Mondonguito

José Lorenzo Zubiate Zegarra, known to generations of Peruvians as Mondonguito, was a Peruvian comedian and one of the pioneers of the cómicos ambulantes, the street comedians who turned the plazas of central Lima into open-air stages. He was born on 10 June 1959 in Bagua Grande, in the Amazonas region of northern Peru, into a family of modest means, and spent his early years in the Lima district of Comas after his parents moved to the capital for work.

His stage name came from childhood. As a schoolboy he loved the mondonguito (a tripe stew) sold at the entrance of his school, and the woman who sold it began calling him by the name of the dish. It stayed with him for the rest of his life.

He started performing at the age of nine in the Tony Perejil circus, where he learned to work as a clown, juggler, trapeze artist and tightrope walker. He then moved to the street, telling jokes in the Plaza San Martín alongside his friend Alberto Rojas, and later in the Parque Universitario, Plaza Manco Cápac and other public spaces, sharing pitches with comedians such as Tripita, Cara de Chancho, Cholo Cirilo and the Poeta de la Calle. In those years he painted his face like a circus clown and built his act on improvisation, popular slang and jokes about his own appearance.

His break came in 1991. Augusto Ferrando, host of the hugely popular Trampolín a la fama on Panamericana Televisión, saw him performing in the Plaza San Martín and invited him onto the show. Ferrando told him to take off the clown make-up so that people would recognise his face, and the advice worked. Mondonguito became one of the first street comedians to reach Peruvian free-to-air television, and he brought his colleagues along with him, opening the door for a whole generation of cómicos ambulantes.

Television work followed: Ambulantísimo on TV Perú in 1993, Los reyes de la risa on Red Global in 1998, and from 1999 Los ambulantes de la risa on Panamericana Televisión, which brought together the best-known street comedians of the era, including K. Suero, José Luis Cachay, Tripita and Loncherita.

After that show ended, a cultural exchange arranged through the French embassy took him to Europe. He performed in France, including at the Moulin Rouge, and toured other European countries before settling for many years in Italy, where he shared lodgings with his friend and colleague José Luis Cachay. He returned to Peru around 2015 to be with his family and went back to the street, performing at weekends in the Parque Universitario in central Lima. He made occasional television appearances, including Igualitos and Al sexto día on Panamericana, Los reyes del playback on Latina in 2016, and in 2023 a short-lived revival of Los ambulantes de la risa on Porque hoy es sábado con Andrés, followed by Esto es humor on Viva TV.

His later years were hard. In 2024 he spoke publicly about severe varicose veins that had left him barely able to walk, about earning very little performing in the street, and about losing the house he had paid for while working in Europe. Fellow comedians and television presenters organised appeals to help him.

In 2026 he was admitted to the Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia in Lima with pulmonary fibrosis. His daughter Patricia Zubiate described his worsening condition in television interviews, and his sister travelled from Argentina to be with him. He died in the hospital on the morning of Friday 13 November 2026, aged 67. In line with his wish, he was given a public wake at the headquarters of Peru's Ministry of Culture in San Borja, Lima, and the Ministry paid tribute to his talent and his place in the history of Peruvian popular comedy.