Cuéntame cómo pasó

Cuéntame cómo pasó was created to celebrate the first 25 years since Spain's transition to democracy, and its didactic spirit is clearly evident in some of the episodes. In special themed episodes it includes documentary interviews with historical figures of the era speaking about how they experienced important historic acts like the assassination of then Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco[3] or the death of Francisco Franco.[4]

Initially the series was to be titled Nuestro Ayer, but it finally was titled Cuéntame. This name comes from the famous song Cuéntame by the Spanish 1960s pop band Fórmula V that is used as the series opening theme. In March 2002, during the first season, the title was changed to Cuéntame cómo pasó because Cuéntame was already registered.[5]

The first episode was broadcast on 13 September 2001. The series begins in April 1968 with the arrival of television to the house of the Alcántaras just in time to watch the victory of Massiel at the Eurovision Song Contest.[6] The story reflects the changes in Spain beginning that day. Through situations, characters, and attitudes of the era, the series evokes a wistful reminiscence of those times. In this respect it can be compared to the series The Wonder Years, which did the same thing for US history.

In March 2020, TVE and Grupo Ganga announced that the series, after its 20th season, would be renewed for two more seasons, with the storyline moving firmly into the 1990s.[7]

Antonio Alcántara (Imanol Arias) and Mercedes Fernández (Ana Duato) are a married couple that have emigrated in the 1960s from Sagrillas, a (fictional) small village in the province of Albacete, to San Genaro, a (also fictional) working-class suburb in Madrid, along with her mother Herminia (María Galiana) and their three children, Inés (Irene Visedo), Toni (Pablo Rivero) and Carlos (Ricardo Gómez) seeking a better life away from the hardships of an impoverished countryside. Antonio works as an office boy at the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters in the mornings and at Don Pablo's (José Sancho) printing house in the afternoons. Mercedes and Herminia make trousers for a department store at home while doing the housekeeping. Inés works at Nieves' (Rosario Pardo) hair salon across the street along with Pili (Lluvia Rojo), Toni is starting a master's degree in Law making him the first Alcántara going to university and Carlos spends his school days with his best friends Josete (Santiago Crespo) and Luis (Manuel Dios). With great effort and hard work they are able to purchase in installments their first television set, their first washing machine, their first car (a SEAT 800) and even spend their first vacations at Benidorm where they see the sea for the first time.

As time goes by, Antonio leaves his jobs at the Ministry and the printing house to work for Don Pablo in other business. One of them, the building company Construcciones Nueva York ends up being a big fraud planned by Don Pablo and his partners in order to run off with the money and blame Antonio. Antonio is taken to court, the truth is revealed in the trial and finally Don Pablo is accused and imprisoned. After this, he starts working in other printing house, Gráficas Usillos, business that he eventually purchases and renames to Alcántara Rotopress. He runs for the first free democratic general election after Franco in the list of UCD for the Congress of Deputies for the Albacete constituency. He does not get the seat but he is directly appointed by Adolfo Suárez, General Director of Agrarian Production of the Ministry of Agriculture under the Second Suárez Cabinet, a position located at the same office of which he was a subordinate years ago. With his new position and with the printing house running well, the family is able to move their residence from the humble San Genaro to the upper class Salamanca neighbourhood. He sells the printing house, is removed from the position in the Ministry and he starts a flags and banners factory named Estandartes y Banderas alongside his best friend Desi (Roberto Cairo). When the Banco de Granada, the bank where Antonio and Mercedes have all their savings and the mortgage of the Salamanca neighbourhood apartment, declares bankruptcy, their financial situation becomes incredibly difficult and they have to move back to San Genaro, selling at a loss their luxurious apartment in order to cover their debts. After this, he starts an olive oil distributor with his brother Miguel (Juan Echanove), but their business is ruined when they are falsely accused of causing the toxic oil syndrome. Antonio has also problems with gambling, his health gets worse when he develops angina and he has an affair that puts his marriage in serious danger. With the money recovered from the Banco de Granada years after its bankruptcy, and the lands the family has in Sagrillas, they open up the vineyard and winery Bodega Alcántara Fernández e Hijos and they run the business until a devastating fire destroys the winery. He starts a travel agency named Viajes Milano and he even gets the licence to drive coaches.

Mercedes, tired of sewing trousers, starts to design and sell her own outfits. The sales go well, so she teams up with Nieves to open a boutique named Meyni in the hair salon premises, hiring Pili as shop assistant and using the back room as an atelier. As the business prospers, Don Pablo decides to invest his money in it, and the clothing production is moved to a fully equipped dressmaking factory at Don Pablo's premises, hiring a team of dressmakers and even hiring Antonio and Desi as salesmen. Meyni reaches its peak of success when they run a fashion show in front of Carmen Polo, but the company does not outlast the economic crisis and they have finally to close the factory. After Nieves' departure, Mercedes joins together with Pili and they reconvert the boutique into a unisex hair salon. After giving birth to María, the Alcántaras' fourth child, she decides to finish her secondary school studies and even completes a master's degree in Economics. She also works for some time as a real estate agent. She suffers a health scare when she is diagnosed with breast cancer and has a mastectomy. With her experience in design and in the fashion industry she starts a firm to make swimwear for women with a mastectomy and once completely recovered she is one of the first women in Spain passing a breast reconstruction. In the family winery she takes care of the bookkeeping. To help battered women in a shelter she teaches them sewing first and she transforms the sewing workshop into a firm to make clothing for women of all sizes later.

Inés, after breaking up with her lifelong boyfriend, travels to London with Nieves. There she falls in love with Mike (William Miller) and she decides not to come back. When they break up, she returns and she starts an acting career with the help of Eugenio (Pere Ponce), the new San Genaro parish young priest. When Mike appears in Madrid looking for her, she decides to follow him to Ibiza to live in a hippie commune. Antonio and Mercedes try by all means to take her back but she doesn't return until she gets disappointed of her life there. Back in Madrid she helps Eugenio with the social events in the parish. They spend so many time together that they finally fall in love with each other. Eugenio passes a secularization and they get married. Inés continues with her acting career and she accidentally gets connected with a member of the terrorist group ETA for which she gets arrested and imprisoned. When released, waiting to be taken to court and being pregnant, she and Eugenio decide to escape to France, where their son Antonio Oriol is born and where they break up. Later she moves to Argentina with Oriol. She is able to return to Spain after the amnesty is promulgated. Once in Madrid she gets into La Movida Madrileña nightlife and she gets into drugs, while Oriol lives with Eugenio in Cuenca. When the family becomes aware of her addiction, they take her to Sagrillas and help her to get clean. After this, her acting career starts to take off, having the leading role in several movies and stage plays. When Eugenio dies in a car accident, Inés takes Oriol to live with her. In the family winery she helps Antonio with the foreign orders. She has a relationship with Marcos (Carlos Cuevas) for some time. While teaching drama in an academy she falls in love with Belén (Beatriz Argüello).

Toni finishes his master's degree while getting into trouble, along with his young love Marta (Anna Allen), actively protesting against the Régime. After university, he does his compulsory military service and starts working as a journalist in the newspaper Pueblo. There he meets Juana (Cristina Alcázar), his fellow photographer, whom he falls in love with and finally gets married in Gibraltar. In the meantime, he quits his job at the newspaper when he is hired by Antonio to manage a magazine he is launching and to run his printing house. Later, he leaves those jobs to join a firm of labor lawyers. His marriage does not last long and Juana leaves him. After the separation and losing his job, he moves to Rome from where he returns immediately after he finds out about Mercedes' illness. Back in Madrid he starts working in a radio station. Two years after their breakup, he runs into Juana who is accompanied by a little boy named Santiago (Víctor Garrido). Juana later reveals that she was pregnant when she left him, and that Santiago is his son. While radio broadcasting live from the Congress of Deputies the vote to elect Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as the country's new Prime Minister, he lives the 23-F attempt coup d'état from inside. He moves to London, where Juana is living, to be near his son for some time. Back in Madrid he starts working as an investigative journalist, and puts his life in risk investigating several shady complots. Fearing for his life and wanting to avoid putting his family in danger, he flies to London. When accepting a position in Televisión Española's news service, he dares to return to Madrid with his new fiancée Deborah (Paloma Bloyd), and he becomes a Telediario news anchor first and an Informe Semanal reporter later. Toni and Deborah get married, she gets pregnant and they have a daughter named Sol.

Carlos spends his childhood going to school and playing in a vacant lot with Josete and Luis. He drives Antonio, Mercedes and Herminia crazy because he is a restless child. When he is in high school, Karina (Elena Rivera) and her mother move into the apartment next door. He gets into reading and writing and he wins a prize with a short story he writes. He starts dating Karina but the relationship has its ups and downs. Instead of starting a degree upon finishing high school, he decides to do his compulsory military service. There he meets Marcelo (Nao Albet). After service, he starts a master's degree in Business Management in a private school, but he does not finish the first year. He opens a nightclub and he is accused of drugs smuggling. As he does not want to betray his business partner, that is the one who is smuggling, he is arrested and imprisoned. In prison he is attacked and almost dies, but is released when found to be innocent. After prison, he continues to write and he even publishes his first novel. He is also in a long sporadic relationship with Julia (Claudia Traisac), his summer love from Sagrillas. When finding Luis in a bad way, he takes him to Sagrillas and helps him to recover, while taking care of the winery. When recovered, Luis takes over the winery's everyday management. Josete and Marcelo join them in Sagrillas and all them help Carlos to start a rural tourism small lodging named La Casa de Doña Pura as it is set at the former cottage of his deceased grandmother Pura (Terele Pávez). Karina marries another man and, after a one-night stand with Carlos, gets pregnant. She gives birth to a baby, Olivia, although it is not clear if she is Carlos' daughter or not, and when her husband finds out about the infidelity, they break up. Carlos takes care of her and the baby and, finally, he proposes and they get married. After some time working as a motorcycle courier he starts working in an advertising agency. Karina accepts a position in New York, Carlos follows her and there he starts to write down his family's story from the beginning.

The Alcántaras' story is narrated from an indefinite present by an adult Carlos (voiced by Carlos Hipólito). Their story is directly and indirectly affected by the events and the social, economical and political changes occurring in Spain since the late 1960s until the early 1990s. The Alcántaras are also direct and indirect witness of the historic acts occurring those days, including, among many others, when Antonio, Mercedes, Carlos and Miguel witness the car bombing that assassinates Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco, when Toni chronicles the Portuguese Carnation Revolution from Lisbon, when all the family queue for hours for Franco's funeral chapel, when Carlos, Karina and Josete get trapped in the Alcalá 20 nightclub fire, when Antonio and Mercedes take part in the famous game show Un, dos, tres... responda otra vez, when all the family leave El Descanso restaurant just when it suffers a terrorist attack, when Antonio proudly attends, at the Royal Palace, to the solemn signature of the agreement for which Spain and Portugal joined the European Economic Community, when Inés, Marcos and Oriol come out of the Hipercor bombing unscathed, when Toni reports live from Berlin the fall of the Wall and when Toni and his cameraman are kidnapped in Iraq during the Gulf War.

The series has also 5 additional unnumbered special episodes not counted in the official episodes numeration. Season 3 and season 20 finish and season 7, season 8 and the second part of season 19 start with one of those unnumbered special episodes each.

• Rosi Song, H. (2016). Lost in Transition. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-78138-287-5. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
• POUSA, Laura; FORNASARI, Eleonora (2017). "Tell the (hi)story to the nation. Two transcultural adaptations of the Spanish TV series Cuéntame cómo pasó: Raccontami and Conta-me como foi". Communication & Society. 30 (2): 1–15. ISSN 0214-0039. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
• Bartlett, Linda B. (May 22, 2017). "Cars, Space, and the Dynamics of Power in Cuéntame cómo pasó ('Tell Me How It Happened')". Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature. 41 (1, Article 16). doi:10.4148/2334-4415.1909. Retrieved 12 January 2020.

• Cuéntame cómo pasó on IMDb
• Cuéntame cómo pasó full episodes on rtve.es