TV show · Canale 5 · with Bonolis and Laurenti

Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan?

A blue car opens like Optimus Prime. It becomes a giant robot with a large screen in its chest. It's the piece that opens every episode.

Story

One act

A car that
opens up and becomes a robot.

Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan? is the event-variety show by Paolo Bonolis and Luca Laurenti for Canale 5 — autumn 2017, a large studio audience of children, the worlds of Peter Pan and of cartoon adventure. The direction asks us for the show's signature piece: a mechanical attraction that transforms live, Transformer-style, in front of the audience.

In our workshops we build a blue/silver car on six wheels, with a military off-roader profile and a metallic finish. That's the closed shell. When the show goes on air, the car opens at the sides: the four doors rise like wings, the roof lifts, the wheels rotate into position, and from the center emerges the robot figure — head in Optimus Prime style, Transformer-style torso, and in the chest a large LED screen that projects the show's graphics and episode content.

We work the piece in double configuration: the closed car goes on air at the opening, parked on stage as the host's vehicle; the open robot is the transformation finale, lowered from the wings as a punchline effect. Same structure, two forms, one single set.

Beyond the central piece we build the other elements of the Peter Pan world that populate the set: a red biplane sculpted at reduced scale — as if it were Captain Hook's model suspended above the audience — an elephant with helmet and studded golden armor, and two large white classical statues — a replica of David, a hero with helmet and scepter — that act as wings between the lattice windows of the orange industrial backdrop.

Technique: layered fiberglass over a steel armature for the large volumes (the car, the robot, the elephant), sculpted and stiffened polystyrene for the accessory pieces (biplanes, statues), metallic automotive spray finishes for the car, lime washes and patinas for the statues. Walkable and transportable in sections, safe under the studio audience.

The transformer robot open, screen on

Vehicle-to-robot transformation phase: metallic blue doors open upward like wings, chassis wheels visible below, LED screen partially visible between the doors showing a close-up of the host; in the background a yellow industrial lattice structure — The transformation in progress — doors open like wings

Panoramic view of the set installed in the studio: at the center the closed blue car parked, to the sides two large white classical statues (David and a hero with scepter), above the audience a red hot-air balloon and a biplane suspended, yellow industrial lattice structure against an orange background — Panoramic view of the set — closed car between statues and biplanes

Act two

The fifth edition,
eighteen years later.

Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan? is not a new show: the first edition is from 1999 — Bonolis and Laurenti debut with an event-variety show on the worlds of childhood, ten children in the studio between the ages of four and nine, a car that crosses them. The show returns in alternating seasons, and in September 2017 Canale 5 airs the fifth edition. It is in this edition that we are asked for the piece that visually changes the format: the transformer robot-car.

Direction is by Roberto Cenci — the same director who in mid-2012 had taken Il braccio e la mente from Giorgio Romano's hands. He's a recurring name in Mediaset's prime time and game shows of those years, and with him directing the show finds a visual grammar like a children's kolossal: wide shots on the studio, close-ups on faces, transitions with the car as scenic pivot.

Production is by Endemol Shine Italy in collaboration with Arcobaleno Tre and SDL 2005 — the same SDL 2005 that had also commissioned the portal of Ciao Darwin's Genodrome. It's a coherent television world: Bonolis-Laurenti, Cenci directing, Endemol as format broker, and our workshops translating the scenic idea into matter.

The closed blue car from the front: stylized six-wheel SUV — **The closed car.** Stylized SUV — the "shell" before the transformation

The transformer robot seen from a side angle — **The robot in profile.** Optimus Prime aesthetic in a TV studio

Life-size sculpted elephant with golden helmet and armor — **The armored elephant.** Another set piece, for the studio team games

Behind the scenes

A car that opens live,
in thirty seconds of broadcast.

The piece is not a statue. It's a scenic mechanism that has to open and close live, under the lights, with the studio audience of children. Three constraints that talk to each other: shape, movement, safety.

The fiberglass shell

The car's bodywork is in layered fiberglass over a steel armature: rigid shell, sections that open like wings on command from hidden pistons. The finish is metallic automotive spray — cobalt blue with silver edges — because the car has to look like a real vehicle in the camera's close-up, not a polystyrene oversized toy.

The big screen in the chest

At the heart of the robot we integrated a custom-fit LED panel: when the wings open and the robot's torso reveals itself, the panel projects the show's theme, the names of the children-contestants, the animations of the trials. The panel is cabled through the spine of the mechanism, controlled by the direction booth via DMX, powering on and off synchronized with the mechanical opening.

The supporting bestiary

Around the robot-car lives a Peter Pan world at child-scale in the studio: Captain Hook's red biplane suspended, the armored elephant, the replica of David and the hero with helmet closing the wings. All sculpted with the same grammar as our pieces for theme parks, brought back to the scale of the Mediaset sound stage.

5th

edition of the show, twentieth anniversary of the Bonolis format

children in the studio, aged 4 to 9 — the audience-protagonist

2 forms

of the same set: closed car + open robot

From the workshop

The car, the robot,
the pieces of the world.

Every element came out of our workshops and traveled to the studio. Here they are before assembly on stage.

The transformer robot open seen from the front in the studio: blue/white body with a British flag, red and blue side wings, Optimus head, LED screen in the chest reading PETER PAN, chassis wheels below, industrial structure in the background — Robot standing, PETER PAN screen on

Side view, Optimus Prime profile

The closed blue car — the robot's shell

The car from the side, in the workshop

The red biplane — Captain Hook's model

Life-size elephant sculpted in the Creation Art workshops: dark gray body with detailed musculature, trunk raised, pale ivory tusks, golden helmet on the head, golden studded armor on the back, circus or period set style — The elephant with golden helmet and armor

The replica of David — wing of the set

Statue of a classical hero sculpted at life size: nude male figure with Greek helmet, scepter in his right hand, heroic posture, rear view, being sculpted in the workshop hall among archived friezes and capitals — The hero with helmet and scepter

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Transformable set + set pieces for television event-variety · Canale 5 prime time
Show: Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan? · fifth edition · debut 21 September 2017
Historic first edition: 1999 · recurring Bonolis format on Mediaset (over twenty years of variants)
Hosts: Paolo Bonolis and Luca Laurenti
Direction: Roberto Cenci (the same director of Il braccio e la mente 2012)
Production: Endemol Shine Italy in collaboration with Arcobaleno Tre and SDL 2005
Studio protagonists: Ten children aged 4 to 9 · audience-actors
International format: Based on Those Crazy Little Ones
Central piece: Transformable robot-car: blue/silver SUV on six wheels that opens like Optimus Prime — doors as wings, LED screen in the robot's chest. Double configuration (closed vehicle / open robot)
Other set pieces: Sculpted red biplane (Captain Hook's model suspended above the audience) · elephant with golden helmet and armor · replica of David · classical hero statue with helmet and scepter
Techniques: Layered fiberglass over a steel armature for the large volumes · sculpted and stiffened polystyrene for the accessory pieces · metallic automotive spray finishes for the car · lime patinas for the statues · walkable architecture for the TV studio
Our role: Full realization of the transformable set (robot-car) and of the accessory set pieces (biplane, elephant, statues)
Second life: The robot-car preserved · mechanisms dismantled and archived · the statues and the elephant entered the rental catalogue for other projects

Other variety and game shows with sculpted sets

Ciao Darwin — the Genodrome portal, the other great Bonolis and Laurenti set
Il braccio e la mente — same direction by Roberto Cenci, year 2012
Grande Fratello VIP 3 — the prehistoric Cave at Cinecittà
Topo Gigio Show — children's TV with the village-tent
Rock Politik — Celentano's Manhattan skyline
Cristina Parodi Live — LA7's biomorphic LED sculpture

Second life

The Bonolis variety show,
twenty years of editions.

The fifth edition of 2017 is not the last. The show returns in 2021 with the sixth edition — still Bonolis and Laurenti, still on Canale 5 — debuting in front of an average of 3,447,000 viewers. The format has the longevity that only service programs have: it rebuilds the same world every time (Peter Pan, adventure, the car that opens the episode) and every edition renews it without betraying it.

For us it is confirmation that the Bonolis-Laurenti duo is a long-running scenic client: the Genodrome portal of their Ciao Darwin has been on stage since 2003, the Peter Pan robot-car is their second signature sculpted piece. They are the two Bonolis formats on which our hand remains recognizable in popular Italian television.

The techniques of the transformable scenic mechanism — motorized opening/closing of a fiberglass volume, integration of LED panels behind perforations, safety for live activation — were later reapplied in other commissions where a scenic coup de théâtre integrated into the direction was needed.