This Thursday, the series Chespirito: Sin querer queriendo premieres on the Max platform, a production that seeks to portray the life and personal conflicts of Roberto Gómez Bolaños, creator of characters that have inhabited the popular imagination of Latin America for decades. The series, consisting of eight episodes that will be released weekly until July 24, offers an approach to the key moments of his professional and personal career, from his first steps as a screenwriter to the consolidation of his television universe.

Starring Pablo Cruz Guerrero as Gómez Bolaños, the series is directed by David "Leche" Ruiz and written by his children, Roberto and Paulina Gómez Fernández. The cast also includes Bárbara López, in a character inspired by Florinda Meza, and Paulina Dávila as Graciela Fernández, the comedian's first wife. The story depicts both the achievements and the tensions that accompanied Chespirito's rise to become a central figure in Hispanic American television and regional pop culture.

The universe in an empty barrel

The premiere of the series is also an opportunity to rethink the dimension of the characters that Gómez Bolaños created. El Chavo del 8 and El Chapulín Colorado were not simple comic figures. They are archetypes deeply rooted in the Latin American experience. Their strength is not in the spectacular or the sophistication of the script, but in the familiarity of the codes they handle: scarcity, mischief, tenderness, dignity in the face of adversity, friendship.

El Chavo, orphan and homeless, lives in a barrel, but not in emotional misery. His daily conflicts - food, games, misunderstandings with adults - are not a caricature of poverty, but a faithful representation of an environment where survival is linked to affection, imagination and the unspoken rules of coexistence. In their world, respect is earned without titles and courage is demonstrated through small but consistent acts.

El Chapulín Colorado, on the other hand, represents a different ethic from that of the traditional hero. He is clumsy, frightening, but he acts. He has no supernatural powers, but he embodies a recognizable type of courage: that of the one who does not run away despite his insecurity. His famous phrase "They didn't count on my cunning!" is less a declaration of genius than a way of resisting from the unexpected, of surviving without imposing.

Both characters speak a language understandable to those who grew up among material limitations and community codes. That is why they worked in Mexico, but also in Colombia, Peru, Argentina and even Brazil. The same happens among migrant communities in the United States and Spain. It is not a question of cultural translation, but of a shared identity that moves easily between patios, corridors and neighborhoods.

Beyond the idol

Chespirito's universality does not come from his fame, but from his ability to capture the commonplace. His characters did not aspire to be aspirational models but mirrors. They reflected the emotions, conflicts and day-to-day learning in societies marked by inequality, informality and resilience. In their scripts, there were no grandiloquent speeches about self-improvement and no underlining morals. All Latinos remember refrains such as "Revenge is never good, it kills the soul and poisons it" or "Fue sin querer queriendo," which reflect a whole philosophy of life. In fact, this last phrase is the title of the autobiographical book launched in 2006, which served as the basis for the series that will begin to be broadcasted today.

The universality of Chespirito's characters lies in the gestures, silences, misunderstandings and loyalties that built meaning in every scene.

At a time when many narratives seek to highlight the extraordinary, returning to Chespirito is a reminder that the essence of a culture is also in the ordinary. And that laughter, as a vehicle, is not trivial: it can also be a way to remember, to resist and to recognize oneself in the other.