WALLY Bayola (left) and Jose Manalo (JoWa): “We wonder, is this for real?”
Comic duo Jose Manalo and Wally Bayola of “Eat Bulaga” (EB) fame would perform death-defying acts, including traipse on a tightrope, to ensure the success of their big concert, “The Jose and Wally Show: Party for Every Juan,” tomorrow at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The only stunt Jose would probably shy away from, he said, was to become a human cannonball. But Wally promised fans a string of big production numbers with the help of the EB creative team and concert director Philip Lazaro.
“The concert is totally different from the shows we do in (comedy bars) Zirkoh or Klownz,” Wally said. “We will also do things we don’t get to do in ‘Eat Bulaga.’”
In comedy bars, Jose explained, they could dish out for-adults, off-color jokes. Not at the Big Dome. “We will have to consider the kids in the audience.”
On the Richter scale of rowdiness, the concert would lie somewhere between X-rated and general-patronage.
One seldom-seen talent that they plan to unleash at the concert is their gift of song.
Unknown to fans, Wally was a vocalist in the Naga-based band Mixed Nuts before becoming a stand-up comic at The Library, a bar in Malate.
Jose, who started in the biz as a Boyoyong Clown and bit player in the afternoon soap “Valiente,” was a closet singer as a kid, too.
“When I was young, I often joined amateur singing contests,” Jose recalled. At town fiestas, he always sang the songs of his idol, Rico J. Puno— “May Bukas Pa” and “Kapalaran.’”
Unreachable star
When Jose was still a Boyoyong Clown, certainly an Araneta concert seemed like an unreachable star, an impossible dream, in amateur-singing tilt parlance.
“I’m scared that I might wake up from this dream,” he told the Inquirer. “I wonder, is this for real?”
Wally can’t believe that he and Jose are following in the footsteps of other iconic duos in the biz—Dolphy and Panchito, Reycard Duet and Pork Chop. “They are our idols. Jose and I feel honored that the public has embraced us as a comic duo.”
They’re now called JoWa, a platonic and jologs version of Brangelina and Bennifer—they said.
Wally is forever grateful to their “EB” bosses and Tito, Vic and Joey for their continuous support. (Vic and Joey are special guests at the concert, along with Gary Valenciano, Ai Ai de las Alas and Regine Velasquez, among others.)
“We learn a lot from Tito, Vic and Joey,” said Jose. “And they always remind us to stay humble, to always look back.”
Will Jose do his Willie Revillame impersonation at the Big Dome— the same routine that became a YouTube sensation?
“No. I don’t think Boss Willie will be there.”
But what if Willie suddenly shows up?
“That would be a riot,” Jose said.
(bayanisandiego@hotmail.com)