast. Of course, I was trying to save money so what did I do instead...? I went deep into Queens and watched the Filipino Channel for hours.

Here's a question you probably weren't asking:

What is "EAT BULAGA!"?

It's an extremely popular noon-time variety show that has been airing in the Philippines since 1979. I don't understand the language and despite watching hours of it on Saturday afternoon, I had no fucking idea what was going on.

The show seemed to have at least a dozen hosts but the main ones, for a stretch of it at least, seemed to be Julia Clarete and Ryan Agoncillo. There seemed to be a high school dance competition, followed by a word guessing game, followed by shitloads more dancing, followed by unfathomable amounts of singing. Seriously, "Eat Bulaga!" makes GLEE look like a sober courtroom drama. "Eat Bulaga!" makes GLEE look like THE SHIELD.

All right, but what the fuck does "Eat Bulaga!" mean...?

Let's turn to EAT BULAGA!'s Wikipedia entry:

Eat represents lunchtime while Bulaga (which means "surprise" in English) represents their plan to fill the show with lots of big surprises. The title is also a play on two children's games: Eat is the transliteration of It! from the game Tag while Bulaga refers to Peek-a-boo!. Because of this, the slogan "Hangga't May Bata, May Eat Bulaga!" ("While There Are Children, There will be Eat Bulaga!") was coined...

Satisfied?

These are my people. Which is why I've chosen a career writing horror movies.