Sai de Baixo (a Brazilian Portuguese slang roughly translated as "get out of the way") is a Brazilian sitcom that first aired on Rede Globo from 1996 to 2002. It followed the lives of the members of a dysfunctional family, their maid and the doorman of the apartment building in which they lived.

It ran for 7 seasons, from 1996 to 2002, on Sunday nights after the newsmagazine Fantástico. That means that it always aired after 10:00 pm, which was necessary given the show's heavy language and sexual innuendos. In 2000, however, the premiere of a new reality show shifted the program to the 11:30 p.m. slot, which lasted for about four months. After that the timeslot varied almost monthly, which started to hurt ratings. At one time, the show was airing around 12:30 a.m., which is considered the beginning of the "wasteland" of late night programming in Brazilian television, with fewer viewers and, therefore, fewer sponsors. In 2013, Globo's sister cable channel Canal Viva produced a revival of the show with four episodes.

Although some of the characters hailed from the poorer layers of society (such as the maid and the doorman), as well as the richer (albeit impoverished, such as the former socialite), the program derived most of its humor from an acid criticism of the Brazilian middle class, its prejudices and views of the rest of the country and the world. This precept justified the sometimes harsh jokes involving racism, sexism and other politically incorrect notions.

Format

Sai de Baixo emerged as actor Luis Gustavo suggested to director Daniel Filho about doing a sitcom inspired by 1960s Família Trapo, recorded on a theater while following a dysfunctional family.

The show was shot in a São Paulo theater, Teatro Procópio Ferreira. The program was shot there every Tuesday afternoon, but the theater was still receiving regular plays and spectacles, and the set had to be disassembled at the end of every shooting and then reassembled the following week, for the next shooting. The people involved in the show called it "the marathon of continuity", since every item of the family's apartment had to be in exactly the same place that it was in the previous episodes. In a further acknowledgment of its surroundings, every episode of the program ended with a curtain call.

The show was rarely set outside its primary location, the living room of an apartment in Arouche Towers, a building in São Paulo's neighborhood Largo do Arouche. The biggest setting change occurred in 2000, when eight episodes were shot in a cafe in the building's ground floor, Arouche's Place. But the change was not well received by the audiences, and poor ratings forced the return of the apartment set. This was done in such a hurry that one of the episodes that took place in the Cafe was dropped and left unaired. Upon the return to the apartment, the writers decided that the Cafe had exploded in unclear circumstances, probably as part of an insurance fraud scheme.

Ataíde

(played by Luiz Carlos Tourinho)

Originally the lackey of Pereira who liked to fawn over his boss, eventually he became Arouche Tower's doorman. Ataíde was often mocked for both his height and virginity, solved as he started dating Sirene.

The Maids

The maids were a chapter aside in the history of the show. The original idea called for there to be one maid working at the apartment. This concept was never abandoned by the writers, who, despite all the problems, insisted on having a maid as part of the ensemble.

In Brazil, it was common for middle class families to be able to afford the help of a maid full-time. This employee will sometimes even sleep at the job, and that was the excuse of the maid of the show to be present in the apartment at all times. The presence of this character was in keeping with Brazilian social structures. Furthermore, all of the characters received names that would be considered "typical of a maid" in the Brazilian middle class imaginary. This could be considered as a certain bias in the show, but it was fully acceptable because its bulk material came from an acid criticism of the Brazilian middle class culture (and how this segment of Brazilian society views the rest of the country and the world).

Four different actresses had the job throughout the show, due to several problems and complications. What follows is a list of them all, in chronological order of participation.

Edileuza

(played by Cláudia Jimenez)

Edileuza was the maid for the show's first season. The character was sassy, often speaking her mind freely to her direct employer, Vavá, and telling the others to their faces how much she disliked them. Whenever she got fired by one of the family members (which was rather frequent), she would respond that they could not fire her, since Vavá was the one who paid her salary and thus had the authority to dismiss her. There would be no repercussions to those "dismissal attempts", which many argue to have been possible because of the show's little commitment to reality. Although the character dated the doorman Ribamar, Jimenez had a strong chemistry with Falabella, who played Caco, and funny, sexual innuendos between the two were common, as well as the exchange of insults between the characters, as Edileuza would rebuke Caco for his dishonesty and he would tease her for being poor and a maid.

Jimenez left the show in 1997 after a huge fight with show runner Cláudio Paiva.

Catchphrase: "Ah, meu Deus!" (Oh my God! — spoken with dismay and often at the telephone, with the audience having no idea of what she would be hearing from the other side) / "Dona Casseta" (Mra. Casseta - spoken to Cassandra)

Lucinete

(played by Ilana Kaplan)

Kaplan was chosen to play the maid Lucinete and replace Edileuza after Jimenez's departure in 1997. Despite working on four episodes, the character was considered so out of sync with the rest of the cast that the decision was made to discard her only two days after the first episode with Kaplan had aired. The character's departure was never explained (as it was common when radical changes were made in the show).

Neide Aparecida

(played by Márcia Cabrita)

A heavily sexualized and at times ignorant maid, introduced in 1997. While at first Neide dated Ribamar, once the doorman left, the writers gave Neide a fiancé, a macho Army sergeant who was nicknamed "Mangalarga" (played by Ernani Moraes). Mangalarga was dropped once Neide discovered he was already married.

In October 2000, it was announced that Cabrita was pregnant and that her character would be temporarily replaced. The maid's pregnancy was written in as it could not be disguised, but never fully explained.

Neide was the catalyzer for 2013 revival, using a fortune gained by suing former bosses due to the new rights provided by a Constitutional amendment regarding maid rights to buy the Arouche apartment and bring back Vavá and his family. Eventually Caco swindles her out of the apartment's possession.

Actress Márcia Cabrita died in 2017.

Sirene

(played by Cláudia Rodrigues)

The fourth and final maid of the show, Cirene was a spitfire short woman which in reply to Caco's stories about the poor would start complaining about rich people. She dated Ataíde.

Every time she entered, a Brazilian northeast jingle would play, stopping only when ordered by Cirene herself. A running gag in those occasions was the brief repetition of the music when Cirene started to walk, frequently making her scold the sound operator.

Hiatus and cancellation

In 2001, the show returned for a sixth season reportedly because of a petition drive by fans, who gathered signatures and managed to avoid cancellation. Ratings, however, were unstable at best, and Globo TV was facing fierce competition from a reality show produced by the second largest network in the country and its principal competitor, SBT. Palliative measures, such as the remodelling of the family's apartment, which became more modern and with more vibrant colors, were insufficient to rekindle the public's interest in the show.

The general understanding was that the formula had been worn out and that the show was out of new ideas and had been for sometime. Most believed that it should have been cancelled in 2000, after the end of its fifth season, which had been considered rather faulty.

In September 2001 the show was put on hiatus for two months, while reality show No Limite was broadcast in its timeslot. The sixth season was wrapped then, and speculations had it that the show would not return. In late December, however, the network decided to produce a final, shorter seventh season, which ran from late December until March 2002 (the last episode aired on March 31, exactly six years after the first episode).

Revival

In 2013, Globo's sister channel Canal Viva decided to produce a four episode revival, with the return of the core family of Caco, Magda, Vavá and Cassandra, and the longest serving maid, Neide. The episodes were again recorded at Procópio Ferreira under Dennis Carvalho, this time written by Artur Xexeo. It was explained that characters spent eleven years away from Arouche, being summoned together by their former maid Neide Aparecida once she bought the Arouche apartment. Guests included Tony Ramos in the first episode, Ingrid Guimarães in the second and Arlete Salles in the third.

References

  • Almanaque Sai de Baixo