La Linoteca

Minitecas on screen

From the audiovisual records still in circulation, minitecas that passed through the show can be identified:

• · Best Music — cited by the magazine as a special guest on La Linoteca.
• · Betelgeuse — its appearance “en La Linoteca RCTV” is preserved in digitized archive material.
• · New York New York — its booths with the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, set up on the studio floor.
• · ZC — its acrylic booth with the motto “Control Total” and the letters “ZC” in light bulbs, on the show's stage.
• · Sandy Lane — its lettered booth at the back of the set, with the show's dancers in front.

From “Ranking Musical Fantástico” to “La Linoteca”

The show was not born with that name. It was first “Ranking Musical Fantástico,” the youth segment of the marathon Saturday show “Fantástico,” on the air between 1984 and 1986. It came to be called “La Linoteca” because of the foray into hosting by the actor Lino Ferrer, who that year paired up with Judith Castillo to host the music show — the name of the show came, literally, out of his own.

The format was a countdown of ten songs placed among the top ten positions of the national and international charts, with two predictions —one local and one foreign— and a “Pegadita” from the past. Every week the most prominent announcers passed through the studio, not only from Caracas 750 but from other AM stations around the country, along with the best minitecas on the national scene. Rounding out the picture were the models Rosa Westermeyer, Yádira and Marlene Maceda, among other guests.

The professional lighting of the mechanical light show was handled by Super Efectos, the house of Mauricio Cutri that equipped half of miniteca Venezuela and that this Archive documents in “Hidden Figures”: the same light that lit up the parties lit up the studio floor.

Of those broadcasts, the one from Saturday, June 28, 1986 is preserved, recorded from the now demolished Teatro La Campiña in Caracas, with Julián Isaac as special guest —the Caracas 750 announcer and presenter of RCTV's “El Observador” who a year earlier had set, together with Ramón Mata, the record of 125 straight hours on the air—.

The studio floor, from the inside

The studio photographs show how the showcase was put together: a giant record with the name of the show lettered in green art deco type, glass block walls, poles of colored bulbs and rings of lights hung above the stage. On that set, each guest miniteca assembled its own equipment, so that the audience saw on screen exactly what it would have seen at a party: the booth, the lights and the discjockey (now DJ) at work.

It is also the visual proof of two major names of the movement on national television: New York New York, with its panels of the New York skyline, and ZC, whose motto “Control Total” can be read in the original photograph of the setup.

Note on what remains to be documented

As with other allies of the period, the television showcase served to exhibit not only the music, but the technical setup, the hosting and the staging of each crew.

What remains open is the fine detail: how many seasons it ran under the name La Linoteca, the full list of minitecas that passed through the studio and the names of the discjockeys who accompanied them in each broadcast.

Not to be confused with La Gogoteca (another music show on Venezuelan television, hosted by Luis Guillermo González): they are different shows.

Social media

• · Social media and contact still being traced — do you have information or material about this show? Write to us through the contact form

Credits and sources

• · Base mention in “La Revista de las Minitecas” (DJ Vladimir Medina edition): Best Music as a special guest “en el programa La Linoteca por RCTV.”
• · Record of a specialized community: the appearance of Miniteca Betelgeuse “en La Linoteca RCTV” in audiovisual material circulated by the miniteca archive — Minitecas TV on Facebook (facebook.com), video “Miniteca Betelgeuse en La Linoteca RCTV.”
• · Origin, name, format and team of the show: the write-up accompanying the period video “LINOTECA 1” (youtu.be/-qKquLZg_8Q, channel of Miguel Ángel González Negrete), which documents the broadcast of Saturday, June 28, 1986 from the Teatro La Campiña in Caracas, with Julián Isaac as special guest; the change of name from “Ranking Musical Fantástico” (1984-1986) upon the arrival of Lino Ferrer, his pairing with Judith Castillo, the countdown of ten songs with two predictions and a “Pegadita,” the models Rosa Westermeyer, Yádira and Marlene Maceda, and the lighting handled by Super Efectos.
• · Identification of Lino Ferrer as the producer and host who appears in the photographs of the set: primary source of the CMTK Archive.
• · Internal cross-references: Julián Isaac and Ramón Mata (record of 125 hours at Caracas 750, 1985) and Mauricio Cutri “Super Efectos” (mechanical lighting) have an entry of their own in this Archive.
• · Under documentary verification: number of seasons under the name “La Linoteca,” the full list of guest minitecas and the discjockeys of each broadcast.
• · Entry compiled by the CMTK Archive (research carried out on July 10, 2026).