He was a blond boy with very light eyes who on January 3, 1954 appeared behind that curved glass of a box full of valves called television, with the first RAI program, Arrivi e partenze, broadcast on Sundays at 2:30 pm.

People went to see him at the bar, the war had just ended and that proverbial Allegria that the host transformed into his trademark was the most you could wish for, along with lightheartedness.

Two of Bongiorno's warhorses, the partisan Mike, a courier for the resistance in Piedmont, where he had arrived with his mother shortly before from New York, his hometown.

In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo and saved from execution thanks to his American passport. San Vittore, then concentration camps in Carinthia and Austria where he was freed to reach the USA.

After an experience in the local media, he returned to Italy and presented himself as the symbol of a new era. With that very first and pioneering broadcast he brought the world into homes and bars and TV became an «agent of cosmopolitanism and modernization» as Aldo Grasso wrote on the occasion of the Milanese exhibition.

Mike Bongiorno was Mr. Lascia o doppia?, the one who had ferried TV into the homes of Italians, who had consecrated the habit of a fixed appointment with the country, who participated in quizzes and who talked about quizzes the day after the broadcast.

Aldo Grasso also writes that «The advent of TV was equal to the Divine Comedy or the Expedition of the Thousand: if Dante had given Italy a unitary language; if the Expedition of the Thousand had politically achieved Unity […], TV linguistically unified the peninsula, where school had failed. It did so for better or for worse. It unified not with the language of Dante but with that of Mike Bongiorno».

Who at this point is the first star of the small screen. Many programs followed, including the legendary and iconic Rischiatutto and numerous hostings of the Sanremo Festival.

1977 is the year Silvio Berlusconi began courting him. He wanted him at all costs for his TeleMilano 58, which later became Canale 5.

Well, in 1979 the transition from RAI to private TV was official and his quizzes were very popular: Bis, Tris, Superflash, Telemike and then the triumphant La ruota della fortuna, passing through Bravo Bravissimo and other titles.

Who was Mike, then? To quote Grasso again, «a master, the true prophet of the Berlusconi word» because he made it his own: he realized at that moment that it was not necessary to promote the programs but rather create advertising spaces to sell products.

And he knew how to do it like no one else. Thus Fabio Fazio writes that Mike did not place "any barrier between himself and the public, neither linguistic nor of any other kind: no reticence", not even to advertise supermarket products.

"Because the supermarket is one of those places where sooner or later everyone enters, without distinction. Exactly like generalist TV".

And then… the story is long, but we can’t help but mention the moment when he meets Fiorello, his playmate. Or at least that’s how his friend describes him, who grew up on bread and Rischiatutto and then a companion of the Italian-American presenter who couldn’t wait to have an excuse to dress up and disguise himself.

Like two children they dress up as a motorcyclist, a dancer, a 70s playboy… «Never take yourself seriously, with the seriousness of a great professional: this is Mike’s job, his great teaching», writes Fiorello, who defines him as the man who gave a name and surname to cheerfulness.

Meanwhile, the history of Italy is shown in the sets, in the television studios, in the clothing and in the way of entertaining. But also in the family photos, which show Bongiorno and family in the mountains, at the seaside, at some private party (the 18th birthday of his son Nicolò for example).

Board games arrive in the shops (one for each quiz!), but also gadgets of various kinds (there is also a Batman - Mike Bongiorno). Stories and stories.

That of the costume: jacket and tie, colored shirts, ski suits and a nostalgic sweater in the interview in which he talks about the war. That of the houses, of the American radio studios of the immediate post-war period, that of the bars that hosted his audience in the 50s. All of this is on display.