Little-known facts about the "birth story" of Tao Quan on VTV

“Tao Quan” is the only variety show that dares to present the country’s important issues in a year in a comedy language that many people love. However, the “story” of the birth of “Tao Quan” is probably unknown to many people.

People's Artist Khai Hung, who is considered the "father" of "Tao Quan" along with Meritorious Artist Do Thanh Hai, once shared that "Tao Quan" originated from the program "Gap nhau cuoi tuan" produced by VFC - Television Film Production Center (Vietnam Television).

People's Artist Khai Hung came to encourage the "Tao Quan" crew.

The creators of this program had the idea of ​​making “Meeting at the End of the Year” to summarize the issues raised in “Meeting at the End of the Week” and they decided to use the story “Tao Quan”. So “Tao Quan” was born within the program “Meeting at the End of the Year”.

Artist Khai Hung added that “Tao Quan” actually did not originate from VFC but from Ho Chi Minh City Television. Because when VFC started making “Gap nhau cuoi nam” in the style of “Tao Quan”, Ho Chi Minh City Television had already broadcast this program for 5 years. However, at that time, Ho Chi Minh City simply did it in the style of telling the story of a man and a woman going to heaven and reporting on the current situation in the village and on the street.

Artist Do Thanh Hai is the one with many ideas to make "Tao Quan" become special and loved as it is today.

So, when starting to do “"Meeting at the end of the year" in the style of "Tao Quan" like now, Meritorious Artist Do Thanh Hai has come up with many new ideas for the program. "In the crew, everyone agreed that making "Meeting at the end of the year" does not necessarily have to be based on the story of two men and one woman like the legend, but must come up with something really special so that it can be performed for a long time and the actors can juggle with each other the most to create the most valuable laughter of the year", the father of "Tao Quan" said.

After many discussions, the production team finally decided to include the roles of Nam Tao and Bac Dau in "Tao Quan", even though in the legend of "Tao Quan" there are no two of these characters.

Nam Tao - Bac Dau are two unreal characters in the story "Tao Quan".

In which the role of Bac Dau "At first, it was not half-grandfather and half-grandmother like now, but because he felt that this role should be transformed to have more laughter and freshness, Mr. Cong Ly proposed the idea of ​​building the character in that direction. Unexpectedly, the character created a good impression and "lived" until now", People's Artist Khai Hung revealed.

The first person to play the role of the Jade Emperor was People's Artist Quoc Truong, but later, because they saw that artist Quoc Khanh "performed the best", the production crew chose him to permanently play the role of the Jade Emperor until now.

The first person to play the Jade Emperor was not Quoc Khanh.

In 2003, “Tao Quan” became a hardware part of “Gap nhau cuoi nam” and by 2006, “Tao Quan” officially took over the entire program.

Many viewers commented that "Tao Quan" is special in the ending with the "soothing" and "forgiving" scene of the Jade Emperor to say goodbye to the old year and look forward to a better new year. Therefore, after 16 years, "Tao Quan" has always been "a bottle of wine that never gets old" as well as becoming an indispensable "spiritual food" for Tet for many generations of Vietnamese audiences. Because whenever "Tet" is mentioned, "Tao Quan" is immediately remembered.