Undoubtedly, El Chavo del 8 It was the most successful show by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, Chespirito. The adventures of the tenants of a neighborhood caused many feelings among national and international viewers who, in addition to laughing and crying with each episode, noted the great chemistry that the characters maintained at all times.
However, in the final years of the show, when it was still airing solo, differences began to make an appearance between the actors, a situation that caused the anger, dismissal and resignation of several of them.
Probably the most notorious lawsuit was the one starring Chespirito and Carlos Villagrán, Quico. This disagreement forced the actor who for many years played Quico to move away from one of his dearest friends and take refuge in Venezuela, where he created his own show called “Federrico”, which only lasted one year (1982-1983) on air with 29 episodes.
Villagrán, during an interview for the program The Rock of Morfi, broadcast in 2019, featured how was the day when he realized that Chespirito no longer wanted him in the series and forced him out the back door with a monetary argument.
According to his testimony, it all happened in 1978, after finishing a tour they made in Chile, in the middle of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. At that time, the character Quico had a lot of relevance, more than that of Chavo himself, Villagrán said.
It was for this that Gómez Bolaños, jealous of the popularity of his co-star, decided to expel him so as not to be more opaque, since all the attention of the public and the media was directed towards Villagrán.
“The show had total and absolute popularity. We toured and went to many countries with their press conferences, all full of microphones and tape recorders. But 70 percent of the questions were for Quico because it was fashionable. Then anger, selfishness, professional and artistic zeal began to arouse a little. Little by little, Quico rose more in popularity than Chavo, and they took me out of the program, “said Villagrán.
According to his testimony, Chespirito He took him by surprise with a proposal that ended with his exit from the show, because when they were on the plane back to Mexico, he mentioned that there was a “deficit in the records of the characters”, so I had to lower his salary. Hearing this, he knew immediately that it was just a pretext to get him out.
“When we flew back to Mexico from a tour we had done in Chile, he told me: ‘Look, there is a deficit in the character records. ‘. I said, ‘The records are yours.’ But he replied: ‘There is a deficit and I must take something from your salary.’ I asked him: ‘How are you going to remove me if they are your characters? I’m just an interpreter. ‘ He was looking for a pretext to get me out, nothing more. So I told him that I was leaving the program, “said the actor.
During this dialogue, he also announced that, As an act of solidarity, Ramón Valdés, who gave life to Don Ramón, left El Chavo del 8 two weeks later, a fact that forever marked the show, as many of its characters had lost some of their main reasons for appearing.
“Doña Florinda was left without a child to beat him, La Bruja del 71 was left without Don Ramón, and La Chilindrina was left an orphan ”, he explained.
Finally, he declared that after his conversation with Roberto Gómez Bolaños he received a call from the owner of Televisa, Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, and told him that he had a new cycle in mind for him, but asked him not to speak as Quico: “What I wanted to do was bury myself artistically, put my foot on it. So I said no. When I went out to the street I realized: I had lost my job”.
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