How "El Chavo del 8" revolutionized Cinema forever

By Leonardo Salazar

Tejano Tribune Film Critic

In the entertainment field, a lot of genius has been recognized throughout film history.

Filmmakers, actors, comedians, and other professions have been around since long ago, but none of them has had such as enormous influence on society or the impact on our culture as Roberto Gómez Bolaños, or best known as Chespirito.

Roberto Gómez Bolaños is best known as Chespirito who has had tremendous impact on Mexican culture, and cultures worldwide, with his hilarious look at everyday life using short, simple stories.

First of all, let’s get a little bit of context. Chespirito was a Mexican director, actor, and comedian, born in 1929 on Mexico City. He was working at an advertising agency where he took advantage of his big creative skills. For that same reason, he started writing scripts for comedy films and programs, that way beginning his career in the entertainment industry.

Chespirito became known because the things he wrote were really funny and likeable by an increasing audience.

Thanks to his talent at writing and storytelling, the independent Mexican channel known at that time as “Channel 8” (which later was going to be “Televisa”) offered Chespirito the opportunity to do his own comedy program, where he could write, act, direct, and produce whatever he wanted to do. He made a program called “Los Supergenios de la Mesa Cuadrada” (which can be translated to “The Super Geniuses of the Round Table”) which presented a series of comedy sketches.

That program gained a large popularity in Mexico, and some time later, Chespirito created for this program two sketches that were going to change everything; one sketch was about a poor boy discussing with a balloon seller in a park, and other one about a dumb superhero. These two sketches gained an extreme large popularity, so Chespirito decided to create more sketches of them and, in a way, expand their story- now that dumb superhero was going to have his own program named “El Chapulin Colorado,” and that poor boy was going to live in a barrel in a poor neighborhood and his program was going to be “El Chavo del 8.”

So yes, for all those who didn’t know, basically “El Chavo” and “El Chapulin Colorado” started as sketches of other Chespirito program, but people really, really liked them. That led to Chespirito leaving the original program and focus on these new shows. The two programs remain famous throughout Latin America, but I want to focus now more on “El Chavo del 8” because this one gained the most popularity.

“El Chavo del 8” presented the story of an 8-year-old orphan boy who lives in a barrel in a poor neighborhood and has adventures and misadventures with his other kid friends -such as Quico, La Chilindrina, or Ñoño-, and his adult neighbors -such as Don Ramón, Doña Florinda, El Señor Barriga, or the Professor Jirafales.

The show is extremely good because it takes a simple concept and makes a total masterpiece out of it. All episodes have simple stories. For example, Don Ramón starts working as a milkman and we see his misadventures, in another episode it is Quico's birthday, and he enjoys a party with his friends. In another episode, El Chavo and Quico play soccer in the neighborhood.

As you noticed, the themes and concepts of the episodes are very simple, but each episode's concept works extremely well because they are full of hilarious situations and great jokes, as well as a good story structure. Also, the characters are another great topic to mention if we talk about this show's success. The characters of this show are hilarious representing some aspects or personalities of people who exist around Mexico and the world but shown in a funny way.

For example, the kids misbehaving, the mom overprotective with her kid, or the jobless man who doesn’t pay rent. Chespirito took these concepts that exist in Mexico and other countries and presented them in a funny way that worked altogether. I think that's another reason why this program had enormous success. It is not only because of the jokes and fun situations, but also because the stories and characters are so simple that people can relate to them.

Relating or empathizing to the aspects or characters of the show is very easy because the characters are so likeable and the situations and conflicts, despite being taken to an extreme for comedy purposes, it is easy to relate to them. There are some people who don't like the show, but NOBODY can't deny the insane influence this program has had on the world because of how likeable the story and the characters are for millions and millions of people, to the point that, despite some people not agreeing, it is the program that best represents Mexico.

It is amazing and truly unbelievable how Chespirito could take a simple concept such as a couple of characters living on a poor neighborhood, and from there, he created a show that connected millions of people and made them all laugh and has become one of the most important things in the culture of Mexico and the world.