(; Spanish for "The Anthill") is a Spanish television program with a live audience focusing on comedy, science, and guest interviews running since September 2006. It is hosted and produced by screenwriter Pablo Motos. The show aired on Spain's Cuatro channel from launch until June 2011 and is now broadcast on Antena 3. Recurring guests on the show include Luis Piedrahita, Raquel Martos, ("The Man in Black"; the scientists), and puppet ants (from the Spanish expression , which means "in fits and starts"). It has proved a ratings success, and has expanded from a weekly 120-minute show to a daily 40-minute show in its third season, which began on 17 September 2007.
The first series was produced by Gestmusic, the Spanish venture of Endemol, however since the second series it has been produced by , a production company formed by Motos and the show's director Jorge Salvador. On a Cadena SER interview, he revealed that he had once been offered to take the show to Telecinco, but he preferred to stay with Cuatro. He eventually an accepted an offer to move to Antena 3, when Mediaset España refused to meet the €90,000 per episode fee that 7yAcción proposed.
The show won the Entertainment prize at the 2009 Rose d'Or ceremony.
Format
The show is based on an earlier radio program, broadcast on M80 Radio, called No Somos Nadie ("We Are Nobody"). This show continued until June 2007, when Pablo Motos announced that he would be leaving the program to allow the daily production of El Hormiguero. No Somos Nadie returned in September 2007 with new on-air talent, since most of the old show's talent were part of the television adaptation.
Segments on the show included scientific experiments, like a car running on vegetable oil, hangover cures, a superconductivity demonstration, and various chemical reaction demonstrations. Each episode features a satirical rap, commentary on current events, and humorous phrases as spoken by children. Other segments include pitches for viewers to plant trees and "El Kiosco", a section of magazine reviews. The show also airs parodies of other media, which have included Back to the Future, Pop Idol, House M.D., and Mission: Impossible. Each episode features a celebrity guest, including Boris Izaguirre, David Bisbal, Alejandro Sanz, Paulina Rubio, Dani Martin, Nuria Roca and numerous international celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Sergio Dalma, Ashley Tisdale or Hugh Jackman. Special guests on the show are sometimes involved throughout the episode, including taking part in the various stunts and science experiments. A number of changes to the show, including new segments such as a webcam call-in portion from viewers, were planned for the upcoming format change in the third season, however this segment and some others like training of wild monkeys were removed, the first one due to the amount of time needed and the second one due to low popularity among the audience.
A segment that was later introduced is "Extreme Survival", that features "El maestro empanao" (which roughly translates as "Master Dumbass") Marron and the host Pablo Motos testing out tips and hints on how to survive extreme situations or conditions (such as how to survive being overrun by a car, trapped in a falling lift, attacked by a pack of wolves, etc.). Another segment includes Trancas and Barrancas making fun of the day's news. A satirical news show in which puppets read the news, Las noticias del guiñol, formerly aired on Cuatro.
When Jorge Salvador appeared on the show in 2020, he revealed that Trancas and Barrancas were originally intended to be sock puppets, until Pablo suggested they should be ants.
International attention
The show first received international attention in 2006 for having people walk across a swimming pool filled with a non-Newtonian fluid, a suspension of cornstarch and water called oobleck, that was mixed in a cement truck. This experiment was performed in an October 2006 episode of the show and was repeated with a new batch of oobleck on the Christmas Eve special episode due to its popularity. In 2007, Cuatro signed an agreement with YouTube that allows clips from Cuatro programs, including El Hormiguero, to be showcased on the site. In 2009, El Hormiguero was awarded as the best entertainment program in the international Rose d'Or awards. The win was the fourth time a Spanish program has received the award, the first since 1994.
Since 2008, the show has received a large number of appearances from international celebrities.