"Be a happy salted fish!" — a Macau comedy team that turned bacalhau, the Portuguese salted-cod dish, into a brand name, and went from street improv to a leading Macau–Hong Kong YouTube variety act.
Happy Bacalhau is a Macau-based, Hong Kong–and–Macau-spanning online variety-comedy creator team, operated by the production company Bacalhau Entretenimento Produção Limitada. It grew out of the 2008 local comedy troupe "Florescent Men" (花漾壯男) and reorganised into today's Happy Bacalhau in October 2016. It commands a strong following among younger and Macau/Hong Kong online audiences, and is one of the representative teams in the "Macau self-media going regional" story.
Profile
- Chinese Name: 歡樂馬介休
- English / Portuguese: Happy Bacalhau / Bacalhau Entretenimento Produção Limitada
- Founded: October 2016 (predecessor "Florescent Men" formed 2008)
- Domains: Culture · Everyday · Online content
- Industry: Online variety · KOL · Video production
- Genres: Variety entertainment, games, travel, food, comedy
- Language: Cantonese
- Slogan: "Be a happy salted fish!"
Background
"Bacalhau" (馬介休) is Macau's emblematic Portuguese salted-cod dish; the team took the name to nod to local food culture and to fit its comedic "be a happy salted fish" identity.
The team began as "Florescent Men" (花漾壯男), a comedy act formed in 2008 whose members included Rico (Leng Weng Hou), Leong Chi Long ("Dragon"), Pui Sin Tat and Ho Weng Kin ("Black Gap"). Most held day jobs and spent their early years in Macau's improv contests, stand-up and variety shows. Around 2015, the planner Lao Weng Him, the videographer Lei Chi Pan (who later founded Totem Image Studio) and Rico's "Florescent Men" troupe agreed to start a new channel together; after roughly a year of preparation, Happy Bacalhau launched in October 2016 and later grew into an entertainment production company.
Career
I. From "Florescent Men" to an online channel (2016)
After reorganising as Happy Bacalhau, the team began posting on YouTube and Instagram, with early uploads built around simple games and improvised sketches. According to a 2017 interview with a Macau cultural-creative outlet, a punishment-game clip unexpectedly drew over 80,000 views in Macau, encouraging the members to bring in a film crew and produce more deliberately.
II. Recruiting "players" and building a show system (from 2017)
The team calls its on-camera members "players" and rolled out series such as The Most ____ Game Ever, Eating Better on Payday and Happy Travels. Between 2018 and 2020 the large outdoor variety show Really GAME (真係GAME) ran for two seasons and became one of the team's signature works. The travel series Happy Travels (歡樂旅旅旅), produced from 2019, has covered destinations including Shunde, Hong Kong, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Germany.
III. Incorporation and regional expansion (recent years)
Bacalhau Entretenimento Produção Limitada is registered in Macau's cultural-and-creative-industries database, with an address listed at the Cultural Affairs Bureau building on Tap Seac Square, and in recent years it has produced creative campaigns with companies and government bodies in Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Per the team's own materials, in 2025 it was invited as a local-KOL speaker at the Macau International Creators Conference and was an invited act for YouTube Taiwan Brandcast 2025. As of December 2025 its YouTube channel had about 264,000 subscribers and over 170 million total views.
Defining Moments
1. Pivoting content under the pandemic (2020)
During COVID-19, filming logistics were disrupted. In an interview with The Macau Post Daily, creative director Rico said the team launched series such as "Brainstorming," having members shoot videos at home and letting viewers vote; the team also started a YouTube channel-membership scheme that drew over a thousand paying fans.
2. The 2025 ranking buzz
Per Wikipedia and the team's own site, in 2025 Happy Bacalhau placed on several third-party Hong Kong YouTuber ranking/rating sites, including "first for team reputation," "first in the travel category," "third among variety teams" and inclusion in one site's "Top 20 YouTubers in Hong Kong 2025." It should be noted that these placements come from unofficial influencer-statistics/rating sites (such as Hong Kong Influencer Database, HKTOPCREATER and KOLScanner) with differing methodologies; Happy Bacalhau did not appear in YouTube's own official "Hong Kong Top 10 creators of 2025." This archive treats the claim conservatively.
Public Character
Public accounts of Happy Bacalhau cluster around the keywords from Macau, variety comedy, large-scale game shows, travel-and-food content, Macau–Hong Kong collaboration. The team is known for a positive public image and for brand-integration work, and is one of the few Macau content teams able to take commissions across Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This archive records only its publicly verifiable founding history and body of work, and draws no conclusions on unverified rankings.
Members
The team uses "players" (玩員) as a collective term for its on-camera members, and the roster has changed repeatedly. Below are the core and founding members most often cited in public sources:
- Rico (Leng Weng Hou) — co-founder and creative director, former "Florescent Men" member; also runs a personal YouTube channel.
- Ho Weng Kin ("Black Gap" / Kevin) — former "Florescent Men" member, one of the team's "brain trust."
- Leong Chi Long ("Dragon") — former "Florescent Men" member, handles music production.
- Pui Sin Tat ("Tat") — former "Florescent Men" member, known for public speaking.
- Leong Wah Chon ("Wah Chon") — core on-camera "player" (nicknamed "the millionaire YouTuber" / "Bacalhau's No. 1").
- Lao Weng Him — operations director (behind the scenes); Lei Chi Pan (Henry) — production director and head of post-production (behind the scenes).
Note: the on-camera "player" line-up is large and frequently changing; the above lists only the most-cited core/founding members. This archive does not enumerate every current and former member.
Key Achievements
- One of the leading Macau–Hong Kong online variety teams, producing large-scale game variety (Really GAME), travel (Happy Travels) and food content continuously since 2016
- YouTube channel with over 264,000 subscribers and 170 million+ total views (as of December 2025); received YouTube's 100,000-subscriber Silver Creator Award in December 2019
- Incorporated out of the local comedy troupe "Florescent Men" as Bacalhau Entretenimento Produção Limitada, registered in Macau's cultural-creative database, taking creative campaigns across Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan
- Invited as a local-KOL speaker at the Macau International Creators Conference in 2025; placed on several third-party Hong Kong influencer ranking/rating sites the same year (unofficial methodologies)
Information compiled from Chinese Wikipedia, Macau Exmoo News, The Macau Post Daily, the Macau cultural-creative database, an interview by the Macau Positive Energy Association and the team's official website. If anything is inaccurate or needs updating, please contact us — we aim to respond within 48 hours.
