5 Border-crossing Chespirito El Chavo del 8 Meets Pepito in Exile Limarys Caraballo he unforgettable Chavo del 8 and Chapulín Colorado, created and delivered by writer, actor, and director Roberto Gómez Bolaños, are woven into the fabric of my childhood memories. As a Cuban and Puerto Rican American born just outside of San Juan in the 1970s, for me the personages of El Chavo and El Chapulín were on par with Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse, and Wonder Woman. While I enjoyed the shows, my parents seemed to look forward to them as much as I did, and the characters’ antics became part of our family’s humorous repertoire. If I sheepishly told my mother that I didn’t mean to leave crumbs on the furniture ater my snack, she would joke that I did it “sin querer, queriendo” [without meaning to] like El Chavo, the bumbling orphaned boy played by the adult Gómez Bolaños, who exasperated and yet tugged at the heartstrings of the other residents of the vecindad [tenement housing]. If my father managed to fix a favorite toy, he might smile triumphantly and exclaim, ¡No contabas con mi astucia! [You underestimated my intelligence!] to invoke Gómez Bolaños’ kind-hearted—but fairly inept—underdog superhero, Chapulín Colorado. Reflecting on Chespirito’s prominence and the international and intergenerational nostalgia evoked by his passing in 2014, I wondered about the role of characters like El Chavo in comparison to other cultural icons. For me, given my Cuban heritage and Puerto Rican background, El Chavo’s antics were just as familiar as those of Pepito, a mischievous personage in many Latin American jokes and tales. 1 Like Chavo, Pepito is recognized and cherished in many Spanish-speaking countries; a boy that never grows up, whose escapades inspire laughter and incite social commentary. In contrast, however, to the appeal of Chespirito’s sketches as wholesome family programming, Pepito is the 33381.indb 87 31/01/17 6:17 PM