television series and almost non-existent, the show was hugely impressive with its Broadway-like sets, wardrobes, high budgets and special effects. Most concerts were sold out and it was the top grossing live event in Argentina every year, from 96 to 2001. Chiquititas was also heavily critically panned by media vehicles during all produced sessions. The content of the show was criticized for being questionable, hypocritical, overly sexual and for showing an orphanage full of beautiful blond kids in expensive and fashionist clothes. The songs were also criticized for being heavily commercial. Despite the lack of critical support, Chiquititas had seven seasons, one feature film, over 400 licensed products, five international remakes, two spin-offs and over 1 million tickets sold during its six seasons at Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires. It was the first international franchise in Argentina's television history and is seen as a point of non-return in a local television. To this day, it still on air in Latin America on cable channel Boomerang. Chiquititas around the world In 1997, Brazil's number-2 net, SBT, made a deal with Telefe to produce its own version of Chiquititas. The show had an all-Brazilian cast but was shot in Buenos Aires, at the same studios where the original version was produced. Flavia Monteiro was cast as Carolina (Brazil's equivalent to Belen) and Fernanda Souza was Mili. Unlike Argentina, where the plot took a while to settle in. In Brazil, from the first chapter the telenovela became an instant success. Since the beginning, the show became a huge sensation among kids and teenagers, becoming one of SBT's most popular shows. When the cast returned to Brazil to promote the soap, the cast caused a lot of confusion, leading the children to outbreaks of collective hysteria. As the plot progressed, there was a need to cast more child actors and the casting tests attracted amazing and gigantic numbers of subscribers and the albums sold in huge quantity (the first album sold over one million copies while the second album was less successful, selling over 850.000 copies). Like in Argentina, the show spawned a huge quantity of licensed products and was the debut of some of Brazil's most popular young actors including the siblings Kayky and Sthefany Brito and Bruno Gagliasso. As it is an adaptation, several differences occurred mainly motivated by the available budget and also for cultural reasons. In the first phase,