- Chico and the Man
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Chico and the Man 
Chico and the Man title screenGenre Sitcom Created by James Komack Directed by Peter Baldwin
Jack Donohue
James KomackStarring Jack Albertson
Freddie Prinze
Della Reese
Scatman Crothers
Bonnie Boland
Isaac Ruiz
Ronny GrahamTheme music composer José Feliciano Opening theme "Chico and the Man" performed by José Feliciano Country of origin United States Language(s) English No. of seasons 4 No. of episodes 88 Production Executive producer(s) James Komack Producer(s) Hal Kanter
James Komack
Michael Morris
Ed ScharlachRunning time 22–24 minutes Distributor Warner Bros. Television Distribution Broadcast Original channel NBC Audio format Monaural Original run September 13, 1974 – July 21, 1978 Chico and the Man is an American sitcom which ran on NBC for four seasons, from September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown (the Man), the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano young man who comes in looking for a job. It was the first U.S. television series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood.[1]
Contents
Synopsis
Jack Albertson and Freddie Prinze, 1976.
A hard-drinking widower, Ed, a white man, stubbornly refuses to fit in with the changing East L.A. neighborhood and has alienated most of the people who live around him. Ed uses ethnic slurs and berates Chico, a latino, in an effort to get him to leave when Chico comes looking for a job. Yet Chico sees something in Ed, and sneaks back in at night to clean up the garage and move into an old van that Ed has parked inside. As Ed sees all the effort Chico has put in, he begins to warm to Chico. Over the course of the show, Ed grew to see Chico as family, although Ed will deny this on several occasions.
The chemistry between Jack Albertson's "Ed" and Freddie Prinze's "Chico" was a major factor in making the show a hit in its first two seasons. It started in the top ten and remained there for the first two seasons.
The show was created by James Komack who produced other successful TV shows such as The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Welcome Back, Kotter. Freddie Prinze was discovered by Komack after he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in December 1973. Komack thought he would be perfect for the role of Chico Rodriguez. As the show progressed, Chico's background was revealed as being Mexican on his father's side and Puerto Rican on his mother's side (with a nod to Prinze's Hungarian ancestry in the same line which stated these facts, as Chico remarks in his Hispanic accent, "...and my grandmother speaks a little Hungarian!").
In a nod to Freddie's background, Chico was revealed to have spent part of his childhood there following the death of his mother, being raised by his Aunt Connie (a character who appeared in two other episodes). Chico attempts to explain his situation to Ed by portraying it as the dilemma of his distant cousin in Hungary, torn between the farmer for whom he now works and whom he has grown to love, and another farmer who has offered him a better job. During this scene and this episode, the love between these disparate characters was made clear for the first time, which Carlos notes when he releases Chico from his promise. The bond between the characters, and the chemistry between Albertson and Prinze, were largely responsible for the show's popularity.
By the second season, Ed begins to see that he is a part of a bigger world, although he still complains about it. By this time he has found himself a girlfriend by the name of Flora (played by Carole Cook).
Freddie Prinze's death
After struggling with depression and drug use, Freddie Prinze shot himself on January 28, 1977.[2] He was taken off life support and died of his injuries the following day at the age of 22.[3]
The last episode to star Prinze, "Ed Talks to God", was taped several hours before he shot himself.
Post-Prinze episodes
After Prinze's death, the producers considered canceling the show, but opted instead for trying to replace the charismatic young comic. To write Chico out of the script, they had the other characters comment that the now absent Chico had gone to visit his father in Mexico.
An effort was made to find a new Chico, but the third season finished out with episodes based on the other characters in the show. Early in the fourth season, a replacement for Chico was introduced. Instead of an adult, the producers brought in twelve year-old Raul, played by Gabriel Melgar. His first appearance came when Ed and Louie go on a fishing trip to Tijuana and find the Mexican orphan hiding out in their trunk on their return. At the end of this episode, Ed is putting Raul to bed and accidentally calls him Chico. Raul corrects him and Ed remarks that, "You're all Chicos to me." Ed eventually adopts Raul, only to have Raul's overprotective aunt — played by the singer Charo — come from Spain and try to become a part of the "family" as well.
A two-part episode ran in the final season in which Raul discovers Chico's belongings in a closet. Ed catches Raul playing Chico's guitar and Ed smashes it on the van in anger. Raul believes Ed does not love him anymore and runs away to Mexico. Ed goes after him and finally explains to Raul that Chico died, but did not say how, putting a measure of closure on the fate of Chico in the series.
Cancellation
Toward the end of the show's final season, actress Julie Hill was added to the cast as Monica, Ed's attractive 18-year-old adopted niece. She had come to Los Angeles to get into show business, and lived in Chico's old van while awaiting her big break. Despite various changes to the show, Chico and the Man was not able to pull in the ratings it did in previous seasons. The show's ratings declined after Prinze's death, and the show was canceled at the end of the fourth season.[4]
Supporting cast
The show also had a veteran and talented supporting cast. Scatman Crothers portrayed Louie Wilson, Ed's friend and garbage man; Bonnie Boland played Mabel, the mail lady; Isaac Ruiz portrayed Mando, Chico's friend; and Ronny Graham played Rev. Bemis. Also, Della Reese played Della Rogers, Ed's neighbor and landlady.
Notable guest stars
Avery Schreiber (center) is a very unsuccessful fortune teller Ed and Chico try giving a hand to.Other notable guest stars included: Cesar Romero as Chico's absentee father;Tony Orlando as Chico's look-alike, the ex-fiance of a hostile woman he wants to date; José Feliciano, who wrote the theme song, as Chico's womanizing famous-singer cousin Pepe Fernando; Sammy Davis Jr. as himself; Herbie Faye appeared as Bernie in the 1975 episode "Louie's Retirement"; Shelley Winters (reuniting with Albertson, with whom she'd costarred in The Poseidon Adventure) as the owner of the local bakery, Shirley Schrift (her real name); Jim Backus as Ed's friend who uses him as a "beard"—pretending to be playing cards with him when cheating on his wife (Audra Lindley); silent-film actress Carmel Myers as a former star who has fallen on hard times, brings in her car for repairs, and stays in the garage while looking for work; George Takei as Ed's supposed long-lost son from his time in Japan during World War II; Cesare Danova as Aunt Connie's Spanish aristocrat boyfriend, the Count de Catalan, in the second episode in which she appeared; comedian Joey Bishop as an inept robber; Bernie Kopell as a plastic surgeon; Rose Marie as a CB radio enthusiast with whom a lonely Ed connects on New Year's Eve; Penny Marshall, as a waitress; football star Rosey Grier as himself, Della's date for a charity benefit dance; Larry Hovis as a customer in the second episode of the first season; and Jim Jordan (of radio's Fibber McGee and Molly) as a mechanic who used to be a big businessman, until he was victimized by his own company's retirement-age mandate).
Additionally, Jeannie Linero appeared in several episodes as one of Chico's more constant girlfriends, nurse Liz Garcia.
Syndication
Chico and the Man was only shown in syndication in few markets and only for a relatively short period. It was briefly re-aired on NBC's morning schedule from May 9 to December 2, 1977.[5]
TV Land also aired reruns during 2001 as did ION Television in 2007.[6] AmericanLife TV Network also aired this series previously.
The show appeared in Canada on Toronto's SunTV (CKXT-TV). Selected episodes of the show are also available online on sites including AOL's In2TV.
DVD release
Warner Bros. released a 6-episode Television Favorites compilation of the series on DVD in September 2005. However, no full seasons have been released, nor is it known if any seasons will be released, and the Television Favorites DVD is now out of print.
References
- ^ McNeil, Alex (1996). Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide To Programming From 1948 To the Present (4 ed.). Penguin Books. p. 161. ISBN 0-140-24916-8.
- ^ "Freddie Prinze: Too Much, Too Soon". Time Magazine. February 7, 1977. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914757-1,00.html. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
- ^ The Show Must Go On: How the Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected Television, Douglas Snauffer, Joel Thurm. Mcfarland Press. p. 73.
- ^ Snauffer, Douglas; Thurm, Joel (2008). The Show Must Go on: How the Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected Television Series. McFarland. p. 78. ISBN 0-786-43295-0.
- ^ Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F. (2007-10-17). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present (9 ed.). Ballantine Books. p. 250. ISBN 0-345-49773-2.
- ^ "ION Media Networks Announces Programming Agreement for Extensive Line-up of Theatricals and Television Series from Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution" (Press release). ION Media Networks. 2006-07-27. http://www.paxson.com/press/press.cfm?id=11. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
External links
Categories:- 1974 television series debuts
- 1978 television series endings
- 1970s American television series
- American television sitcoms
- NBC network shows
- English-language television series
- Television series by Warner Bros. Television
- Television shows set in Los Angeles, California
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