Portuguese man of awe

“I’d been talking to RTÉ for two years about this, and had 25 meetings. I’d made a small pilot for them, but all I was getting in return was, ‘Mmm, maybe. Tell you what, let’s schedule another meeting.’”

Mario Rosenstock is reflecting on the state broadcaster’s latest Father Ted moment, namely failing to snap us his I’m On Setanta Sports show, which has made José Mourinho’s latex likeness almost as internationally famous as the real Inter Milan-managing thing.
“The RTÉ Light Entertainment Department just would not make its mind up whereas Setanta had one look and said, ‘Let’s make this happen’,” Rosenstock resumes. “They’ve put money behind it, allowed us almost complete creative control and given it a global push whereby we’ve been getting write-ups in the New York Times – a paper that normally has single column inch coverage of ‘soccer’ – and letters from Sub-Saharan Africa, which are as informed about the Premiership as the ones we get from here. José really is up there with Barrack and The Pope in terms of universal recognisability.”
A homegrown production down to the puppets, which are sculpted and molded in Dublin, I’m On Setanta Sports has its roots in the footie-related skits Mario has been contributing to the Today FM breakfast show since 1999.
“The Gift Grub ‘Dry Your Eyes Becks’ song got a couple of million downloads after going out on the radio, but when it really took off was when we did ‘José & His Amazing Technicolour Overcoat’ and Mourinho himself embraced it. He heard it after it was introduced to the Chelsea dressing-room by Damian Duff, and instead of being offended or ignoring it asked Duffer, ‘What’s this? Can you get me a copy?’ I did another one the following week – ‘I Sign A Little Player Or Two’ to the tune of the Aretha Franklin song – which he started playing along with ‘…Technicolour Overcoat’ to his 10 and 12-year-old in the car. Then he was on Sky Sports being interviewed by Chris Kamara – ‘José, tell us about the special song?’ to which Mourinho replied, ‘It is fantastic. I’m going to invite him over to Stamford Bridge. He is incredible.’ I’m watching this at home in Dublin going, ‘Fucking hell, what just happened there?’”
A phone call from one of Chelsea’s PR people later, and Mario was in London “doing a gig for him, dressed as him and watched by all the players, half of whom don’t speak English and had these totally bemused looks on their faces.”
You spend God knows how many hundreds of hours impersonating this guy, and suddenly you’re in the same room as them. That’s got to be a pretty overwhelming experience.
“Oh, I was like a little girl meeting José!” he admits. “If you have even the slightest metrosexual bone in your body, he is a very dynamic, attractive human being. He’s typically Latin in the sense of being laid-back, affectionate and at times quite childlike. Having asked me to do Mick McCarthy, he sat there with his eyes closed squealing, ‘Yes, yes, yes, that is him!’”
What was Mourinho’s relationship like with the Chelsea players?
“That of an older, slightly wiser brother who at any given moment knew what all of them were up to. After he’d sent them to bed – at 9.30! – I asked him, ‘Where have they gone?’ and he said, ‘Drogba is playing PlayStation with Makélélé; Frankie and JT have gone to watch Match Of The Day because it’s starting in 15 minutes; and Joe Cole is having a massage.’ I was there for over an hour just chatting to José and the small entourage of Portuguese guys he had with him about Liam Brady and Roy Keane.”
What was his ‘pre-leaving Sunderland in the shit’ verdict on Keano?
“That Roy was ‘untouchable’ and should have been offered the Ireland job in 2003 rather than Brian Kerr. I love those unequivocal statements of his, which – I’ll probably end up in Pseuds’ Corner over this! – can be quite profound. To me, when José says, ‘I’m fantastic, you too can be like me’, he’s addressing the whole ‘How can you love other people if you don’t love yourself?’ thing.”
To keep the pop psychiatry theme going, there seems to be a perfect symmetry in the real-life Mourinho being an ardent Roy Keane fan, and the puppet one landing a world exclusive I’m On Setanta Sports ‘interview’ with Roy just 48 hours after he dropped his Black Cats bombshell.
“Yeah, we’ve laid claim to Roy – and his beard! – until such time as he decides to speak for himself,” Rosenstock laughs. “I’m not one to revel in other people’s misfortunes – I regard my humour as being affectionate rather than cruel – but Roy quitting on Thursday meant that we were able to script an entire I’m On Setanta Sports episode around him and have it go out on Saturday.”
A response, which given the time-consuming complexities of puppetry, is remarkably rapid.
“Having a 12 noon Friday deadline that Mario’s able to write up to is definitely one of the show’s strong suits,” reflects Tony Whelan who before becoming Setanta Sports Ireland’s Head of Programming was part of RTE’s Après-Match team. “I also think the quality of that writing is consistently good, and mindful of the fact that we can’t afford an extremely expensive new puppet for every character we introduce!”
Rosenstock’s coup de grace in that department is the device through which Cristiano Ronaldo was added to the I’m On Setanta Sports cast.
“Wayne Rooney – whose idiot savant skills on the show extend to ventriloquism – appeared one week with this little black-haired hand-puppet called Ronnie who sings, ‘I do the stepovers/No tracking back/I wax my chest/I wax my…’” Mario explains with a Machiavellian chuckle. “The punchline coming when Wayne jumps in at the end of the verse with a ‘Crackin’ to meet yer!’”
Then there was Liam Gallagher’s guest appearance.
“Last week, wanting to refer to the rumours of José taking over at Man City, we had videophone footage of him seemingly in a bar talking to this guy who’s going, ‘Robin-i-oh, Mourin-i-oh, it’s a crazy situation!’ All you actually see are these two fingers being waved around and Mourinho saying, ‘Shut up monkey man!’”
The I’m On Setanta Sports team don’t usually let strangers into their inner sanctum, but made an exception for Hot Press when we told them they were our ‘TV Phenomenon of the Year’. The first thing that strikes you is the overgrown schoolboy camaraderie – that’s a compliment by the way – which exists between Rosenstock, Whelan and series producer Damian Farrell who earned his puppeteer stripes working in London with Sesame Street and Muppets creator Jim Henson, and prior to that was a Sullivan Bluth animator.
Having written most of the new IOSS script the previous day at home, Mario goes into Setanta’s Liffeyside studios at 10 o’clock on Friday morning to record all the voices, and kick some last minute ideas around with the others.
“Tony’s been like a dog with two tails all day because he came up with the idea of Roy singing along to an obscure ‘70s hit by Pete Shelley called ‘Love Me Love My Dog’, which I’d never heard before but worked perfectly as our outro,” Rosenstock beams.
The synching of the puppets to Mario’s dialogue takes place in the afternoon followed by five-hours of post-production and the zapping of the completed five-minute show to Setanta’s worldwide network of affiliates.
We don’t want to shatter the illusion too much, but it takes two people hidden under the desk to operate José, and one apiece to make Wayne, his fellow co-host Sven and new boy Fabio come to life.
The show is pieced together line by line with Damian Farrell, the Kubrick-like perfectionist he is, ordering multiple retakes before anything’s allowed to go to final edit.
“Coming from a background where he writes, performs and even sometimes does the editing himself, I think Mario was surprised at how complex the process is, but like us he’s a perfectionist and completely appreciates the effort people want to put into it,” Farrell reflects. “As the old saying goes, it’s the little things like head tilts and finger points, which make I’m On Setanta Sports what it is. Having brought the likes of José and Sven to life through puppetry, we’re now looking at giving some of his other characters the animation treatment. So check back with us in a year!”

I’m On Setanta Sports can be seen every Saturday evening after the live Premiership football on Setanta Sports 1. For archived episodes visit www.setanta.com/IOSS.