Juan Joya Borja (5 April 1956 – 28 April 2021) was a Spanish
comedian and
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...
known by the stage name El Risitas ("The Giggles" in Spanish). He gained widespread popularity in 2015 thanks to a series of
memes based on a television interview recorded in 2001 on
Jesús Quintero's TV show ''
Ratones Coloraos
''Ratones Coloraos'' ("Red Mice") was a Spanish premiere late-night television talk show series which was aired from 2002 to 2010. The television series was broadcast in two different time frames from 2002 to 2005 and then from 2007 to 2010. The t ...
''.
Biography
Joya was born in Seville, Andalusia on 5 April 1956.
He had a number of jobs throughout his life, including cooking and unloading sacks of
cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...
.
His first appearance on television was in 2001, on
Jesús Quintero's show ''El Vagamundo'', where he interviewed on various life situations with his partner "El Peíto" or "el Cuñao" Antonio Rivera (1959–2003 December), in a comedic tone.
He became recognizable for his high-pitched, wheezing laugh (described in ''The Guardian'' as like a "
dolphin with a
20-a-day habit"
), which led to his nickname "El Risitas"
(; "Giggles" in English). He also appeared in the 2005 film ''
Torrente 3: El protector''. When he became known internationally around 2015 he also performed for companies outside of Spain, for example in a Finnish commercial.
''Ratones Coloraos'' interview meme
In 2001, Joya appeared on Jesús Quintero's show ''
Ratones Coloraos
''Ratones Coloraos'' ("Red Mice") was a Spanish premiere late-night television talk show series which was aired from 2002 to 2010. The television series was broadcast in two different time frames from 2002 to 2005 and then from 2007 to 2010. The t ...
'' and described an incident when he worked as a kitchen porter. He describes leaving some
paella pans (paelleras) at night in the ocean to soak and clean, and when in the morning he returned to retrieve the pans, they had washed out to sea with the tide. He frequently interrupts the story with his trademark laugh.
The original video was uploaded to
YouTube on 25 June 2007, and received over a million views eight years before the
meme became widespread.
In March 2014, footage from the interview was used in
Egypt by the then recently outlawed
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
organization to parody presidential candidate
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi; (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has served as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. Before retiring as a general in the Egyptian mil ...
.
Other videos featuring footage from the interview were also produced; however, they were usually apolitical instead, generally parodying technology and gaming.
The most viewed versions of the video subtitled Joya as the designer of the
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, a designer of ''
Team Fortress 2'', a
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...
employee discussing ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2 ...
'', a
Canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western can ...
representative discussing the
C300 camera, an
Xbox Live
The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...
employee describing the platform's system, and a cinematographer describing shooting on a
Red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondary ...
camera.
In March 2015, the meme received significant attention after the launch of the 2015
MacBook, where subtitles present Joya as a designer who worked on the prototype. Within a month the video had received over five million views on YouTube.
The meme's impact has been compared to
parodies of the 2004 war drama ''
Downfall'', where scenes from the film are similarly edited with fake subtitles.
Another popular meme was published in April 2015 parodying a political affair in
Slovakia known as the , where Joya was subtitled by popular Slovak
stand-up comedy performer
Jano Gordulic.
In 2019, a zoomed-in still image of his face from the interview, named ''KEKW'', was added as a 3rd-party emote for
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...
on FrankerFaceZ. As of April 2022, over 100,000 channels on Twitch have enabled the emote. With more than 400 million uses in chat, the emote occupies 10th place among the most popular FrankerFaceZ emotes.
Health and death
In September 2020, Joya was admitted to the
Hospital de la Caridad in Seville, where he underwent an intervention for a
vascular problem and had a leg amputated.
Less than a year later, at noon on 28 April 2021, Joya was transferred from the Hospital de la Caridad to the
Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, after a sudden relapse. He died from complications of his illness later that afternoon at the age of 65.
Filmography
* ''
Torrente 3: El protector'' (2005)
Television
* ''El Vagamundo'' (2000–2002) –
Canal 2 Andalucía
* ''
Ratones Coloraos
''Ratones Coloraos'' ("Red Mice") was a Spanish premiere late-night television talk show series which was aired from 2002 to 2010. The television series was broadcast in two different time frames from 2002 to 2005 and then from 2007 to 2010. The t ...
'' (2002–2005) –
Canal Sur Televisión
* ''El loco de la colina'' (2006–2007) –
La1
* ''El Gatopardo'' (2007–2012) – Canal Sur
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Risitas, El
1956 births
2021 deaths
Spanish comedians
Spanish male television actors
21st-century Spanish male actors
Spanish amputees
Internet memes introduced in 2015
People from Seville
Male actors from Andalusia