Roberto Gomez Bolanos, the Mexican comedian better known by the nickname Chespirito, has passed away at the age of 85. He is best known for his roles on El Chavo del Ocho and El Chapulin Colorado, but might be more known by the folks at Uproxx as the inspiration for Bumblebee Man on The Simpsons. From The LA Times:
Over a career that spanned more than six decades, Gomez Bolaños, better known by his nickname “Chespirito,” worked as a screenwriter, playwright, composer, actor and director. He catapulted to international fame in the early 1970s with a pair of slapstick, low-budget television comedy shows that were as beloved by children as they were by adults.“El Chapulin Colorado” (“The Crimson Cricket”) was a live-action comedy about a supremely skittish superhero in a bright red outfit who battled bad guys with a bicycle horn and a mallet (and which would inspire Matt Groening’s character Bumblebee Man on “The Simpsons”). And there was the seminal “El Chavo del Ocho” (“The Kid at Number Eight”), a show that chronicled the misadventures of an orphaned boy who inhabited an old wooden barrel in an urban neighborhood in Mexico.
I didn’t know much about Chespirito before today, but it is great when you can have an impact on the world on multiple different levels. It might seem like a slap in the face to remember a guy based on a cartoon character he inspired, but it goes to show how far his work resonated. When you have a career that practically spans a lifetime and is beloved by millions, you can’t say that’s a bad thing. He’ll live on forever in multiple ways now.
