Chuck Billy (cartoon)

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Chuck Billy (Chico Bento) is the main character from Chuck Billy 'n' Folks, created by Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa.

He was created back in 1961, inspired on Mauricio's real life grandfather's brother. It first came to public in 1963, in a short cartoon with two other characters, his best friend Zeke and his Japanese friend Taka.

[edit] Description

Chuck is a stereotypical Brazilian hillbilly (more like a country person), who walks bare foot, always with a straw hat and live in a country little town. He loves to go for fishing and swimming in the river.

Back in the 1980s the cartoon was polemic due to the dialogues. Mauricio was trying to represent how a hilly billy would talk by writing his lines with typical mistakes and incorrections of Brazilian Portuguese. Later on that was adapted and every mistake is indicated either in bold or some variant ways.

Different from other Mauricio's characters, Chuck Billy attends school, and he even goes to class in his stories, even though he is not exactly a good student at all. He commits every kind of mistake a student can, such as arriving late, bad grades and not paying attention to class.

He is also the biggest work after Monica's Gang, and he has his own cartoon magazine and even some VHS and DVD movies, following Monica's steps.

The animated cartoons were successful in Italy, where it was part of a double feature with the show Monica's Gang, and caused polemic in Singapore, due to Shiite Islamic radicalist protests against Chuck swimming clearly nude in the river, even while he is a 7-year old kid.