This is the least offensive image about our so-called hero we can put it here.
El Santos is a comic book anthology written by the Mexican artists José Trinidad Camacho (aka Trino) and José Ignacio Solórzano (aka Jis) about the aforementioned character, a very vulgar, over-the-top parody of the famous wrestling legend El Santo (and also about the whole Mexican wrestling world, as a whole).Originally appearing in the late Eighties as a weekly comic strip in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, El Santos is a Mexican wrestler (or luchador) who fights against the forces of evil, both inside and outside the ring, except that he doesn't have any superpower other than being an arrogant Jerkass. One of his biggest rivals is his former wife La Tetona Mendoza, a really ugly and thuggish woman who is one of the few people able to kick his ass on a daily basis, and she's an even bigger Jerkass than El Santos!
The whole comic book is famous (or infamous) for being a no-punches-pulled parody of the Mexican Professional Wrestling world and also of the Masked Luchador genre (especially at the expense of El Santo's popularity) and both Trino and Jis don't have any qualms in using any kind of narrative tropes, no matter how ridiculous they can be.
Besides the books, there's a series of web-episodes about his adventures, and recently, a full-fledged animated movie under the same name of the original books, El Santos contra La Tetona Mendoza was shown in Mexico at November 2012.
NOTE: This article includes tropes from the comic books, the web-episodes and the animated movie.
El Santos provides examples of:
- Alien Invasion: After Tetona becomes Mexico's President for Life, the first thing she does for keeping the peace in the country is summoning the Alien versions of Las Poquianchis
(an infamous trio of serial-killing sisters who were notorious in the 60s for killing prostitutes and their clients). - Award-Bait Song: Parodied with the theme song of the movie, Zombilaridad, (Zombie-larity, in Spanish), who is a parody between Solidaridad, a propaganda song used by the PRI in the '90s and We Are the World. The theme is notorious from being one of the few songs of this genre used inside the movie and from almost from the beginning of the film, rather than used at the very end of it, not to mention the song is somewhat technically important for the plot.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the film, while both Santos and Cpl. Valdivia are about to being sent to a cliff due to the Sahuayo Zombies being attracted by Mariachi music, and Valdivia crying about dying without being loved, Santos misreads about the being loved part with unable to suck cocks and he ask the audience if Valdivia really said that. He's answered (in a live-action sequence, no less) by Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska while eating popcorns and watching the film.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Santos and Tetona. They could give Ranma and Akane a run for their money.
- Bilingual Bonus: While training, Peyote Asesino's dojo has many Japanese phrases written in the wall, between them are his name written in katakana. (ペヨテ)
- Bloodier and Gorier: The film is considerably more bloodier than the original comic, althrough this is Played for Laughs.
- Character Title
- Secondary Character Title: Tetona Mendoza, in the movie.
- Charity Motivation Song: The already mentioned Award-Bait Song Zombilaridad is this in-universe. and it worked too well...
- Censored Title: Since the Mexican Spanish word Tetonanote is considered vulgar in Mexican media, the posters and the TV trailers censored the mention of the word and replace it with other less offensive adjetives, like Voluptuosanote , Frondosanote and others. This is even lampshaded by El Santos in the trailers:Santos: Oh man! I can't EVEN say the name of the movie in my own trailer?
- Cluster F-Bomb:
- Basically, everyone at any time will drop a F-bomb, regardless the situation.
- In the film, this is upgraded to Carpet F-Bombing!
- Crazy Enough to Work:In the film, To be able to kill Peyote, Santos uses an old Mexican Urban Legend that says if you eat avocado and you get angry, you will die due of a heart attack. This is even lampshaded by many of his partners since they told him that's not going to work. It did, but not in the way El Santos thought at first.
- Creator Provincialism: Played straight in the film, despite the whole plot threatening the entire planet, but averted in the comic books when El Santos starts to wrecking havoc abroad. One of the issues includes Santos destroying buildings in Japan, just a panel later returning to Queretaro, Mexico without any explanation.
- Deranged Animation: In the film.
- Eccentric Mentor: Gamborimbo Ponx
- Fan Disservice: You're NOT supossed to being turned on with both El Santos and Tetona's antics, unless you enjoy that kind of stuff.
- Government Conspiracy: Parodied like hell: it turns that the Sahuayo Zombies were created by the Mexican government somewhere in the past, but it's never explained beyond this and it seems no one cared what happened with them after that.
- Gratuitous English: Being a Mexican film, this is understandable. Also German and Japanese too.
- Groin Attack: Many of them, and when Santos and his friends are trying to escape via a soccer game, they bet their own nether parts if they lose.
- Jerkass: Everyone. (minus Corporal Valdivia)
- Negative Continuity: In the comics, all sort of stuff can happen to the characters and they'll be right back to peak form for the next issue. Up to and including member loss, decapitation and being cooked alive. And Gamborimbo Ponx has been squished to death many times. Including twice in his debut episode.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Mexican president that appears when Tetona becomes the new president is not the former president Vicente Fox.
- Averted with Britney Spears, she appears half-naked in the cover of a infamous Mexican shock magazine.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real
- Product Placement: We see lots of Office Max stores around in the movie.
- Putting on the Reich: Tetona when she becomes president in the film.
- Running Gag: Both the comic books, the web-episodes and the movie begins with the phrase: Estaba un Dia Estaba El Santos (algo), cuando...note
- Take That!: In the promotional web-episodes used for promoting the animated film, when Corporal Valdivia is tweeting some stuff:
- In one of the stories from the comic books, a lookalike from the famous Mexican actor and TV host Xavier Lopez "Chabelo" appears when El Santos is participating in his TV show, except he looks like Frankenstein.
- In one of the stories from the comic books, a lookalike from the famous Mexican actor and TV host Xavier Lopez "Chabelo"
- Self-Deprecation: The comic frequently has the characters or the Author Avatars themselves complain about how awful the writing is.
- Shout-Out; Geez, the amount of references in the animated film is really staggering:
- In the opening sequence of the film, Santos tries to pursue Tetona Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote style.
- While training for destroying the zombies, Santos trains by using a steak in a refrigerator, while using a Shoryuken.
- On the other hand, Peyote is training in the same style as Daniel LaRusso.
- At one point El Santos says:El Santos: We're gonna share the remote control, WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!
- After El Santos finds out that killing zombies with regular wrestling moves doesn't work, he decides to imitate Leatherface. He even invokes him while killing zombies.
- When Tetona Mendoza becomes President for Life, she says she will defend Mexico like a bitch, a parody of the same phrase used by former Mexican president Jose Lopez Portillo when he said he will defend the peso like a dog in the 80s, and failing big time to do so.
- While the zombies starts to be an annoyance for everybody in Mexico and start to invade Tetona's brothel, while her clients trying to escape from them hiding in the brothel's warehouse, the camera view and mood resembles the one used in the first film of the Blair Witch series.
- When Tetona is approving plans for her government, and when the Space Poquianchis informs her about they failed in capture El Santos:Tetona: NEIN, NEIN, NEIN!
- When Tetona and her cronies starts to jailing people, the following scenes switches to Deliberately Monochrome a la Schindler's List.
- The soccer game sequence is basically a parody of the same one from the film Escape To Victory.
- THEY CAN MAYBE TAKE OUT OUR FREEDOM, BUT THEY CAN'T TAKE OUT OUR BALLS!
- When playing soccer against the Space Poquianchis, one of the animated sequences switches to an Animesque style and the game becomes a parody of Captain Tsubasa. This is even lampshaded by some kid in the audience:Kid: Hey! That happened in a episode from Captain Tsubasa! Stop lying!
Cheech Marin: That's not a lie, that's plagiarism. - When Maruca and her henchwomen are trying to reeducate Santos and his friends, they're tortured in the same way like Alex using the Ludovico Treatment, except they're forced to watch very bad soap operas instead.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:During the final duel between Santos and Peyote in the film, Peyote slips himself with an avocado peeling that was in the floor, breaking his back and ending paralytic for life. This is pretty egregious, since in a previous scene, Peyote also falls from a higher place and slams his back against the floor, with no ill effects.
- Toilet Humor: One of the stories in the comic book includes polishing a literal turd.
- Universal-Adaptor Cast: A minor example: Depending of the plot, any character can be a hero or a villain if the plot asks for it. Even Santos himself has being the villain in some stories and is also Played for Laughs.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Surprisignly enough, a world without zombies ended up being this, causing all of mexico to go bankrupt, so it's up to Santos to go and return the zombies back to Mexico.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Other than the plot of the film takes place in Mexico, we don't know in which city the film takes place, althorough it's heavily implied it's not Mexico City, albeit later in the film Santos and Valdivia went to Sahuayo, Michoacan to find the Zombie virus and bring the Sahuayo Zombies back again.
- Wrestling Doesn't Pay
- Your Mom/My Sister Is Off-Limits:Since the lack of zombies (Thanks to El Santos and Peyote Asesino) bankrupted Mexico, the World Bank threatened the country if the Mexicans cannot pay their external debt, they're going to collect that money... by having sex with every Mexican woman instead.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The whole plot of the animated movie, thanks to El Santos and his idea to help the Sahuayo Zombies. He and Peyote found out that rid out Mexico from zombies turned the situation even worse than before, since they're were the ones who payed taxes, the only honest people in the country and the only ones who support the Atlas soccer team.
