Luis Antonio Rivera (April 9, 1930 – November 30, 2023), also known as "Yoyo Boing", was a Puerto Rican actor, comedian and television show host, who was also one of the pioneers of Puerto Rican television.

Early years

Rivera Benítez was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico on April 9, 1930 to Juan Antonio Rivera and Josefa Benítez Ortíz. His parents moved to Santurce, where he spent his childhood and adolescence, from Humacao when he was only three years old. After receiving his primary education, Rivera attended the "Escuela Superior Central de Santurce" (Central High School of Santurce). He found a part-time job at a local radio station which opened the doors to a new world for him.

Rivera became a member of the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico. As a drama student, he participated in two of René Marqués' plays. Having a deep baritone voice he also became a radio presenter. His radio station dramatized comedy sketches, and one of the producers suggested dramatizing Archie Comics over the radio. Due to the lack of audiovisual references for the characters at the time, there were no clear cut ways of representing the characters in Spanish, nor there were exact translations for their names. Rivera came up with the name of Yoyo Boing for representing Jughead; the name "Yoyo" sounded close to "Jughead", and the "Boing" part was a gimmick Rivera developed for the character: a vocalized "boing" that he constantly repeated to fill in silence gaps during each episode. Ever since his Archie stint on Puerto Rican radio, Puerto Ricans rarely refer to Rivera using his real name, and usually refer to him by his by-now "nickname". To create Yoyo Boing's image Muñiz took him to a department store and bought several ridiculous-looking pieces, which were combined with other appearance quirks. The characters of Elpidio and Reguerete migrated to Garata deportiva where they represented the Criollos de Caguas and Cangrejeros de Santurce, while Rivera defended the Senadores de San Juan and Miró the Indios de Mayagüez. With the end of the baseball season, the show was reworked into El chiste camel, with the cast remaining the same.

After José Miguel Agrelot's sudden death in 2004, the remaining co-hosts on Agrelot's long-running radio show "Tu Alegre Despertar", (Your Cheerful Wake-Up), Aurora Previdi and María Falcón, asked the radio audience to select a permanent replacement for Agrelot from a round of temporary co-hosts. Rivera won the assignment; given the wishes of Agrelot's family to achieve some closure, the program changed its name to "Contigo en el tapón" ("Along With You In The Traffic Jam") and changed its format slightly. Rivera remained as a popular co-host, filling Agrelot's considerably large shoes. He also hosted a daily program of Puerto Rican music classics at Allegro WIPR-FM. He died from heart disease at the Hospital del Maestro in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico on November 30, 2023, at the age of 93.

See also

  • List of Puerto Ricans
  • Giannina Braschi, author of Yo-Yo Boing!, the novel.

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • Rivera's bio entry on the Puerto Rican National Foundation for Popular Culture's website