El Chavo del Ocho is a Mexican sitcom created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, known as Chespirito, and first broadcast in the early 1970s. In Brazil the series became famous as Chaves, where the dubbed voice made his exaggerated crying instantly recognisable to generations of viewers. The character is a poor orphan boy who lives in a barrel in a neighbourhood courtyard, and his pi pi pi cry appears whenever hunger, punishment or disappointment overwhelms him. Clips of that moment later circulated on social media as a shorthand for dramatic sadness.