Post-war bodabil
Following the end of World War II, film production in the Philippines resumed, and many of bodabil's stars either returned or shifted to cinema. Bodabil however remained popular for the next two decades. A large credit to bodabil's continued popularity can be attributed to Lou Salvador, Sr., a performer with the stage name "Chipopoy" who shifted to production after the war. Salvador would become the most successful stage show impresario in the '40s and '50s. He organized several bodabil troupes and discovered a new generation of bodabil performers, such as the comedians Chiquito, Cachupoy and German Moreno, the singers Pepe Pimentel, Diomedes Maturan, and Eddie Peregrina.
Bodabil continued to capitalize on the latest trends in Western entertainment. It featured popular Latin dances such as the mambo and cha-cha, or the boogie, which was popularized by Chiquito. When rock and roll emerged in the 1950s, bodabil showcased Eddie Mesa, who became known as the "Elvis Presley of the Philippines". In the late 1950s, singers such as Nora Aunor, Elizabeth Ramsey, Pilita Corrales and Sylvia La Torre also plied the bodabil circuit. Bodabil had also started to incorporate burlesque numbers into its routines.
By the 1960s, bodabil had to compete as well with the rise of commercial television broadcasts in the Philippines. It underwent a swift decline, and by the late 1960s, the form drew on the limited market for its burlesque routines. The emergence of bomba films around 1969-1970, which killed off burlesque, also marked the end of bodabil.
After martial law was declared in 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos attempted to revive a sanitized form of bodabil. Theaters such as the Manila Grand Opera House again featured bodabil routines, with slogans praising martial law rule piped into the theaters in between numbers.[4] These efforts proved unpopular. In the 1980s, activist groups within the University of the Philippines also tried to utilize the bodabil format, using the medium to promote socially-conscious themes.
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