El Chómpiras

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El Chómpiras was a comical character created and played by Roberto Gómez Bolaños for his "Los Caquitos" ("The Little Thiefs" or "The Little Hoodlums") comedy sketch on the Chespirito TV show.

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[edit] Origins

Oriniginally, Chómpiras was a pickpocket and cat burglar who worked with an associate named Peterete (Ramón Valdéz). Their skills in thievery were marginal, but Peterete was ostensibly the more intelligent and skilled of the pair. Together, they were known as Los caquitos (Which is roughly translated as "The little thieves", "caquito" being a diminutive of "caco" which is Spanish for "thief" or "hoodlum") and appeared on Chespirito's comedy shows in the 1970s, usually preceding an episode of El Chavo del Ocho or El Chapulín Colorado that did not last the full half-hour. By 1975, El Chavo episodes were all a half-hour long and did not need the filler sketches, and shorter Chapulín episodes ceased to use Caquitos sketches; so the characters virtually disappeared.

[edit] Debut on Chespirito

In 1980, a new show premiered called Chespirito which was an hour long and employed all of Chespirito's characters in sketches of varying lengths. On "Chespirito", El Chompiras and Los caquitos were revived. However, Ramón Valdéz had left Chespirito's troupe in 1979, so Peterete was forgotten and replaced with Botija (Edgar Vivar). Since most of the Caquitos sketches performed on the new show were simply remakes of the ones that had appeared years before on the older ones, Botija's character was extremely similar to Peterete's, except physically, since Botija was extremely fat, and Peterete was extremely thin.

[edit] Development

The characters weren't very fleshed out originally, but as Chespirito began writing new sketches for the hourlong show, some of which lasted the entire hour, so their backstories became more expanded. Botija was single at first, but got married very quickly to a woman called Chimoltrufia (Florinda Meza) who had moplike hair, a chipped tooth and constantly chewed a piece of gum. She was soon established as the conscience of the sketches; often she would earn money doing a respectable job, usually cleaning or babysitting. Many episodes didn't have to do with Chompiras's and Botija's incompetent burgling but instead focused on life in Chimoltrufia and Botija's tiny apartment. A neighbor named Doña Nachita (Angelines Fernández) started appearing frequently and eventually became a regular. Policemen were a regular feature in Caquitos sketches, but by mid 1980s, Rubén Aguirre became the sketch's definitive policeman, the dimwitted Sgt. Refugio. Around this time there were many sketches that took place at the police station as the characters tried to argue their innocence after being arrested; presiding over these cases was a judge played by Raúl Padilla, who was eventually named Licenciado Morales.

By the late 1980s, "Chespirito" started shifting away from "Chavo" and "Chapulín" sketches, as Chespirito and the others were getting older and less believable in those roles. The focus went to Los caquitos, prompting a major change. Inspired by an episode of "El Chavo", in which Chavo is wrongly accused of stealing, Botija and Chompiras vow to never steal again and get honest jobs. They and Chimoltrufia eventually settle into jobs at the inexpensive Hotel Lucho, run by Don Lucho (Carlos Pouliot). Chimoltrufia was a chambermaid and always did her job to the best of her ability, but Botija and Chompiras tried to get by doing as little work as possible.

[edit] Final years

As the years passed, Chimoltrufia became more and more prominent until she was as much of the focus of the sketch as Chompiras, possibly more. (To call it a "sketch" is not really fair at this point; by 1992, almost all "Chespirito" episodes were hour-long Chompiras "sketches".) A few changes came at that time. First, Angelines Fernández stopped appearing and was gradually placed by Chimoltrufia's mother Espotaverderona (Anabel Gutierrez), who looked like a plump, middle-aged version of Chimoltrufia. Also, one hotel guests began appearing regularly; her name was Maruja (Maria Antonieta de las Nieves) and she attracted the attention of a lot of men, especially Sgt. Refugio. Then, Don Lucho closed his hotel, and the trio had to look for other jobs. For several episodes they tried other lines of work but in 1993 a new hotel opened, run by Don Cecilio (Moisés Suárez) and they got their old jobs back. Cecilio's hotel, Hotel Buenavista, was nicer than Don Lucho's, but the routine was just the same and some of the storylines from the early Lucho episodes were recycled. In 1994 and 1995, "Chespirito" started returning to its old format of present several different sketches during the show, but most featured a long "Chompiras" sketch. In 1995, Chespirito decided to bring the whole thing to a close and stopped producing episodes.

[edit] Running gags

  1. The comb- If Chómpiras angered Botija (or Peterete), the latter would take out a comb and painstakingly straighten Chompiras hair before giving him a hard slap on the face that sent him spinning (and disarrayed his hair).
  2. Chimoltrufia's speech patterns- Chimoltrufia had a large number of nonsensical catchphrases, usually involving malapropism, redundancy, or just plain weird speech. One of her best known catchphrases is "¿Para que le digo que no?, si sí": "Why tell you no, if yes?"
  3. The elevator- Working at the hotel, Botija usually read a book or slept inside the elevator he supposedly operated. When a customer wanted to use it, he told them to use the stairs. If they demanded an explanation, he replied that the elevator couldn't carry both his weight and the customer's.
  4. The tip- When working as a bellboy, Chompiras will ask if he was going to receive a tip before he even carried any luggage, which angered Don Cecilio.