Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan. Various media producers arranged for many Puerto Rican performers to tour New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Rivera was one of these. As fate would have it, one particularly chilly evening Rivera and Bobby Capó were exiting a performance outside the Teatro Puerto Rico and were looking for a place to eat. While waiting for public transportation, Rivera told Bobby Capó two jokes. These two jokes, reinterpreted by Capó and set to music, became two major musical hits: "El Negro Bembón", for Rafael Cortijo and his Combo (sung by Ismael Rivera), and "El Caballo Pelotero", a smash hit for El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico (original version sung by Pellín Rodríguez). For years, Rivera co-hosted "El Show del Mediodia", a midday variety show, on WAPA-TV alongside Luis Vigoreaux. After Vigoreaux was murdered early in 1983, Rivera became the show's main host, position in which he performed for several years afterwards. Later years In the 1990s, Rivera wrote a book titled "A Reír Con Yoyo" (Let's Laugh with Yoyo) and donated all of the proceeds to an AIDS organization. He was also active in a television show called "Desde Mi Pueblo" ("From My Town") for WIPR-TV (San Juan's channel 6), where he would visit every town and city and show all of the interesting aspects of the featured place. His co-hosts on the program were Deborah Carthy-Deu, Maria Falcon and Tony Croatto. After José Miguel Agrelot's sudden death in 2004, the remaining co-hosts on Agrelot's long-running radio show "Tu Alegre Despertar", (Your Cheerful Wake-Up), Aurora Previdi and María Falcón, asked the radio audience to select a permanent replacement for Agrelot from a round of temporary co-hosts. Rivera won the assignment; given the wishes of Agrelot's family to achieve some closure, the program changed its name to "Contigo en el tapón" ("Along With You In The Traffic Jam") and changed its format slightly. Rivera remains as a popular co-host, filling Agrelot's considerably large shoes. He also hosts a daily program of Puerto Rican music classics at Allegro WIPR-FM. Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi wrote a performance novel using the Yoyo Boing nickname as a title with some punctuation added: "Yo-Yo Boing!". Featuring a tinted photo of Rivera with overimposed X-ray specs for the book's jacket, the comic bilingual novel has very little to do with Rivera himself, but does feature a dream