Western Animation / El Chavo Animado

El Chavo Animado is a Mexican animated series produced by Televisa and Ánima Estudios. Is the Animated Adaptation of the legendary Mexican sitcom El Chavo del ocho. Every main character is back except La Chilindrina, due to copyright disputes from her actress, Maria Antonieta de Las Nieves, who owns the rights to the character. The series aired for 7 seasons, beginning on October 21, 2006 and ending on June 6, 2014.

For first time, the kids are actually shorter than the adults due to the animated format. The animated format also allowed to present more than two characters together that in the original version could be played by the same person, like Señor Barriga and Ñoño, who rarely appeared together in the original series because they were played by the same actor, Édgar Vivar, or Doña Florinda and La Popis, both played by Florinda Meza in the original series.

A couple of videogames have been released based on this animated series: in 2012 El Chavo for Wii (a party game developed by Kaxan Media Group), and in 2014 El Chavo Kart for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Android (a racing game developed by Efecto Studios). Both games were published by Televisa Home Entertainment in conjunction with Slang, though they've only been released in Mexico and Brazil.

In 2023, the producer THR3 Media Group announced plans for producing new media based on Chespirito's works, one of them including a new animated series of El Chavo del Ocho, now as an All-CGI Cartoon and with La Chilindrina on the cast, since Maria Antonieta reached an agreement with Grupo Chespirito on June 2022, allowing them to use the character on official media from that point on. In October 16, 2023, the first poster for the series was announced, featuring El Chavo and La Chilindrina's new designs. This new animated series is planned to premiere in 2024.

This series provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Painfully noticeable. Most of the transitions use 3D modeled shots of the vecindad's gate.
• Absent-Minded Professor: The recurring scientist character who Chavo and his friends often visit.
• Adaptational Alternate Ending:
  • The episode "La casa de la bruja" ("The witch's house") of the original series ends with Chavo addressing the audience and telling them not to judge a person based only on their appearance after Doña Clotilde gave him and his friends lollipops, something that became Broken Aesop due to Negative Continuity. The animated adaptation keeps the speech, but follows it up by having the kids be transformed into frogs, meaning that they were right to suspect that Clotilde was a malevolent witch all along.
  • The episode "El desayuno del Chavo" ("Chavo's breakfast") had a Downer Ending in the original series, in which Don Ramón was hit the hell off by Doña Florinda, and Chavo never got his breakfast, and he was sleeping again against Don Ramón's door, hoping that, next morning, he may have a new chance for Don Ramón to make him a breakfast. In the animated adaptation, Quico sees Chavo who is about to sleep against Don Ramón's door again and gives him a sandwich.
  • The episode "Vacaciones en Acapulco" ("Acapulco Vacations") has one of the most heartwarming endings in the series, with everyone living in peace sitting around a campfire at night and saying goodbye one by one while Chavo sings Buenas Noches Vecindad. The animated adaptation decides to Yank the Dog's Chain for Don Ramón by accidentally causing him to burn himself with the campfire, and there is no song whatsoever.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: Several episodes adapt two or more episodes of the original series. In many cases, the first few minutes are adapted from a school episodes while the rest of the episode consists on the main plot.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Chavo and Popis both had black hair in the original series, but in this series, they have brown hair.
  • Similarly, Patty's hair in the original series was either black, brown or blonde depending on the version. In this iteration, her hair is red.
  • In the original series, Doña Florinda's hair was blonde, but here, her curlers are yellow while her actual hair is red.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Every character (save for the afomentionated Chilindrina) appears from the very beggining of the series. The most notable case is Jaimito the mailman, who was the last addition to the cast in the original series, appearing in 1979, which finally allowed him to interact with Quico and Don Ramón, since they both left the series that year.
  • Applies to the settings outside the vecindad as well. In the beginning of the original series, the only background was the main patio of the neighborhood, with the other houses' interiors and the exterior of the vecindad not appearing until 1973; the school and second patio not appearing until 1974, and the restaurant not appearing until 1979. In this show, all of these settings as well as many others appear since the start, although the restaurant only appears twice in the entire series and does not have a Origins Episode for its estabilishment unlike in the live-action show.
• Adaptation Expansion: Since 80% of the original series took place on the vecindad, this show decides to take its inhabitants to many new places, meeting new characters and living new adventures outside the vecidad.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Sometimes, episodes where Chilindrina is replaced by other characters result in it making less sense than the original version; for example, Don Ramón giving Ñoño money to buy sweets for himself, or Chavo treating Popis like she's horrendously ugly despite just looking like a normal Girly Girl (see Informed Flaw below).
  • One of the most remarkable examples: The first season episode "El amor llegó a la vecindad" is an adaptation of the original show's final part of the saga introducing Paty and Gloria. Due to La Chilindrina's absence, her roles in the plotline are now occupied by Popis (in the parts featuring her having a crush on Chavo and being jealous of Paty), and Ñoño (in the scenes she plays firefighters with Chavo). In the original episode, Chavo wants to play firefighters with Paty, but Chilindrina angrily refuses due to her jealousy. Meanwhile, in the adaptation, Ñoño is the one who angrily refuses to involve Paty in the game, which makes less sense as he's obviously not romantically jealous of Paty and she is supposed to be portrayed as a Dude Magnet, yet Ñoño does not have a crush on Paty whatsoever and only refuses to include her on the game because of her being a girl.
• Adapted Out: La Chilindrina, and by extension, Doña Nieves, due to Copyright issues with her actress, María Antonieta de las Nieves.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: In the English dub for the show, Season 1 has a completely different theme song (albeit with a very similar melody to the original intro music) with lyrics, describing all of the main characters. It is composed almost entirely of reutilized animations and clips from the show, including those from the original intro or from subsequent seasons which weren't even dubbed.
• Art Evolution: Besides the animation getting stiffer and excessively on-model, the characters are drawn with thinner, colored lines on later seasons.
• Ascended Extra: Paty was originally a minor character like her original series' counterparts, but since Season 2, she was promoted to a main character in order to fill the Two Girls to a Team gap left by La Chilindrina's absence. Also applies to her aunt Gloria to a lesser extent, as while not appearing as frequently as Paty, she does become part of the recurring cast.
• Animated Adaptation
• Animation Evolution: Season 1 had more expressive and fluid animation, sometimes exaggerated for comedic effect. Over the seasons, the animation became more stiff with the characters always staying on-model.
• Baby Morph Episode: The episode "La fábrica de juguetes" ("The toy factory"), in which there is a scene where a machine accidentally turns the children into babies and the second half of the episode has the adults searching for them in the factory.
• Bowdlerization: In the original version of "El dinero perdido", Quico has beer poured onto his back. In the animated version of the episode, the beer is replaced by water.
• The Bus Came Back: Quico and Don Ramón are back after being Put on a Bus in the original series.
• Canon Foreigner: There are many of them. The most recurrent are Fito Fuerte, the baby Panfilo, Rubia Margot, El Justiciero Enmascarado and the unnamed scientist.
• Circus Episode: The episode "Vamos al circo" (Let's go to the Circus in USA).
• Cold Snap: The episode "Invierno en la vecindad" (Winter in the Neighborhood in USA), in which the children wish that it snows in the vecindad, and their wish comes true. It starts to snow in the vecindad and the children enjoy it, but the adults don't.
• Compressed Adaptation: Many episodes that were Multi Part Episodes in the original series have been compressed into one episode. Notable examples are "El gato de Quico" and "El juicio del Chavo", which have been compressed into "La mascota de Quico" (Trial and Terror in USA). Also, many episodes have scenes adapted from multiple, different stories; the most common ocurrence of this were episodes with the first half set at the school, as an adaptation of episodes originally set entirely there, and the second half being adapted from a different episode set somewhere else.
  • Combined with Adaptation Distillation in two episodes; "La venta de churros" (Churro-liscious in USA), which compresses the first two episodes of the original three-part episode into one but omits the third episode where Don Ramón starts selling the churros on the street; and the three-part episode "Vacaciones en Acapulco" (Acapulco in USA) whose second and third parts have been compressed into one episode, but completely omit the first part that shows how the characters went to Acapulco in the first place (since Chilindrina was essential for the original episode, having started off the plot to begin with, this would have been difficult to change).
• Cowboy Episode: The episode "Una de vaqueros" (A Cowboys Story in USA).
• Cultural Translation:
  • The English dub makes all Mexican / Spanish-language things into American / English-language things. The dub takes place in New York City.
    • The episode "La mascota de Quico" (Trial and Terror in USA) was changed during the English version. In the Spanish and Portuguese versions, Quico's pet cat dies due to being run over by Chavo. The English version states that the cat ran away and the censorship about both scenes of the killed Cat is replaced in English version with Chavo ashamed and the hospitalized cat in the wheels.
    • In the episode "El Hombre Invisible" (Invisible Man in USA), it is mentioned many cities in Mexico, like Guadalajara, Monterrey, Chimpancingo, Cuernavaca, etc. But in the English version, it is not mentioned.
    • In the episode "Futbol Americano" (Kickin It in English), the kids play American football but it wasn't called (American) football in the English version.
    • In the episode "Una mosca en el cafe" (Bread and Butterflies in USA), to adapt the series for American viewers, the Mexican cuisine such as sopa de tortilla, arroz con leche, enchiladas and caldo de pollo gets replaced with the American diet and cuisine such as hot dogs (with sauerkraut), hamburgers, soups (presumably chicken noodle soup), chocolate cake, rice bowls and spaghetti and meatballs. Pancakes existed in both versions but it was called hotcakes in the Spanish version while just "pancakes" in the English version.
• Cutaway Gag: Many episodes have cutaway gags in different situations, such as when someone gets insulted with an animal name, a cutaway gag about said character as said animal will appear.
• Decomposite Character: Since Chilindrina does not appear in this series, her traits are split between Popis (her feminine side) and Ñoño (her witty side). Which character replaced her in each remake depended on what side of her personality was most prominent in that specific story; if both sides were prominent, both characters would replace her and her lines were divided between the two. Meanwhile, in remakes set at the classroom, Quico would always replace her, since most of the live-action school episodes happened after Quico left the cast.
• Denser and Wackier: Dinosaurs, cowboys, robots, a Man-Eating Plant, episodes involving space trips, time traveling, magic, and other random stuff, along with Zany Cartoon antics, makes this series a definitive example.
• Dub Name Change: The English dub indulges in a bit of Woolseyism:
  • Doña Florinda —> Mrs. Worthmore
  • Doña Clotilde —> Ms. Pinster
  • Ñoño —> Junior
  • Señor Barriga —> Mr. Beliarge
  • Don Ramón —> Mr. Raymond (Ron Damon becomes Rister Maymond)
  • La Popis —> Phoebe
  • Godinez —> Gordon
  • Profesor Jirafales —> Professor Girafalde
  • Jaimito el cartero —> Manny the mailman.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Earlier episodes (more particularly Season 1) where just remakes of episodes of the original series, albeit Denser and Wackier and without La Chilindrina (although several episodes were adapted from versions where she wasn't there to begin with). Starting with Season 2, remakes of episodes began to decrease in favor of original episodes, and in Season 6, remakes were completely dropped of the series.
  • Despite being animated in Adobe Flash, characters sometimes went Off-Model in early episodes, most notably el Chavo and Señor Barriga.
• Expository Theme Tune: The English dub intro for Season 1 adds lyrics which speak about Chavo and his adventures in the neighborhood. It then gives brief descriptions of the main characters. such as "The sneaky one, the spoiled kid..." for Ñoño and Quico respectively. Unlike the original Season 1 intro, Paty is introduced while Godinez/Gordon is not ^note He does appear in some clips taken from the episodes, but doesn't have a lyric introducing him or any section showing his name.
• Four-Fingered Hands: All the characters are drawn with four fingers. As such, in one episode where Chavo is counting the amount of "ta"'s that Profesor Jirafales is saying (as a while before, he had only said four TA's instead of the usual five), he counts the first four all in one hand, and the remaining one on his thumb.
• Flanderization:
  • El Chavo Took a Level in Dumbass. He was already dumb in the original, but here, his stupidity increased to the point of becoming The Ditz of the show.
  • Quico became a much more mean selfish and rude boy who often shows Lack of Empathy signs.
  • Ñoño Took a Level in Jerkass and became a troublemaker for fun, probably to compensate for La Chilindrina's absence.
  • Don Ramón became a Lazy Bum who doesn't even want to go out to look for work and wants to have everything with the slightest effort, as well as becoming much more of a liar and showing off about things he's never done.
  • Doña Florinda has become a much more aggressive and mean woman than in the original, to the point where she often has Unstoppable Rage.
  • Jaimito's Running Gag about remembering his hometown Tangamandapio has increased that he's now a Cloudcuckoolander.
• Goofy Suit: In the beggining of "Don Ramón Repartidor de Pizzas", a guy in a giant pizza costume is seen selling papers advertising a job at a pizzeria. In the end of the episode, Don Ramón is forced to wear the exact same costume and do the same thing.
• Grandfather Clause:
  • The show kepts many jokes from the original series due to Grandfather Clause. Running Gags such as Don Ramón hitting El Chavo in the head and pinching Quico in the arm would be seen as child abuse if they weren't trademark jokes of El Chavo del ocho. That said, as the series went on, all the slapstick humor has diminished until it was completely removed from the series (including slapstick that did not involve the children), with very few leftovers of this remaining such as Don Ramón getting hurt for laughs. He also still threatens to harm Chavo or Quico in some occasions despite never doing so.
  • Likewise, almost all the targets of mockery from the original series are still here due to Grandfather Clause. Jokes about Señor Barriga and Ñoño's overweight, Prof. Jirafales and Don Ramón thinness (and the former's tall height) and Doña Clotilde's old age would be seen as body shaming if they weren't also trademark jokes of El Chavo del ocho, and unlike the previous point, these ones stuck around for the whole show.
  • Also, in the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Popis has a strong nasal voice, despite the fact that, in the original Spanish audio, she only ever had a nasal voice in her few 1974 appearances from the original series (which was altered because of an angry father complaining about his son, who also had a nasal voice, being bullied at school with comparisons to the character). This actually happened because her Vocal Evolution in the original series' Brazilian dub was actually the opposite: she originally had a normal high-pitched voice, but eventually, her voice actress found the voice too boring and decided to make it sound nasally to be more interesting. This trait was carried over in all subsequent dubs of the franchise, including this show.
• Imagine Spot: This happens very often. Some episodes have illustrate them as Rebus Bubbles with child's crayon drawings.
• In Name Only: Both the live-action and the animated series have episodes named "Don Ramón Peluquero" (Barber Mr. Raymond). However, the cartoon episode is not an adaptation of the live-action one in any form, and they have nothing in common besides the name and premise of Don Ramón working as a barber.
• Informed Flaw: A few episodes have Popis being considered ugly by other characters, all of which are adapted from episodes of the original series where the corresponding scene happened with La Chilindrina instead. However, Popis doesn't have any of Chilindrina's unconventional features that made Chavo and the other characters consider her ugly (such as her glasses, tooth gap, unkempt hair and poor clothes) and she looks perfectly fine, so these scenes make little sense here.
• Introductory Opening Credits: All of the intros for the series are in the style. The Season 1 intro shows a series of events involving all the main characters of the series, with their names being highlighted when each one first appears. The next intros first show multiple clips of each character (taken from the show itself), and then show their respective names accompanied with a static image of them. The English dub theme song instead introduces each character with lyrics describing them, but still with their respective names when each one of them appears.
• Long-Lost Uncle Aesop: Rosita in the episode "El valor de la amistad". She only appears to fix the children's friendship and teach them to forgive. It is hinted that she is a magical being at the end of the episode, as she transforms into a flying magical sphere..
• Loose Tooth Episode: In "Los dientes de leche" ("Baby Teeth" in USA), Chavo has a loose tooth and wants to get rich off the tooth fairy, who in this case is a mouse. He and his friends devise many plans to extract the tooth, but he ends up swallowing it.
• Medium Blending: The series uses a mix of 2D Flash animation (used for the characters and objects they interact with) and CGI modeling and animation (used for the backgrounds and their elements, including cars and El Chavo's iconic barrel).
• Merchandise-Driven: The episode "La fábrica de juguetes" ("The toy factory") was made to promote a then-new baby brand of products called "El Chavo Bebé".
• Mythology Gag:
  • La Popis has freckles in this version, despite her live-action counterpart not having any. This is a subtle reference to Chilindrina, who had freckles and does not appear in this show.
  • The first episode of the independent series was about balloons. Likewise, the first episode of the cartoon is also about balloons (although it is not the same story, having been adapted from a different episode).
  • In the Season 9 episode "Quico se manchó", Dr. Chapatin and his nurse make an appearance. The nurse's character model is reutilized from Doña Florinda's, with their faces looking the exact same, and the only differences being the clothing and hair; this is an reference to the fact that, in the original live-action, both Doña Florinda and Dr. Chapatin's nurse were played by the same actress, Florinda Meza.
• Parental Substitute: Don Ramón acts as one for El Chavo, especially since he doesn't have a daughter in this version.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: In the first season's intro, Paty does not appear, as she was only introduced halfway through the season and only made sporadic appearances afterwards. In subsequent seasons, she becomes a main character and begins appearing in the intros as well.
• Random Events Plot: There are a handful of remake episodes which adapt scenes of multiple episodes from the original series, and sometimes this causes the episode to not have a specific plot. An example is the episode "Fotos buenas, regulares y piores" ("A Picture's Worth a Thousand Nerds" in USA). Although the title refers to the second half of the story, which consists on Don Ramón becoming a photographer, it only represents 1/3 of the episode; the first part is set at the classroom and is about the kids having a class about hygiene, while the third part involves Quico getting a pet rat. Each of the three segments is adapted from a completely unrelated episode of the live-action show.
• The Remake: The first season is formed entirely by animated adaptations of selected episodes from the live-action show, while adding some additional elements such as Imagine Spots, exaggerated cartoonish scenes for comical efects, and certain characters' roles in the episodes being filled by others (happens mostly with Chilindrina due to her absence, but there are also episodes where Jaimito replaces Don Ramón, for example, when both characters are present in the show). The second season is a roughly equal mix between original stories and remakes, while the following seasons had rare, sporadic remakes until they were completely abandoned.
• Setting Update: The original series took place in 70s Mexico, but this series obviously takes place in the 21st century.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: In the episode "El Campamento," when a beehive falls on Doña Florinda's head.
• Thinly-Veiled Dub Country Change: The English dub erases references to Mexican culture and the Spanish language to a ridiculous extent, replacing them with American stuff. So much so that it could make 4Kids Entertainment blush.
• Webcomic Time: The show ran from 2006 to 2014, but the calendars suggest it takes place entirely in 2006.
• You Don't Look Like You: Most of the characters from the original series are immediately recognizable on their animated counterparts by physical appearance and/or clothing. However, Paty and Gloria get completely new designs and outfits that do not heavily resemble the ones worn by any of their four live-action versions.