Author: Jaime Margary

Growing up in Puerto Rico, it was easy to take El Chavo Del Ocho for granted: Created in 1971, the Mexican sitcom had reached its peak in popularity, was cancelled and had begun to thrive in reruns (averaging more viewers than the 2014 Superbowl) way before I got into it as a kid. It wasn’t until I started describing El Chavo Del Ocho to people that hadn’t grown up with it that I realized how special this show really was. From Wiki: “El Chavo del Ocho is a Mexican television sitcom that gained enormous popularity in Hispanic America as well as in Brazil, Spain, United States, and other countries. It centers on the adventures and tribulations of a poor orphan nicknamed ‘El Chavo’ and other inhabitants of a fictional low income housing complex, or, as called in Mexico, vecindad. The sitcom explores, in a comic manner, the problems that many homeless children face on a daily basis, such as hunger, sadness and not having someone responsible to watch over them.”

Even tho much of the humor was slapstick and was comprised of a handful of running gags, the premise had heart and despite the characters all being deeply flawed individuals, not a single one was a bad person. To me, no character better exemplifies that fact than Don Ramón, Chavo’s greatest ally.