In Spain, according to the INE, there are 223,789 people with the name “Pablo” and 54,160 with the last name “Ibáñez”. Therefore, if I tell you that I have interviewed a certain Pablo Ibáñez, you will surely think: “And why are you interested in my neighbor from the room?”
That is why it is more convenient for this famous person to present him as the famous ants of Pablo Motos did. When he went out on set, for years people heard: “The man in black has a black shirt and thong too… The man in black sang Marilyn Monroeeeee’s birthday… The man in black mediated between Willy Toledo and Frank Cuestaaaaa… The man in black made the cobra to Ana Simónnnnnnn…”.
Do you remember yaaaaaaa? I give you more clues: black glasses, black coat, black pants and black boots. “I’ve seen this since I was 15 years old,” he says with a smile. And the clothing with which he presents himself to this conversation, in the middle of summer, does not deny him. Yes, he is The Man in Black in person…and in character.
His television alter ego triumphed for almost a decade and a half in El Hormiguero. In the mythical program he coincided with someone very familiar to him: “My brother Juan is Trancas and there he continues, under Pablo Motos’ table, every day.”
He owes his younger brother the opportunity he had to succeed in the mythical Antena 3 show: “Juan was part of a musical group El hombre lanterna, he had also started at El Club de la Comedia and then went on to radio. One day I went to a concert of his in the Sala Galileo and he had told Motos about me. It was about two in the morning when Motos approached me and said: ‘I want you to work for me’. And he replied: ‘I don’t care, but I want you to work for me on a project that I have’.”
That conversation led Ibáñez to the set of El Hormiguero and his outfit soon became his hallmark, thus giving rise to the alias by which he has been known ever since. But it was not him, but another of the protagonists of the program, who invented it: “It was ‘Flipy’, who at the beginning did the science part, who gave me the nickname. One day he came out and to announce me he said: ‘What between The Man in Black.’ And there it stayed.”
He became a kind of McGyver -another mythical TV- capable of performing the craziest performances in front of millions of viewers. The suspense of whether or not the experiment would come out kept people glued to the screen in television prime time: “We did tremendous things. Some experiments took months to prepare and then the execution only took a few minutes. I think people did not know realized the level of difficulty that what we did had”.
Many of his performances, in the company of ojipláticas celebrities such as Ben Stiller, Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman, still continue to accumulate views on YouTube: “The man in black gets into a fish tank with jellyfish… The man in black shows a tornado from inside… The man in black shoots a card sideways… The man in black moves into outer space…”.
During the interview, he himself remembers one of the biggest madnesses he organized. “What caught the most attention was the ‘Art to the Beast’ section. We did things like putting cars upside down, pointing like dominoes, things like that brutal. The latter, for example, was very successful.”
Although they tried to convince him, Ibáñez put an end to that stage. Later, after sporadic appearances on other TV shows such as Dancing with the stars, he began another adventure, but this time as a businessman. The slowdown that we all experienced during the pandemic contributed to this determination. “I changed my chip and registration then,” he confesses.
He comments that he has no idea of ??going back to show business: “You don’t close the door all the way, but I’m in business now and it’s a more comfortable life.” That life to which he alludes includes the only shop for caganers in Madrid and Friking, an expanding business with several establishments dedicated to the sale of fun t-shirts and other products for geeks. In both cases his brother Juan accompanies him as a partner.
Ibáñez points out that the two initiatives are working well for him, especially the one with the figurines doing their needs with their bottoms in the air. “When tourists see the caganers, which is the majority of the public we have in our store on Calle Mayor, they are surprised. The Americans, above all, go crazy. They can’t believe it. They die of laughter as soon as they come into the store.” We are going to break their ass to see that of others on the air.
As an anecdote, he tells the characters that sell the most in such an impudent maneuver of dropping his pants: “Among the Americans, we have been taking a lot of Putin for a while. And Trump also buys a lot.” Other hits are Maradona, Messi or Freddy Mercury. Of his character, ‘The man in black’, there is no caganer, but there is one that looks a lot like him: “There is one of John Snow, the character from Game of Thrones, who asks me if it’s me [he laughs out loud] ]”.
Running these businesses takes up a lot of his time, so Ibáñez will only have a few vacation days during this time of year. “There are about 20 of Friking’s own stores. Now we are about to open more stores during the summer. I’ll take a week that I’m leaving with my family in August and don’t think I’ll be able to stop much longer.”
The basement of the establishment on Calle Arenal where the talk takes place resounds with the passing of the subway cars. “This used to be a bank. Down here they had the safes and upstairs, where the store is, there was a vault,” he says.
The vibration of the Madrid underground will make nobody listen to our bad joke. Better. Only one ant, drawn with a black marker on a white board by Trancas himself, has witnessed the joke. And she, generous, has been smiling throughout the interview.
