Condorito

Condorito is a Chilean comic book created by the Chilean cartoonist René Ríos, better known as "Pepo".

Its main character is an anthropomorphic condor living in a fictitious town named Pelotillehue — a setting typical of many small Chilean provincial towns. Condorito is meant to be a representation of the typical low-class Chilean people, aka poor, a bit of irresponsible and always ready to party around, but also kind, friendly, ingenious and loyal to his friends and loved ones.

The comic debuted in 1949 in the first issue of "Okey" magazine in the form of one-page stories. In 1955, a recompilation of Condorito's adventures was published as an independent comic book. From that moment on, Condorito had gained his own comic book, which is still published on a bi-weekly basis. Some of the Condorito comics have been republished for students of Spanish as a second language.

During the 1980s, the comic was so popular that it got its own Animated Adaptation, a growing set of derivative products and even a comic strip adaptation for American newspapers.

After René Rios' death in 2000, a small team of writers and artists took over penning the stories, but without Rios' supervision, the results have been lukewarm at best.

Tropes used in Condorito include:

Accidental Pervert: Happens to Condorito on a semi-regular basis, as he tends to catch women skinny-dipping, interrupting them during a bath or accidentally catching them in variable states of undress. Sometimes he gets to go away with it, other times he's beaten into a pulp.
The Alcoholic: Garganta de Lata ("Tin Throat") makes Barney Gumble look sober by comparison.
The Alleged Car: Condorito's trademarked T-Model Ford automobile. The poor car is practically a rattling pile of rust and bolts kept together with wire and soldering iron... and it still manages to work.
- Condorito did his best to find, buy and fix such a rare car like a T-Model Ford because he didn't wanted to die like Julius Caesar. (He died without owning a T-Model Ford!)
Anthropomorphic Shift
Art Evolution: Look
Ascended Extra: Chacalito ("Little Jackal") debuted in a late 1970s story as a throwaway character, but nearly a decade later he was reintroduced as Pelotillehue's local psychopath.
- During the 1980s and 1990s, two pretty girls called Maca and Potoca were used as recurring extras for jokes involving nudity, Barely-There Swimwear or risky situations. The reason? They were meant to take the place of Condorito's girlfriend for jokes too risky for her.
Bland-Name Product: Pin soda, whose slogan of "Tome Pin y haga ¡Pun!" (Drink Pin and do Pun!) is a direct parody of popular sodas "Bilz y Pap" and their "Tome Bilz y haga Pap" slogan. ("Pun" is Chilean slang for a farting noise.)
Brick Joke: Played straight and inverted for laughs.
Broken Aesop: Oh, where to begin? Always played for laughs, though.
Catch Phrase: Condorito's trademarked "¡Reflauta!" when he's surprised, or his fourth wall breaker "¡Exijo una explicación!" (I demand an explanation!) comment after getting a downbeat ending.
- Don Chuma's "No se fije en gastos, compadre" (Don't mind on the expenses, fella) when he lends money to Condorito and his hilarious "¡Por las canillas del mono!" (By the monkey's shins!) when he's scared or surprised.
Chaste Toons: Condorito of course.
Cheated Angle: It's extremely rare to see Condorito facing front. Same for Ungenio González.
- Condorito does it at the punchline or if he feels confused during a story.
Comically Missing the Point: Ungenio Gonzalez. He is certainly not the most genius person of the comic cast.
- Condorito has his moments, too.
Deliberately Orange And Black
Dem Bones: "Manolín el Esqueletín".
Face Fault: The comic's trademarked way to close a punchline. The victim of the punchline pratfalling with a loud ¡PLOP!
Fan Service: Most of the women seen in Condorito are young and beautiful, providing plenty of eye candy during stories set at pools, beaches and nudist camps, and the occasional Accidental Pervert joke. From the late 1980s on, these jokes escalated more and more until finally showing full and detailed nudity, which didn't please the older fans at all.
- Originally averted on Yayita's case, as René Rios had forbidden his team of artists to give her "sexy" attributes or flirting attitudes, after his death in 2000 Yayita immediately joined the fanservice and Gag Boobs bandwagon.
Feather Fingers: Matías, Condorito's pet parrot.
Franchise Zombie: After René Rios' death, the comic's quality plummeted really hard, and recently it got even worse. The franchise still survives... somehow.
Funny Background Event: A sleepwalker about to fall into an uncovered sewer, a crocodile slowly crawling inside someone's house, or the picture of a soccer player kicking his ball out of the frame and his posterior attempting to recover it are the most emblematic.
Generation Xerox: Played straight with Condorito's nephew and the sons of Condorito's friends. Brutally averted with Condorito's girlfriend, as Yayita is a slender, beautiful and polite girl, while her parents are fat, ugly and rude.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: It happens from time to time. Interestingly enough, this is not limited to the jokes involving female nudity or "sexy" situations. For example, British explorer Lord "Eggon", whose name is a crude, Spanglish translation of "Huevon" (Chilean slang for "asshole")
- One joke in particular featured Condorito (as a talented painter) inviting Yayita and her parents to the inauguration of a display of his paintings. One of the paintings was a full-bodied nude painting of Yayita (much for her mother and father's wrath) but Condorito calmed them down by explaining that Yayita didn't posed nude for him... because he painted her from his memory. Yayita silently blushed while Condorito was saying this.
I Ate What?: "Condorito, have you seen my mom's urine sample?"
Idiot Ball: Everyone carries it from time to time, except for Ungenio Gonzalez, who's permanently stuck with it and is blissfuly unaware of it.
Jerkass: Pepe Cortisona, full stop.
- Condorito often comes up as such, too.
Mr. Fanservice: Pepe Cortisona is the local source of this, especially during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Naked People Are Funny: Plenty of jokes involving people (male or female) losing their clothes, interrupted while taking a bath, stripping for a medical checkup or being observed while undressing, with the predictable and sometimes unpredictable results. And then we have the ones with girls posing nude for Condorito (who furiously tries to keep people away from his atelier) or the hilarious nudist camp jokes, where the point isn't showing eye candy but rather showing people trying to do normal chores or mundane activities while naked.
- Like for example, Condorito working as the nudist camp's guard and having to pin his badge on his own skin. Ouch.
Negative Continuity
Non-Human Sidekick: Condorito's pets: Washington the dog, Matías the talking parrot and Mandíbula the horse. Matías can talk and carry conversations with everyone else, while Mandíbula talks only with Condorito, or with other horses when he thinks nobody is listening.
- Washington is also a talking animal, but with a twist: Only the reader can understand what he says, while the comic's characters hear only barks.
One Head Taller: Inverted.
Parental Abandonment: The entire point behind Coné's backstory and why is he living with his Uncle Condorito. Also, not only are Yuyito's parents never mentioned, but she also has her own bedroom in the Vinagres' house.
Perpetual Poverty: Originally, Condorito's and Cone's lives were like this. Condorito was constantly shifting jobs and their house was a makeshift wooden shack built on an empty yard, while their (very few) belongings were either makeshift or picked from the trash. Despite this, they managed to live a quite happy life.
Progressively Prettier: Originally, Yayita was supposed to be a typical Girl Next Door type of character: pretty but not breathtakingly gorgeous, and dressed in a fashionable yet discreet way. Now she flirts with every man on sight, looks like a supermodel, wears tight, minuscule clothes that show part of her underwear and even her nipples through the fabric and tends to appear naked or partly naked on a semi-regular basis. Rather than pleasing the fans, this Out of Character change enraged them.
Punny Name: Comegato ("Cat Eater"), Huevoduro (literally, "hardboiled egg") and the towns of Pelotillehue, Cumpeo and Buenas Peras.
- Incidentally, Cumpeo is the name of an actual Chilean town.
- British explorers Sir Faifoclocti, Lord Esquiusmi and Lord Eggon.
Put on a Bus: A few characters were removed because of complaints from the readers. The most (in)famous ones were a full amputee called "Cortadito" ("Choppy") and a very amoral Jewish loan shark called "Don Jacoibo" (sometimes called "Don Salomón" instead).
- Other retired characters were Lucifer, Yayita's hellish cat; Don Guiussepe, a jolly Italian immigrant who owned a grocery store, and Chin-Chu-Lin, a stereotypical Chinese immigrant with buck teeth and a ponytail.
Recurring Extra: Most, if not all, of the artists working on the comic created their own set of nameless "filler" characters to be recycled at need, rather than keep creating throwaway characters for every story.
- Two of them, a couple of young and beautiful girls called "Maca" and "Potoca", are worth mention, as they were Yayita's unofficial replacement on jokes involving nudity or very revealing clothes, reaching Those Two Guys status during the time their creator worked in the comic book.
Romantic False Lead: Pepe Cortisona, especially during the first half of the 2000s.
Shout-Out: Plenty, including a very explicit one to the Chilean military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s when no one else dared to talk about it.
Suck Out the Poison: Hilariously subverted. After reading a book about how to cure poisonous snake bites, Condorito tells Pepe Cortisona (who was bit by a snake) that there's no cure. ¡PLOP!
Take That: Pepo had an incident where a guy called Washington Quezada offended his wife, so Pepo took revenge in two ways: The phrase "muera el roto Quezada" (roughly, "death to the rude Quezada") popped up anywhere in the background of the strip; and he named Condorito's dog Washington. The first was removed when Quezada passed away, but the later stuck.
Too Dumb to Live: Ungenio Gonzalez. He is the first man in the world to have drowned on a desert's mirage.
The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Yayita Vinagre. Don Cuasimodo and Doña Tremebunda are fat, ugly and rude, while their daughter is slender, beautiful and polite.
- This is used as an excuse to delay their marriage, as Condorito fears she could turn into a copy of her mother once she gets older.
Universal Adaptor Cast: Especially Condorito.
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Condorito, once again.