El Chavo Animado


El Chavo Animado is a Mexican animated series based on the live action TV series El Chavo del Ocho, created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, produced by Televisa and Ánima Estudios. It aired on Canal 5, and reruns were also shown on Las Estrellas and Cartoon Network Latin America. 134 episodes aired between 2006 and 2014.
After several years of successful reruns of the original series, on October 21, 2006 Televisa launched in Mexico and the rest of Latin America an animated version of the program by Ánima Estudios to capitalize on the original series' popularity. With the series, Televisa began a marketing campaign which included merchandise tie-ins. For the series' launch event, a set was built on which the animation was explained. Many elements of the original series, including most of the original stories, were included in the animated series.
El Chavo Animado also aired in English via Kabillion's on-demand service in North America. Although it was part of the video-on-demand service, the series did not appear on the Kabillion website until the site's April 2012 relaunch. The series is currently airing on Disney XD Asia, :es:BitMe|bitMe and :es:Districto Comedia|Districto Comedia as of 2020.

Premise

Synopsis

Based on the series El Chavo del Ocho, the cartoon shows the adventures of El Chavo, a poor boy, and his gang, who live in a village in Mexico. In the first season, all episodes of the series are remakes of episodes from the original series. With the absence of La Chilindrina, Ñoño, Popis and Quico replace her role in most episodes. From the second season, the cartoon began to have episodes with totally new stories, that is, that are not based on the episodes of the series; and as of the third season, there are practically no more remakes. Also from the third season, the characters increasingly have adventures outside the village.
A big difference between the cartoon and the show is that the drawing often shows the imagination of the characters. Another difference is that Don Ramón's house is now numbered 10 instead of 72. In addition, characters like Señor Barriga and Ñoño, or Doña Florinda and Popis, often appear together, which was rare to happen in the original series, as these characters were made by the same actor or actress. Also in the cartoon it is possible to see Don Ramón and Quico opposite the postman Jaimito, something that had never happened in the series, because the actors Carlos Villagrán and Ramón Valdez left the show before the postman Jaimito started to appear. In the cartoon, Jaimito's personality was kept from when El Chavo was a member of the Chespirito program, that is, in the cartoon, Jaimito lives in the village and, like Don Ramón, owes 14 months of rent; different from the classic series, where Jaimito does not live in the village and does not have rent problems like Don Ramón.
Unlike the original series, which took place in the 1970s, the drawing takes place in contemporary times, and thus it is possible to see many contemporary elements in the episodes.

Characters

El Chavo Animado features all the characters of the original series, with the exception of La Chilindrina due to ownership disputes. The series stars El Chavo, a poor boy, along with his gang, which consists of Quico, the exhibitionist and protected son of Doña Florinda, and Ñoño, a fat boy which is Mr. Barriga's son,

Cast

Spanish

The cartoon depicts the children to scale, compared to the live-action series where the children were played by adults. This was not the first attempt to animate the show's characters; claymation sequences were created for the original-series credits during the late 1970s, and 2D animations were used for the credits of Chespirito.

English dub

The series was dubbed into 52 English episodes and aired in Kabillion's video-on-demand, with some changes. The theme song and most of the character names were changed, but the original theme song can be heard during the credits of nearly every episode. Spanish cuisine was Americanized, and the setting changed from Mexico to New York City. Episode titles were changed to idiomatic English.

American names

Chavo, Gloria and Quico are the only characters whose names have not been Americanized or changed. Although Paty's name sounds the same, the American version adds another "t" to the name.

Season 1 (2006–2007)

The original title is in Spanish, which airs on Canal 5. The American title is the English version, which airs on Kabillion And Disney XD Asia. The French title is for the French dub, and the Portuguese title is for the Brazilian version.

Season 2 (2007–2008)

This was the last English-dubbed season.

Season 3 (2009–2010)

Season 4 (2010–2011)

Season 5 (2012)

Season 6 (2013)

Season 7 (2014)

Spin-offs and merchandise

Televisa released six episodes of El Chavo in Mexico in 2007. The same collection was released by Universal Video Entertainment in Brazil in 2008 as Chaves em Desenho Animado. Quico, La Popis, Don Ramón, Doña Florinda and Professor Jirafales dolls were marketed in Mexico in 2004.

Video games

A video game based on the series was developed by Kaxan Media Group and released in Mexico on April 27, 2012 for the Wii by Slang Publishing and Televisa Home Entertainment. La Vecindad de El Chavo was released in March 2012 by Playful Play, a game development company in Monterrey, Mexico. By October 3, 2012, the game had three million registered players. It closed on August 4, 2014. In 2014, El Chavo Kart was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Android. However, the Android version has since been delisted from the Google Play Store. In 2014, another game was released exclusively on Android, titled El Chavo: A Carnival in the Apartments. It was developed by Blue River SA. In this game, a carnival is taking place in the housing complex, and you can play minigames to win tickets to get powerups. The game was able to be played in Spanish, English, and Brazilian Portuguese. However, the game has since been delisted from the Google Play Store.

El Chapulín Colorado Animado

After the success of El Chavo Animado, Televisa and Ánima Estudios developed an animated series based on El Chapulín Colorado. It premiered on veo.tv on April 13, 2015, and on television on July 26 of that year.

Reboot

In October 2019, Roberto Gomez Fernandez revealed that a second animated Chavo series is currently in development. The series will take place in the Chespirito Media Universe, which will focus on several characters created by Chespirito.