El Chapulín Colorado (live-action TV series)

El Chapulín Colorado, is a series created, shot, directed and starring Roberto Gómez Bolaños (known as Chespirito), produced by, that aired on Canal 8 from February 28, 1973 to September 26, 1979.

This series, together with the comedy series "El Chavo", created by the same comedian, are considered the most successful comedy shows in the history of Spanish-language television, both being shown in almost all Latin American countries, United States, and Spain. However, despite sharing the cast with the other series, Chapulín was a series that used to experiment with different environments, times, characters, and even universes, unlike El Chavo, which was characterized by its more realistic setting, and because the vast majority of its episodes do not take place in more than two environments, such as the neighborhood, or the children's school.

Plot
The series follows the exploits of a rare superhero, who always goes to the call of those most in need, when they call on him for help: Chapulín Colorado (literally in English as "The Red Grasshopper" or "The Cherry Cricket", Chapulin is Mexican word and applies to a Mexican species of grasshopper). Chapulín is clumsy, fearful and almost doesn't have superpowers, although he does have several support artifacts that help him in his fight against crime. Chapulín's forte is really his ability to strategize and determination, which helps him to solve problems despite his cowardice and weakness, although, many times, problems are solved on their own, or due to clumsiness on the part of Chapulín, are solved. Chapulín has the power to appear anywhere his help is invoked, regardless of the time, universe, or environment (for example, he can appear in the 70s, or in the time of the Aztecs, in the times of the Old West, etc. ). When people invoke him, begging for help, he instantly appears somewhere, making his superhero entrance, which is often ruined by some clumsiness of his own. The symbol of this superhero is a yellow heart, with the letters CH in red above, which he always wears on his chest.

The series makes use of a lot of set design and special effects, innovating to a great extent in this last field, being one of the first series that made extensive use of the chroma key device and bluescreen to produce visual effects which made the adventures of this superhero more interesting. Though somewhat unrefined by modern standards, the show achieved surprising effects, which were well advanced for the decade of the 70s.

Cast
Since the series usually has self-contained episodes, the vast majority of the characters are episodic. These are played by the same five or six actors, being able to assume the most varied roles: pirates, peasants, aliens, cavemen, masons, doctors, etc., depending on the environment where the episode takes place. Most of the time, these characters do not have a proper name, or if they do, they are called with the real names of the actors (Ramón, Carlos, Florinda, Rubén, etc.)

However, there are some characters, mainly villains, who appeared on more than one occasion, and were part of the various universes that were explored on the show.


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 * (*) A dangerous band of gangsters who commit all kinds of misdeeds, regularly stalk Chapulín Colorado, because he has frustrated many of their plans, for which they have tried many times to take revenge on him. Despite the fact that most of the time they work together, they sometimes betray or attack each other when there are conflicts of interest on them.
 * (**) Some episodes take place in the Old West, parodying the series and movies of the western genre. Chapulín usually always faces two dangerous gunmen who stalk a town in the Old West, robbing and attacking people, who invoke on Chapulín to save them.
 * (***) Super Sam, is another superhero, who rivals Chapulín Colorado, and who is a parody of the superheroes of the United States. The same character is in turn a parody of the Latin American stereotype of the "gringo", being an American who speaks very bad Spanish, and who recurrently mixes it with words in English. He wears a cap with the US flag on it, a Super Man shield on his chest, and always carries a money bag with a dollar symbol on it, which is his great weapon for hitting enemies.

Broadcast
El Chapulín Colorado has been broadcast in all Latin American countries and Spain. It has also been broadcast in the United States on Spanish-speaking television stations. It was also very successful in countries like Argentina, Chile and Peru.

Currently, the broadcast of the program is temporarily suspended. On August 1, 2020, all stations that broadcast El Chapulín Colorado and other Gómez Bolaños programs in various countries had to suspend the broadcast of the series on their services due to conflicts between Televisa and Grupo Chespirito (heirs of Gómez Bolaños), who owns the characters and episode scripts.

International versions

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