Germán Valdés "Tin-Tan" was the only screen comic to rival Cantinflas in originality and popularity. Something of a cross between Buster Keaton and Jerry Lewis, his was a subtle form of satire relying on language and surrealist gags. An accomplished song-and-dance man, he came to film from the carpas or touring vaudeville shows; the pumpkins of the film's title refers to the rumberas (dancers from Argentina, Cuba, Brazil and Mexico) who perform with him (including samba artist Rosita Pagan and Cuban rumba dancer Amalia Aguilar). The Tin-Tan character was a pachuco, or Mexican-American, with all the social implications that this transcultural figure carries with it. His verbal humor was a combination of Spanish and English slang, drawing on linguistic practices of the pachuco and the American-influenced border states, and his costume was the "zoot-suit." Unlike the Cantinflas character, however, Tin-Tan was not a pelado but rather an ambitious, upwardly mobile huckster-as in this film, a good guy trying desperately to be bad.