El Chavo Animado

El Chavo Animado (El Chavo: The Animated Series in English) is a Mexican animated series based on the live action television series El Chavo del Ocho, created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, produced by Televisa and Ánima Estudios. It aired on Canal 5, and repeats were also shown on Las Estrellas and Cartoon Network Latin America. 135 episodes aired between 2006 and 2014.
After several years of successful repeats 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 capitalise 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 (imitating the computerised background) on which the animation was said. 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 the USA. 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 BitMe and Distrito Comedia as of 2020, and from 2016–2017, and again from 2022–2024, it aired on Galavisión alongside El Chapulín Colorado Animado.
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 (the program which succeeded El Chavo and its sister series, El Chapulín Colorado).
Based on the series El Chavo del Ocho, the cartoon is the adventures of El Chavo, a poor boy, and his gang, who live in a village in Mexico (the Brazilian dubbing, however, moved the village's location to Brazil and in Kabillion's dub, to New York City). 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 (in school episodes) replace her role in most episodes. From the second season, the cartoon began to have episodes with original stories.
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 Señor Barriga's son.
The series was dubbed into English and aired on Kabillion's video-on-demand service, 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, although 2 seasons were only aired in the USA.
Chavo, Gloria and Quico are the only characters whose names have never been Americanized or changed. Although Paty's name sounds the same, the US version adds another "t" to the name.
The original title is in the original Spanish version, which aired on Canal 5. The English title is the American English version, which aired on Kabillion, the Portuguese title is for the Brazilian Portuguese version.
This was the last English-dubbed season. Only the first 6 episodes of this season were dubbed, and they have never been released publicly or aired on Kabillion.
The episode "La vecindad en venta" ("Neighboorhood on Sale") was dubbed, but it was never released.
The show was aired on Canal 5, and repeats were also shown on Las Estrellas and Cartoon Network Latin America.
El Chavo Animado also aired in English via Kabillion's on-demand service in the USA. 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 BitMe and Distrito Comedia as of 2020.
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 (Phoebe), Don Ramón (Mr. Raymond), Doña Florinda (Mrs. Worthmore) and Profesor Jirafales (Professor Girafalde) dolls were marketed in Mexico in 2004.
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 (a Facebook social-network game) 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 we can play minigames to win tickets to get powerups. The game was able to be played in Spanish, English (using the names from the Kabillion dub), and Brazilian Portuguese. However, the game has since been delisted from the Google Play Store.
After the success of El Chavo Animado, Televisa and Ánima Estudios developed an animated series based on El Chapulín Colorado (another show created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños). It premiered on veo.tv on April 13, 2015, and on television on July 26 of that year.
First presented in Los Angeles, then at MIPCOM in Cannes, a new CG-animated series adaptation of El Chavo del Ocho is in development. It will be produced by THR3 Media Group. It will feature the return of La Chilindrina, a character absent in the previous animated series.