List of El Chavo del Ocho characters
El Chavo del Ocho, often shortened to El Chavo, is a Mexican television sitcom series created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños. The show was based on a series of sketches performed on Gómez's eponymous sketch show, Chespirito, which were first performed in 1972. El Chavo became its own series in 1973 and aired until 1980, becoming one of the most popular television programs in the world. Following its cancellation and the relaunch of Chespirito, the El Chavo sketches returned in 1980 and continued to be performed on Chespirito until 1992 when Gómez, by this point in his sixties, discontinued them due to his advancing age.
The show follows the life and tribulations of the title character, a poor orphan child that lives on a Mexican housing complex, typically called a vecindad. He is accompanied by a cast of neighbors, children, and other characters. All the characters, including the children, were played by adults on El Chavo.Summary
Main characters
El Chavo
- Portrayed by Roberto Gómez Bolaños
- Years: 1972–1992
El Chavo del Ocho is an 8-year-old orphan and the main protagonist of the series. "Chavo" is a Mexican Spanish slang for "kid" or "boy"; Chavo's real name is unknown, but is supposed to be Chente, short for Vicente, after a supposed friend that nobody has ever met and according to Chavo, looks a lot like himself. Generally Chavo is enthusiastic, creative and good-natured, but on the other hand he is also rather naïve and very gullible. He is not particularly bright and is remarkably clumsy, often hitting Quico, Don Ramón and Señor Barriga with balls, brooms, shoes, hammers, bricks, chairs and other objects. Chavo's typical attire consists of a green plaid baseball cap with ear flaps, a striped t-shirt, khaki shorts held up by a pair of orange suspenders he wears with both straps over one shoulder, and brown shoes without socks.
Chavo arrived at the neighborhood at the age of four and apparently lived in apartment #8 with an elderly woman. After her death, Chavo spends most of his time inside an abandoned barrel that he calls his "secret hideout". He has a craving for ham sandwiches, a popular kind of sandwich in Mexico. He has a crush on Paty, along with his brother, Quico. Despite being a hungry 8-year-old child, he seems to have an incredible physical strength, since his punches are able to stun or even topple a full-grown man, mostly Don Ramón.
In the English dub of the animated adaptation, he is voiced by Mona Marshall. Unlike in the original series and the Spanish version of the animated series, instead of being called "Chente" or "Chavito", he is called "Chavorino" by his friends sometimes. Also, the "El" part of his name was officially removed from his character's bios in the animated series, possibly to keep in with the show's English production on Americanizing the series. Instead of ham tortas, he has a craving for ham sandwiches, although the Christmas specials state that he also has cravings for jelly sandwiches for mysterious reasons, but those jelly sandwiches are actually ham tortas in the original Spanish version, called jelly sandwiches in the English version. Also, his friend "Vicente" is renamed as Chova.
In Brazil, his name was changed to Chaves, because the word chavo wouldn't make sense in this language. "Chaves" is a Portuguese language surname, with a Spanish language version, spelled Chávez.La Chilindrina
La Chilindrina is the daughter of Don Ramón. "Precocious" is the best way to describe Don Ramón's intelligent and mischievous daughter, who likes to take advantage of her slow-witted friends to play pranks on them and take their toys or snacks. She usually wears a green dress, white shorts, and a red sweater that is always twisted on the back. She has freckles, horn-rimmed glasses, a missing front tooth, and two pigtails that are always uneven, one significantly higher than the other one, just like her socks. "Chilindrina" is the name of a typical Mexican bun, with brown sugar sparkles on top, reminiscent of the character's freckles. In early episodes, La Chilindrina used to have longer pigtails which were cut by El Chavo. In most episodes, she is seen to have a crush on Chavo, and is very jealous of his crush on Paty.
La Chilindrina was cut from the El Chavo animated series due to disputes with Roberto Gomez Bolaños and Maria Antonieta de las Nieves about who owned the rights to the character and if the character was allowed to be used publicly outside of El Chavo. María Antonieta de las Nieves was able to win a legal battle over Chespirito in 2003, which gave her permission to act as La Chilindrina in public, and granted her rights over the character so that character is separated from the cast but still be on it by the fans. For old episode remakes, Chilindrina's role in the animated version was primarily taken over by either La Popis or Ñoño, the latter of whom came to have her same mischievous personality.
In Brazil, her name was changed to Chiquinha, a diminutive for Chica, which in turn is a nickname for Francisca.Quico
Federico Matalascallando Corcuera known as Quico, is a spoiled, greedy, overprotected 8-year-old boy, son of Doña Florinda and a late naval captain, who reportedly died when his vessel was attacked and, according to Quico, was eaten by a white shark. Arrogant, manipulative, and envious, He always wants to draw everyone's attention to himself, either by screaming loudly or by showing off his newest toy. Because of this, he usually gets El Chavo in trouble when he does something wrong, especially to Don Ramón, after which Don Ramón hits El Chavo angrily on the head. Partially due to his mother's influence, he believes that he and his mother are superior to everyone else in the neighborhood. He still finds time to play with—as he and his mother call them – chusma, namely Chavo, Chilindrina, and Don Ramón. However, Quico has proved many times to be Chavo's best friend and brother, often assisting him in Chavo's mischievous acts, as seen due to the fact that they are mostly seen playing together in the front yard, and that he was genuinely hurt when El Chavo left La Vecindad in the episodes "El Ratero de la Vecindad" and "El Billete de Loteria". Moreover, Quico is a good kid deep inside, even though there are several occasions in which he acts self-centered. Quico wears a rainbow-colored beanie cap, a dark blue naval officer's shirt with a red ascot, bright yellow socks he pulls all the way up to his knees, and white low-top shoes. He is also widely identified by his enormous cheeks, which he can puff out quite largely, and his minuscule intelligence, often responding to the Spanish words for idiot, stupid, dummy, etc.. Despite his stupidity, Quico displays more deceptive abilities and common sense than Chavo, and is the most likely to break the fourth wall. Often in the series Quico mentions that he has or that his mom will buy him a "square ball" and in "Termina el Romance" he and El Chavo refused to help Profesor Jirafales reconcile with his mother due to Profesor Jirafales having promised to them a square ball. In 1979, when Carlos Villagran quit the show, Quico is said to have gone off to live with his rich godmother, reportedly "unable to stand the riffraff anymore." No one in the show ever talked about him afterwards, or said anything about his absence, as if he had never existed. Villagran's character, Quico, starred in a rather short-lived spin-off series, ¡Ah qué Kiko! in the late 1980s, which attempted to revive the series using a "hip-hop" twist and gave Villagran's character a slight wardrobe make-over.
In the English dub version of the animated version, the main role is sometimes as the antagonist, he is voiced by Doug Erholtz. Instead of being called "Tesoro", he is called "Muffin". His name was also retained in said dub, as well as in the official English subtitles for the Netflix print of the original.Don Ramón
- Portrayed by Ramón Valdés
- Years: 1972–1979, 1981, 1982: Guest.
Don Ramón is an unemployed widower with an extremely lanky, nearly emaciated build. Sometime before the series started he was married to his wife and lived in the neighborhood together. As a result of the marriage they had their daughter, Chilindrina. But unfortunately, his wife died giving birth so Don Ramón was forced to raise his daughter alone the best he could. He has black wiry hair and a moustache and is usually seen wearing a sun hat, a T-shirt, and jeans. His greatest aspiration seems to be living an uncomplicated life, but in the vecindad, this seems impossible. He is constantly hounded for the rent which he has neglected to pay for fourteen months – however, in some episode, he did pay at least one month of rent while on the verge of eviction from Señor Barriga. His daughter is a perennial headache and his neighbor Doña Florinda's response to any imposition on her lifestyle is a loud slap on his face, which causes him to spin in a circle. He eventually became something of a scapegoat for Florinda's wrath, with her ending up slapping him when he wasn't even present when something went wrong. Although rather high-strung and quick-tempered, Don Ramón manages to keep a fairly upbeat attitude and to make a living doing odd jobs. He's also a fan of all sports and is somewhat knowledgeable in them, but due to the kids' own shortcomings, he always comes up short. Chavo often mispronounces his name as Ron Damón, that is a common way of spelling by children, though it seems that Don Ramón tolerates the mispronunciation as long as Chavo and other children don't give out several insults. One quote popularized by himself is "There is no bad work, the downside is having to work". He hails from Chihuahua and is a fan of Club Necaxa, which in the day was generally known as a perennial mid-table also-ran, per Don Ramón's quote "Yo le voy al Necaxa", meaning that he neither wished for glory nor suffering. His personality of being a good-hearted and noble man, as well as acting as a surrogate father to El Chavo made Don Ramón one of the most cherished characters in the history of the show.
In Brazil, he is known as Seu Madruga and is considered to be the most popular character, with some of his quotes used under many circumstances, not only the funny ones. An example is during the 2000s that was considered the peak of success of the character in the country, Don Ramón was often used heavily as an internet meme to the point of having several Orkut communities related to him and even fangames with him being the protagonist. In 2010 a book entitled "Seu Madruga: Vila e Obra" was published exclusively in Brazil in honor of the character and his actor showing curiosities, interviews and unpublished photos about Ramón Valdés.
In the English dub of the animated version, as well as in the official English subtitles for the Netflix print of the original, he was known as Mr. Raymond or nicknamed Rister Maymond by El Chavo and was voiced by Doug Erholtz.