While his humor continued to be a success on television, this was not the case in the cinema. Chespirito couldn’t adapt to the 1980s. (Photo by: Alfredo Lopez/Jam Media/LatinContent via Getty Images)
Time makes the audience the judge and executioner of their favorite stars. This happens through a change in taste. Epochs die and others are born, everything changes. Humor is no exception. Especially not in Mexico, a country with great tradition and the humorous quality of its various comedy representatives over several decades. These comedians cannot escape the relentless judgment of viewers or those responsible for their retirement. One victim of this fate was Chespirito.
As was the case with Cantinflas, Tin Tan and Capulina, Roberto Gómez Bolaños also had to deal with the cruel and natural effects of generational change. This confrontation took place in the 1980s, a time when white humor was buried in the past. Chespirito learned it too late, despite his attempts to maintain an outdated and stale comic line in the face of sexy comedies, films characterized by the use of swear words, jokes and swear words, as well as explicit visual nudity. The cinema audience had already left behind the stories of gags, slaps and noble jokes.
Chespirito resorted to the formula of storylines suitable for old-fashioned laughs, that is, completely white. He was responsible for writing and directing “Don Mouse y Don Ratero” (1983) and “Charrito” (1984). The first was contextualized in a gangster setting and the second in the tone of a western. Efforts to introduce comedy into these genres had no impact on people. On the contrary, they were degraded.
The problem was not with Gómez Bolaños, but with his foray into cinema, or in other words, with his films, since he was a respected figure with his television show “El Chavo del 8”.
On the other hand, the good reception he had had The Chanfle (1979) was due to the fact that the film was football-oriented and had the American team as an attractive hook. There was a sequel, El Chanfle 2 (1982), which failed to generate interest as the excitement surrounding its predecessor was short-lived.
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Without being able to adapt to the eighties or without realizing that he no longer fit into the cinematic narratives of that time, Chespirito played his last card in 1988 Brass musica project that took him away from the big screen in his role as an actor through the back door. This work also brought him criticism and disapproval from his most loyal followers, who considered that he was betraying himself and the humor that he knew how to institutionalize on television with characters like El Chavo.
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In “Blasmusik” he plays Quevedo, a fifty-year-old single PR man who develops trauma when he witnesses an attempted murder with a gun. The consequences of this episode are that every time he sees a gun he spits out flatulence uncontrollably, whether real by the hand of a police officer or illustrated in some graphic. The story focuses on his fear of weapons and the emission of gases. He wanted to join in the fun of those years. It didn’t work for him.
The film was a failure in every respect, especially in Gómez Bolaños’ effort to remain an active figure of comedy in Mexican cinema. It meant his farewell to acting in the cinema. The brass band performed so poorly that to this day there is an audience that does not remember it or is unaware of its existence. With its creation it was forgotten, it was stillborn.
Resigned, with a bad taste in his mouth from this bitter pill and accepting that the cinema no longer had a place for him, he concentrated on his program Chespirito, the content of which was broadcast until 1995. However, given a second chance, the cinema industry extended its arms to welcome him as a producer. Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, president of Televisa, appointed him director of Televicine, a production subsidiary of the television company.
Under his direction as production manager, he excelled in side projects such as Last Call (Carlos García Agraz, 1996) and The First Night (Alejandro Gamboa, 1998). But the most successful title he produced was Elisa Before the End of the World (Juan Antonio de la Riva, 1997), which was even nominated for the Ariel Award. In his role as producer Gómez Bolaños kept comedy on the shelf in order to rely on other genres and storylines that did not appeal to him as an actor.