List of El Chavo characters

El Chavo del Ocho, often shortened to El Chavo, is a Mexican television sitcom created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños. The show was based on a series of sketches performed on Gomez'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 1982 and continued to be performed on Chespirito until 1992 when Gomez, 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 (played by Gómez Bolaños) 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.

El Chavo del Ocho is an eight-year-old orphan and the main character of the series. "Chavo" is a Mexican Spanish slang for "kid"; Chavo's real name is not known, but in some episodes he calls himself Chente, short for Vicente, after a friend who died in the orphan home in which he was abandoned. 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 (which Roberto Gómez Bolaños insinuated on the launch of the animated series may be a consequence of poor nutrition) and is remarkably clumsy, often hitting Quico, Don Ramón and Señor Barriga with balls, shoes, hammers, bricks, chairs and other objects. Chavo arrived at the neighborhood at the age of four and apparently lived in apartment #8 with an elderly woman (who is never seen, but is mentioned in the novel El diario de El Chavo del 8). 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 tortas, a popular kind of sandwich in Mexico. He has a crush on Paty, along with Quico (which is their first fight over their crush, although she kisses Chavo in the animated series). 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 version of the series, 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 a mysterious reason, but those jelly sandwiches are actually ham tortas (ham sandwiches) in the original Spanish version, called jelly sandwiches in the English version. Also, his friend "Vicente" (or Chente) is renamed as Chova (switching the A and the O around).

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