by Nickie Wang
Some of the brightest names in show business today started out as part of teen-oriented shows and programs. And we can still identify those who were products of GMA-7’s T.G.I.S. or ABS-CBN’s Gimik, two teen drama shows that were very popular back then.
In 1995, the pair of Angelu de Leon and Bobby Andrews was the onscreen teen tandem to beat until ABS-CBN started building up Judy Ann Santos and Rico Yan. From then on, T.G.I.S. and Gimik rivalry intensified, they were head to head in terms of popularity and viewership.
T.G.I.S. revolves around a clique of friends living in a fictional village presumably located somewhere in Quezon City. The show deals with the various episodes concerning adolescent life. Meanwhile, Gimik, which was originally created as part of ABS-CBN’s 40th Anniversary, was patterned after a popular US show.
After both series went off the air in 1999, the stars cast in these programs tried to find their own niches in show business. Some of them became successful and some of them failed. Dingdong Dantes and Anne Curtis can be considered as the most successful products of T.G.I.S. as they still remain very much visible up to this day. On the other hand, Gimik has a long list of talents that were able to maintain the luster of their stars like Diether Ocampo, Dominic Ochoa, and John Lloyd Cruz to name a few. And that gives us an idea which between T.G.I.S. and Gimik really made a mark.
The strong competition between T.G.I.S. and Gimik is revived with the debut of Growing Up, a drama series top-billed by Mara Clara stars Kathryn Bernardo and Julia Montes. The show is pitted against Tween Hearts, which features GMA-7’s teen stars Joshua Dionisio, Barbie Forteza, Jake Vargas and Bea Binene.
Like their predecessors, Growing Up and Tween Hearts are head to head in the ratings game. Members of the main cast are constantly compared with one another. Which of them is the best, the hottest or the most popular? The same questions asked one-and-a-half decade ago.
Matter of fact, we can’t expect much from teen artists because they are too young to deliver convincing performances. But their image as young stars can work wonders. At the very least, it serves as their ticket to more assignments once they are no longer teenagers. There are so many more opportunities for stardom, they just only have to make sure that they continuously hone their skills like what the brightest stars did when they were still part of teen dramas.
Tween Academy beats Way Back Home
A Star Cinema film is always expected to do well at the tills. In fact, for several years now, ABS-CBN’s movie outfit has been the source of top-grossing films that also made history on the local movie scene. This year for example, Catch Me…I’m Fallin’ (a co-production with Viva Films) and In the Name of Love are the only local movies that crossed the elusive 100-million-peso mark in ticket sales.
Normally, a Star Cinema production runs four to six weeks in theaters, but that did not happen to Kathryn Bernardo and Julia Montes starrer Way Back Home. The teen stars’ launching movie was shown only for two weeks. During that period, the movie raked in P25.78 million. It is four million short compared to Tween Academy: Class of 2012’s two-week box-office gross, which was P29.88 million. According to third party tabulator Box Office Mojo, the GMA Films movie has earned more than P32 million in three weeks.
As we all know, the cast of Tween Academy: Class of 2012 and Way Back Home are rivals on the small screen. Not only that their shows are aired on the same timeslot every Sunday, they are always being compared reinforcing the Kapamilya and Kapuso network war. However, in this round, we have a clear winner.
VERY WANG 