MANILA, Philippines—Alpha Music has correctly determined that nostalgia is becoming a bigger deal on the local entertainment scene, so it recently came out with albums of the vintage musical performances of Pilita Corrales, Diomedes Maturan, and the comedy team of Dolphy and Panchito.

We’ve listened to the Dolphy-Panchito album and can share that it’s made up mainly of novelty tunes. They use the melodies of foreign pop songs, onto which generally facile lyrics in Filipino or Taglish have been appended.

Topical

The idea is to get an easy laugh, so the creative and performance style is decidedly laid-back—sometimes, even lazy. But, a number of the tunes are more interesting, because they are topical and sometimes, even satirical in bent and intent.

The cuts that stand out in this regard are “Tsismis,” “Bomba Lang Artista Na,” “Family Planning” and “Over-Acting.”

“Tsismis” is a comically instructive number because it razzes Filipinos’ penchant for dishing the dirt about other people’s lives—especially if they’re celebrities.

“Bomba Lang Artista Na” pokes fun at incompetent actors who make up for their lack of talent by taking their clothes off. And “Family Planning” is about couples who have too many children. It’s still topical, so it could be used as an anthem for today’s birth control movement.

A fourth song, titled “Gloria,” catches the listener’s attention for obvious reasons—but it turns out to have nothing to do with a certain lady executive. How could it, when the Dolphy-Panchito songs in this compilation are decades old? The musical-comedy duo had many talents, but political prescience isn’t one of them!

On the debit side, some cuts quickly overstay their welcome, like the tawdry “Puro Peklat,” which takes cheap shots at women with less than perfect legs. Thankfully, it’s quickly followed by the more topical “Walang Tubig,” so as a whole, the album is worth listening to, especially by nostalgia buffs on the “wrong” side of 50.

Another plus point is the fact that Dolphy and Panchito’s singing sounds good and energetic here. This is a welcome reminder of Dolphy’s dynamism and pertinence as a singer-comedian, qualities that have substantially faded with the years.

As for Panchito, he passed away quite a number of years ago, so this compilation is valuable because it recalls the veteran comedian’s effectiveness as Dolphy’s “sidekick.”

Panchito was a good comedic partner for Dolphy, because they were so different: Dolphy was fey and light, while Panchito was big and bumptious. It was like Charlie Chaplin had teamed up with Fatty Arbuckle—and yet, the dissonance worked!

Opportunities

Panchito was the straight man who provided his more popular partner many opportunities to crack jokes and come up with well-timed punchlines.

But, Panchito didn’t play second banana to Dolphy all the time. In their “song translation” routines, for instance, they shared in the laughs elicited by their comedic teamwork.

After Panchito passed away, Dolphy acted with other sidekicks, but none of them proved to be as effective as his original partner. Thus, the Dolphy-Panchito album offers timely recollections of a droll and deft comedic tandem in its prime.