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Saturday nights, millions of viewers around the world (in more than 40 countries, including the United States and in New Jersey) turn on their televisions to watch a weekly variety show broadcast in Spanish. Hosted by "Don Francisco," Sabado Gigante (Giant Saturday) debuted in Chile in 1962.

Forty-seven years later, the show and its host are still on the air -- the longest running television show in the Americas with the same host.

"Don Francisco" is one Latin America's most beloved celebrities and talk show hosts. He has been compared to Ed Sullivan, Art Linkletter, Johnny Carson, and others. He can sing, dance, act, and tell a joke, but what he does best is to keep Sabado Gigante "moving" through three hours of skits, interviews with singers and entertainers, raffles, contests, audience participation, travelogs, and much more. In addition to this "cazuela" (which means "stew" in Spanish), there are also the beautiful models who accompany "Don Francisco" serving as hostesses. Sabado Gigante has the feel of an American 1950s TV show, the kind the entire family would watch together, gathered in the living room around the television set. A bit corny, a trifle sexist, and by today's standards slightly politically incorrect, Sabado Gigante and "Don Francisco" continue to flourish.

Ironically, "Don Francisco," particularly beloved to Hispanics (most of whom are Catholics), is Jewish; he is actually Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld, born in 1940 in Chile. His German Jewish parents, Erick Kreutzberger and Anna Blumenfeld Neufeld, fled to Chile to escape Nazi persecution. In Chile, Mario's father became a successful tailor and clothing manufacturer, and as a teenager, Mario entered the family business, traveling throughout the Chilean provinces selling clothes.

However, in 1959, he was sent to New York to study men's fashion design and the garment industry. There, he became enamored with American television programming so that shortly after returning to Chile, he left his father's business and talked his way onto Chile's one television channel. In 1962, while only 21 years old, Mario was hosting his own program (Sabados Gigantes which later became Sabado Gigante). Produced live, the show ran for eight hours each Sunday, and the public adored it.

Kreutzberger picked the stage name "Don Francisco" from one of the characters he created early on in his acting career when he studied theatre at Santiago's Maccabi Club. The club served as a Jewish social and sports center, and that is where he met his future wife, Teresa "Temy" Muchnick, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Temy's parents were somewhat skeptical about Mario's future as an entertainer in the television industry. Nonetheless, Temy and Mario wed, raised three children, and Mario's career thrived. In fact, with the continued success of Sabados Gigantes in Chile and the tremendous world-wide growth of the television industry between the 1960s and '80s, Kreutzberger began to see the potential of the international market.

In 1986 Mario took his show to Miami. At the beginning, it was very difficult to find sponsors in the U.S. since many businesses were not yet aware of the rapid growth and buying power of Florida's Latino population. However, as the popularity of the Miami show increased, "Sabado Gigante" spread across the U.S. reaching the Hispanic populations in California, Texas, and Arizona, as well as extending into almost all of the Latin American countries. For a time Mario flew back and forth each week for the taping of Sabados Gigantes in Santiago and Sabado Gigante in Miami; but as the years passed, the traveling became too exhausting, and he and his wife moved to Miami.

Kreutzberger has also hosted a number of other television shows including a weekly Wednesday night program begun in 2000 in the U.S. called "Don Francisco Presenta" ("Don Francisco Presents") as well as the Chilean version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (¿Quién quiere ser millionario?) which ran from 2001 to 2003. Don Francisco's fame even earned him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Conscious of his role as a "communicator," Mario has worked hard to get to know the public that he serves and has even incorporated serious themes -- ranging from immigration, marital problems, legal rights, and matters of health -- into the American version of Sabado Gigante. With his own weight issues and diabetes, he is quite frank about his struggle to remain "fit" and "youthful" throughout his long career on the small screen. His ability to relate to his audience is based on his personality, not on his appearance. His political neutrality also has served him well through the governmental upheavals in Chile, and his American show favors neither Republicans nor Democrats.

While most of the public think that Mario Kreutzberger is "Don Francisco," the two have distinct personalities. The congenial, jovial television emcee is a serious and savvy business man. In his autobiography ("Life, Camera, Action: Don Francisco Autobiography," 2001, Editorial Grijalbo, Mexico), he wrote, "The mere fact that a television host with a microphone in his hand can reach millions of people is significant and powerful, but it is also an enormous obligation, not just social or moral, but with the community."

One of Kreutzberger's proudest achievements is hosting a Jerry Lewis-like telethon held annually (since 1978) on Chilean television to raise money for handicapped children. The hundreds of millions of dollars which have been donated to this cause have resulted in the construction of numerous pediatric rehabilitation centers across Chile.

Putting "Don Francisco" aside, Mario Kreutzberger is a Jew and has not forgotten his Jewish upbringing and heritage. German, which he learned from his parents, was his first language. At age 13 he celebrated his bar mitzvah. In 1993, he and his wife returned to Germany and Poland to visit the cities from which their parents had fled. And in 2007, he produced and appeared in a documentary called "Testigos Del Silencio" (Witnesses of the Silence) about his family, the Jews, and the Holocaust.

Kreutzberger has received numerous awards for his humanitarian works as well as for his leadership in the Spanish-speaking television industry. So, some Saturday night when you are looking for something to do, turn on your television. Even if you can't understand Spanish, watch a bit of "Sabado Gigante" hosted by "Don Francisco". Just remember that you really looking at Mario Kreutzberger, one of the world's most famous television celebrities who also happens to be Jewish.